An explaination of Mobbing

Mobbing, as a sociological term, means bullying of an individual by a group, in any context, such as a family, peer group, school, workplace, neighborhood, community, or online.

When it occurs as physical and emotional abuse in the workplace, such as "ganging up" by co-workers, subordinates or superiors, to force someone out of the workplace through rumor, innuendo, intimidation, humiliation, discrediting, and isolation, it is also referred to as malicious, nonsexual, non-racial/racial, general harassment.[1]

Psychological and health effects
Victims of workplace mobbing frequently suffer from: adjustment disorders, somatic symptoms, psychological trauma (e.g., trauma tremors or sudden onset selective mutism), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and major depression.[2]

In mobbing targets with PTSD, Leymann notes that the "mental effects were fully comparable with PTSD from war or prison camp experiences." Some patients may develop alcoholism or other substance abuse disorders. Family relationships routinely suffer and victims sometimes display acts of aggression towards strangers in the street. Workplace targets and witnesses may even develop brief psychotic episodes occupational psychosis generally with paranoid symptoms. Leymann estimated that 15% of suicides in Sweden could be directly attributed to workplace mobbing.[2]

Development of the concept
Konrad Lorenz, in his book entitled On Aggression (1966), first described mobbing among birds and animals, attributing it to instincts rooted in the Darwinian struggle to thrive (see animal mobbing behavior). In his view, most humans are subject to similar innate impulses but capable of bringing them under rational control.[3] Lorenz's explanation for his choice of the English word Mobbing was omitted in the English translation by Marjorie Kerr Wilson. According to Kenneth Westhues, Lorenz chose the word mobbing because he remembered in the collective attack by birds, the old German term hassen auf, which means "to hate after" or "to put a hate on" was applied and this emphasized "the depth of antipathy with which the attack is made" rather than the English word mobbing which emphasized the collective aspect of the attack.[4]

In the 1970s, the Swedish physician Peter-Paul Heinemann [sv; de; pl] applied Lorenz's conceptualization to the collective aggression of children against a targeted child.[3]

In the 1980s, professor and practicing psychologist Heinz Leymann applied the term to ganging up in the workplace.[3]

In 2011, anthropologist Janice Harper suggested that some anti-bullying approaches effectively constitute a form of mobbing by using the label "bully" to dehumanize, encouraging people to shun and avoid people labeled bullies, and in some cases sabotage their work or refuse to work with them, while almost always calling for their exclusion and termination from employment.[5

]Cause
Janice Harper followed her Huffington Post essay with a series of essays in both The Huffington Post[6] and in her column, Beyond Bullying: Peacebuilding at Work, School and Home in Psychology Today[7] that argued that mobbing is a form of group aggression innate to primates, and that those who engage in mobbing are not necessarily "evil" or "psychopathic", but responding in a predictable and patterned manner when someone in a position of leadership or influence communicates to the group that someone must go. For that reason, she indicated that anyone can and will engage in mobbing, and that once mobbing gets underway, just as in the animal kingdom it will almost always continue and intensify as long as the target remains with the group. She subsequently published a book on the topic[8] in which she explored animal behavior, organizational cultures and historical forms of group aggression, suggesting that mobbing is a form of group aggression on a continuum of structural violence with genocide as the most extreme form of mob aggression.

In the workplace
Main article: Workplace bullying
British anti-bullying researchers Andrea Adams and Tim Field have used the expression "workplace bullying" instead of what Leymann called "mobbing" in a workplace context. They identify mobbing as a particular type of bullying that is not as apparent as most, defining it as "an emotional assault. It begins when an individual becomes the target of disrespectful and harmful behavior. Through innuendo, rumors, and public discrediting, a hostile environment is created in which one individual gathers others to willingly, or unwillingly, participate in continuous malevolent actions to force a person out of the workplace."[9]

Adams and Field believe that mobbing is typically found in work environments that have poorly organised production or working methods and incapable or inattentive management and that mobbing victims are usually "exceptional individuals who demonstrated intelligence, competence, creativity, integrity, accomplishment and dedication".[9]

In contrast, Janice Harper[8] suggests that workplace mobbing is typically found in organizations where there is limited opportunity for employees to exit, whether through tenure systems or contracts that make it difficult to terminate an employee (such as universities or unionized organizations), and/or where finding comparable work in the same community makes it difficult for the employee to voluntarily leave (such as academic positions, religious institutions, or military). In these employments, efforts to eliminate the worker will intensify to push the worker out against his or her will through shunning, sabotage, false accusations and a series of investigations and poor reviews. Another form of employment where workers are mobbed are those that require the use of uniforms or other markers of group inclusion (law enforcement, fire fighting, military), organizations where a single gender has predominated, but the other gender is beginning to enter (STEM fields, fire fighting, military, nursing, teaching, and construction). Finally, she suggests that organizations where there are limited opportunities for advancement can be prone to mobbing because those who do advance are more likely to view challenges to their leadership as threats to their precarious positions. Harper further challenges the idea that workers are targeted for their exceptional competence. In some cases, she suggests, exceptional workers are mobbed because they are viewed as threatening to someone, but some workers who are mobbed are not necessarily good workers. Rather, Harper contends, some mobbing targets are outcasts or unproductive workers who cannot easily be terminated, and are thus treated inhumanely to push them out. While Harper emphasizes the cruelty and damaging consequences of mobbing, her organizational analysis focuses on the structural, rather than moral, nature of the organization. Moreover, she views the behavior itself, which she terms workplace aggression, as grounded in group psychology, rather than individual psychosis—even when the mobbing is initiated due to a leader's personal psychosis, the dynamics of group aggression will transform the leader's bullying into group mobbing—two vastly distinct psychological and social phenomena.

Shallcross, Ramsay and Barker consider workplace "mobbing" to be a generally unfamiliar term in some English speaking countries. Some researchers claim that mobbing is simply another name for bullying. Workplace mobbing can be considered as a "virus" or a "cancer" that spreads throughout the workplace via gossip, rumour and unfounded accusations. It is a deliberate attempt to force a person out of their workplace by humiliation, general harassment, emotional abuse and/or terror. Mobbing can be described as being "ganged up on." Mobbing is executed by a leader (who can be a manager, a co-worker, or a subordinate). The leader then rallies others into a systematic and frequent "mob-like" behaviour toward the victim.[10]

Mobbing as "downward bullying" by superiors is also known as "bossing", and "upward bullying" by colleagues as "staffing", in some European countries, for instance, in German-speaking regions.[11]

At school
See also: School bullying
Following on from the work of Heinemann, Elliot identifies mobbing as a common phenomenon in the form of group bullying at school. It involves "ganging up" on someone using tactics of rumor, innuendo, discrediting, isolating, intimidating, and above all, making it look as if the targeted person is responsible (victim-blaming).[12]

In academia
See also: Bullying in academia
Kenneth Westhues' study of mobbing in academia found that vulnerability was increased by personal differences such as being a foreigner or of a different sex; by working in fields such as music or literature which have recently come under the sway of less objective and more post-modern scholarship; financial pressure; or having an aggressive superior.[13] Other factors included envy, heresy and campus politics.[13]

one for the Deth Steff

Thank you for this information.

Ever get the feeling your perspective is being overlooked.

Hi Shane,

This is also a good link to read and it does talk about bullying and ptsd and what was beginning of describing complex ptsd.

Complex post traumatic stress disorder (complex ptsd, pdsd, shell shock, nervous shock, combat fatigue), symptoms and the difference between mental illness and psychiatric injury explained

Thank you for sharing!

Thanks for all your feedback !

ShaneG, your information is so helpful to me. Thank you for posting it.

I hope this is a sincere statement as that was the idea as I could see no one else trying to take a stand, as I feel we are abuse victims and survivors of demining and humiliating ritualistic treatment even aspects of group gaslighting and being sort of covertly harassed within the local environment seem to ring true to mine and others accounts of mental illness.

It sounds like besides having PTSD, I have a present situation that is going to cause more PTSD (creating situations where I relive the trauma, part of PTSD).

I have PTSd too from harassment from groups of people. It happened at work at a few places, at home, everywhere really. My therapists do not want to talk about it...they say it is some kind of psychosis. I hope everyone who goes through this can find some peace and happiness in their lives.

Thank you for saying this, as I think it's more common now due to the invention of social media and the pervading normalized shaming culture and mobbing.

What struck me was the very methodical similarity between emotional abuses perpetrated in real life by ****** people and our experiences of hearing voices, of which are supposed to be delusions.

I appreciate that you shared the wiki article. I was wondering, do you have an experience with mobbing you would share? I think it will give me better context.

O.K Excellent question,

Well, the first instance was way back in 2004, I was in my mid-twenties, a bit of a shun due to my personnel circumstances as a teenager as they began midway through high school and I could not find my place or like mind people. So
I used to visit on occasion, a group of people I knew through a friend, they lived in the same place where I used to, as a harelip'ed child as I had at the time sentimental feeling towards the place as I had positive memories of spending my early childhood there and the many faces I and my family knew on our old street.

So, I used to be at a loose end or going through the motions as an outsider, and used to be entertained by the motley crew of interesting people, and do whatever as most normal people did anyway.

Right so, we get to 2004, and whilst in my bedroom, during the evening I think I can hear people laughing at me from outside the window or behind the bedroom room wall, I assume it's the kids next door and didn't take any notice of it, then one week I am sleeping in bed and I hear music or one track being played non stop for 3 hours a night between the hours of 3-6 in the morning, I try to find out where it's coming from and stay up attempts to catch them and record the music on a microphone tape recorder, I tape what I think is the music and all I got on the tape was the wind blowing across the window.

It's start's to become more intrusive at night so, not fully understanding what's occurring here start to play games with this thing, by changing in my mind what the song is at random timing, in order to catch this thing out, or pick real cheesy **** from the eighties that no one in their right mind would play, just to **** this thing off!

I start to get a really unnerving feeling that I am being monitored or watched by covert operatives upon the street, so I started to take random routes off course from where I was intending to get to, as I think I have a plain-clothed surveillance team after us, one I named bulldog as he was about 5o and bald and looked like one, and his sidekick was younger though dark-haired and skinny looking, and I could tell by their accents within my head or left ear to be more precise, that I was them, also one time in my room I ask who are your and they replied with Special branch, 'you're going to be dead, hospital or prison' I within my mind try to front them out with bulldog references or whatever I had at the time.

Anyway, it began to follow me everywhere I went in short I ended up in A&E.

The second time was in Melbourne, I had what's termed as Rough shadowing by bikies and dodgy looking dudes. Bibbing their horn's and using directed conversation, it was what I termed, Straw Dogs.

Then again from 2015-19 after volunteering with Clay Impact and contacting TI Television.

I can write about this another time if you want as I don't really care, I have some evidence from this period in time.

Sorry, there are a few miss types within this account, just so you know.

I think mobbing is an instinctual way of trying to get rid of something that disturbs a group -- instincts do not take thinking into account, and so are likely to rule in early societies, before the discipline of trying to solve problems by thinking about them gets established. Instincts have been established through evolution, and so are very powerful. Thinking about frightening emotions is difficult -- frightening! As humans we always seem to have the conflict between instincts and thought. Thought takes time, while instinct can be instantaneous.

Yes. All the time.

Instincts are nature's indicators, not actual emotions derived from you, else they would speak words, though they say things using silence. Your reactions fill the gap.

Eliza Parr

I can’t prove my mobbing. I know why my family made me their scapegoat. My uncles brother tried to drown me and they told me never to tell anyone because I’m assuming that my aunt didn’t want to cause trouble in her new relationship with my uncle and that side of her family but they threw me under the bus to save the criminal and blamed the victim(me). Wrote about everything on Facebook and mental health sites to save my own *** but I’m still stuck living here until my low income apartment is ready in 6 more years. Long waitlist. I believe someone messes with all my electronics. I had my uncle fix a computer problem years ago and he took control over my computer and I could see his arrow changing the screen.. I know it’s possible and I know they don’t want me saying the truth because they look bad but I’ve tried speaking to them for years and they won’t. It never had to go this far. So I think it could be someone close to me..with a chip on their shoulder that only my misery can fill. My chip is personally getting really irritated.

I have PTSd too from harassment from groups of people. It happened at work at a few places, at home, everywhere really. My therapists do not want to talk about it..they say it is some kind of psychosis

Wrong, this is a blatant example of modern Zersetzung.

Thank you again for your personnel account of targeting, this is more known about now, as with child abuse before it, a hidden abuse behind closed doors or unspoken of within the service providers admittance.

Maybe in time, we will have our day of an acknowledgment as to what was occurring in reality to being subjected to EH, OS possible doxxing of personnel computers and iPhones as part of the violation upon our personnel liberties and privacy, as if we could have obtained all whats been done deceitfully against us by these so-called people! we would be very well off!

( I've had them harass me in the bathroom while I had to defecate, I hear them start directed conviction and mocking tones as I needed to poo, this has happened upon more than one occasion over the course of this decade. I ended up comparing it to molka)

It's a very busy street sometimes, buckets of water anyone!

Hi Shane,
I’m not sure what Molka is. I’ve heard you say it a few times.

Oh God yes, I hate it when the voices intrude on our private time, just the worse.

BBC Three - Stacey Dooley Investigates, Spycam Sex Criminals

Hidden camera crime in South Korea - Wikipedia



These links give a frank explanation.

Mobbing - that's a good word for it.

I used to belong to an online group of women and we were all friends. We threw parties and went out to dinner or shopping. It was great fun for 6 years.

Last year in April, one of them misunderstood something I did and confronted me in a text message. I wasn't willing to discuss it because I felt it was private and just a simple misunderstanding.

Then I started finding posts by others, who were not there saying I had done an awful thing to a young lady I was with. None of it was true and when I protested, I was attacked. As time went by, the woman who originally made an issue of it continued going to parties and venues telling people one ridiculous lie after another. A friend recorded it for me and I have to admit I laughed when I heard it because the things she was saying were so outrageous, I thought surely no one is buying this garbage. Wrong. I am now notorious and can never go back again. She has a large following that will pounce on me if I show myself.
I will admit, though, I do on occasion "poke" her - just to watch her go off. It's quite entertaining when she screams and yells at me to get help.