Constantly criticized, nit-picked, undermined, sidelined, ignored, humiliated, passed over? Read this

How to deal with workplace bullying and how to tackle bullying at work

"All it needs for evil to prosper is for people of goodwill to do nothing" (Edmund Burke)

On this page
For individuals | For employers | Action plan for all
On another page
Dealing with child and school bullying
Dealing with adult bullying in the family

As an individual, what can I do to tackle bullying at work?

Bullying takes place behind closed doors with no witnesses and no evidence (in the traditional sense). When called to account, the bully uses charm and their Jekyll and Hyde nature to lie convincingly. Bullies are clever, but you can be clever too. Here's how to deal with bullying at work:

Step 1: regain control

• Recognise what is happening to you as bullying - it is the bully who has the problem, which he or she is projecting on to you.
• Criticisms and allegations, which are ostensibly about you or your performance and which sometimes contain a grain (but only a grain) of truth, are not about you or your performance. Do not be fooled by that grain of truth into believing the criticisms and allegations have any validity - they do not. The purpose of criticism is control; it has nothing to do with performance enhancement. Contact us for strategies on how to turn false allegations to your advantage.
• Criticisms and allegations are a projection of the bully's own weaknesses, shortcomings, failings and incompetence; every criticism or allegation is an admission by the bully of their misdeeds and wrongdoing, something they have said or done - or failed to do.
• You are not alone - surveys (by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, TUC, UMIST, Staffordshire University Business School etc) suggest this is happening to between 3 and 14 million employees in the UK, and from extensive feedback, pro rata in other countries. See case histories for the similarities between your case and those of others.
• You may be encouraged to feel shame, embarrassment, guilt and fear - this is a normal reaction, but misplaced and inappropriate. Guilt and fear are well-known as tactics of control. This is how all abusers, including child sex abusers, control and silence their victims.
• You may be wondering Why me? Click here for the answer.
• You cannot handle bullying by yourself - bullies use deception, amoral behaviour and abuse of power. Get help. There is no shame or failure in this - the bully is devious, deceptive, evasive and manipulative - and cheats. Often, the bully is behaving in the manner of a sociopath or other disordered personality. If you are dealing with a sociopath - I estimate one person in thirty is a serial bully with sociopathic traits - remember that naivety is the greatest enemy. You must see the disordered personality behind the mask and realise that the serial bully has a completely different mindset, often one that will never change - except to improve their skills of manipulation, deception and evasion of accountability.

Step 2: plan for action

• Find out everything you can about bullying. It's essential you do your homework before taking action; read and digest everything on this web site.
• Mark this web site as one of your favourites; it's updated regularly. Click here for the latest news on bullying.
• Overcome all the misperceptions about bullying (that "it's tough management", etc).
• Invest in a copy of my book Bully in sight: how to predict, resist, challenge and combat workplace bullying on which this web site is based. You can order a signed copy online.
• Read Andrea Adams' book Bullying at work: how to confront and overcome it (available from the Andrea Adams Trust)
• Read other books on the subject (see suggested reading)

Step 3: take action

• Keep a log (journal, diary) of everything - it's not each incident that counts, it's the number, regularity and especially the patterns that reveal bullying. With most forms of mystery, deception, etc it's the patterns that are important. The bully can explain individual incidents but cannot explain away the pattern. It's the pattern which reveals intent.
• Keep your diary in a safe place, not at work where others can and will steal it; keep it at home, and keep photocopies of important documents in a separate location (not at work); in several cases the bully has rifled the desk drawers of their target, stolen the diary and then used it as "evidence" of misconduct.
• Keep copies of all letters, memos, emails, etc. Get and keep everything in writing otherwise the bully will deny everything later.
• Carry a notepad and pen with you and record everything that the bully says and does. Also make a note of every interaction with personnel, management, and anyone else connected with the bullying. Expect to be accused of "misconduct" and "unprofessional behaviour" and a few other things when you do this.
• Record everything in writing; when criticisms or allegations are made, write and ask the bully to substantiate their criticisms and allegations in writing by providing substantive and quantifiable evidence. When the bully doesn't reply or fails to supply substantive and quantifiable evidence, write again pointing out you've asked for justification and the bully has chosen not to reply or has failed to justify their claim. On the third occasion point out, in writing, that making allegations and refusing to substantiate them in writing or failing to provide substantive and quantifiable evidence is a form of harassment. The bully's criticisms and allegations, which are usually founded on distortion, blame and fabrication, are an opinion or fabrication for the purpose of control. For some phrases to you complete the information request form.
• Denial is everywhere. The person who asserts their right not to be bullied is often blowing the whistle on another's incompetence (which the bullying is intended to hide). Expect the bully to deny everything, expect the bully's superiors to deny and disbelieve everything, and - as evidenced by thousands of cases reported to my Advice Line - expect personnel/human resources to disbelieve you and deny the bullying, for they will already have been deceived by the bully into joining in with the bully and getting rid of you. Click here for more on how and why Human Resources often don't support targets of bullying.
• The serial bully likes to play people off against each other so try to reunite yourself with your employer against the bully. Point out professionally to your HR people that the serial bully is encouraging the employer and employee to engage in adversarial interaction and destructive conflict in which there are no winners, only losers. The bully gains gratification from manipulating and watching others destroy each other. If the bully realises they've been rumbled they will move on leaving the employer to incur all the vicarious liability for the their behaviour. The bully has done this before and will do it again. Also point out to HR that the bullying they are seeing is the tip of an iceberg of wrongdoing by the bully which is likely to include financial misappropriation, financial incompetence, breaches of regulations and codes of practice, breaches of health and safety, etc.
• Serial bullies excel at deception and manipulation. Do not underestimate the bully's capacity to deceive. When dealing with personnel and senior management, focus exclusively on legal and financial matters. Point your personnel/HR people to Bully OnLine at Bully Online
• Contact us for more ideas on phraseology and strategy for dealing with a serial bully. Most readers of Bully in sight say that whilst everyone around them is denying the bullying, my book is the only resource which provides validation of the bullying experience, recognition of the injury to health, and re-empowerment to take purposeful action. Click here for readers' comments.
• Build yourself a support network. Bullies separate and isolate their targets, sometimes going as far as to cause division within the target's family. The bully is likely to be manipulating your work colleagues into distancing themselves from you, either by sweet-talking them with charm, or by playing on their vulnerabilities whilst raising doubts about their job security.
• Expect your work colleagues to melt away - to see why, click here.
• You may be advised to stand up for yourself (although the person saying this will have no idea how to); in fact the more you stand up for yourself the worse things are likely to get - click here to see why.
• See your doctor - bullying causes prolonged negative stress which results in psychiatric injury. Psychiatric injury has nothing to do with mental illness, despite what others (including some mental health professionals) may say or infer. To see the difference between mental illness and psychiatric injury, click here. If stress is diagnosed, make sure it includes the cause, eg stress caused by conditions in the workplace. If depression is diagnosed, make sure it is recorded as reactive depression. To see how prolonged negative stress causes injury to health, click here. Remember that stress is not the employee's inability to cope with excessive workload but a consequence of the employer's failure to provide a safe system of work as required by the UK Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
• Read up on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, especially PTSD caused by bullying. PTSD is the diagnosis of the collective symptoms of psychiatric injury caused by bullying. I republished David Kinchin's excellent book Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: the invisible injury in January 1998 and again in 2001 and 2004. David has revised and updated his book to include chapters on PTSD caused by physical/sexual abuse, terrorism, and bullying. Click here for book overview and here to order online.
• If you've suffered a psychiatric injury due to bullying, enter it in the accident book. That makes it official.
• If you plan to claim compensation for the psychiatric injury caused by bullying under the UK Industrial Injuries Scheme see the TUC guidance.
• If you've not done so, contact a bully helpline (see Helplines on Links page) and see if there's a bullying survivor support group in your area. Tim Field regrets that due to overwhelming demand he is no longer able to advise on individual cases.
• Join Tim Field's BullyOnline Internet action, support and discussion forum.
• Contact your union representative, copy this information to them, advise them of this web site. Not all trade unions support their members in cases of bullying and stress; to understand why, read this page.
• If you're a teacher in the UK (or elsewhere) see the page for teachers.
• If you're a nurse or healthcare worker, see the page for nurses.
• If you're working in the voluntary / charity / not-for-profit sector, see the voluntary sector page.
• If you're dealing with child bullying, see the pages on child and school bullying
• If you're dealing with domestic violence or bullying within the family see the page on domestic violence.
• You may be interested in the pages on homophobic bullying, bullying of minorities, racism, whistleblowing, bullying and stress, bullying and suicide.
• Obtain a copy of the MSF union's Bullying at Work: a guide for representatives and members (see Resources on Links page)
• Take the matter up with your line management - beware though, most bullies are the line manager and are supported by their line manager, etc. Often, the bullying is hierarchical and comes from the top.
• Obtain a copy of your employer's bullying and harassment policy. You might wish to do this discreetly (eg through a third party) if you're not yet ready to challenge the bully.
• Obtain as much written information about yourself from your workplace as you can lay your hands on. In the UK you can use the Data Protection Act to obtain details and copies of records held on them. There's a statutory fee of £10. If the company fails to respond within 40 days you can report them to the Data Protection Registrar. Be as specific as possible in your request including names of everyone who is likely to have written about you, dates, places, subjects. Ask for copies of documents and emails. If anything is missing, write and ask for it explicitly - the employer's action and this letter also becomes evidence in your legal case. These two pages tell you how to apply for copies of documentation about you: http://www.guardian.co.uk/bigbrother/privacy/yourlife/story/0,12384,785938,00.html and http://www.guardian.co.uk/bigbrother/privacy/statesurveillance/story/0,12382,811765,00.html
• Targets of bullying often have to educate those who are - or should be - supporting them. Copy this information to them, make them aware of Bully OnLine: the web site address (URL) is Bully Online
• Contact occupational health - bullying causes prolonged negative stress which results in injury to health and if it continues may culminate in psychiatric injury. You are unlikely to be the only person contact your OH department - and you may not be the first to name the bully.
• Contact your welfare & counselling officer - this could be your most important port of call. A traumatic experience such as being bullied may awaken and feed on past traumas (eg bereavement, particularly if you have not fully grieved), which bullies often exploit to play the...
• Mental health trap: the symptoms and effects of bullying are a psychiatric injury, not a mental illness. To see the differences, click here. If this trap is sprung, look the bully in the eye and with a witness present say "the state of my physical and mental wellbeing today is a direct consequence of your behaviour towards me over the period [dates]". Expect confusion, then denial followed by more aggression.
• If you believe you are about to be unfairly dismissed, you may be able to get a High Court injunction to stop the dismissal; click here.
• If you feel you're being obstructed in your pursuit of justice, have a read of this page.
• If you are forced into sickness absence or ill-health retirement or you have a stress breakdown through the bullying of a manager or colleague, record it in the accident book; this ensures that the bullying is officially logged. Inform the employer in writing that a person's bullying behaviour has resulted in injury to health causing you (and others) to be ill. If you are subsequently victimised for doing this, you may be able to claim victimization under the Employment Rights Act (there's no qualifying period and compensation is unlimited); click here for details.
• It is common practice for employers to order targets of bullying to see a psychiatrist of the employers' choosing and to have the employee diagnosed as being "mentally ill" in order to provide grounds for dismissal whilst thwarting a personal injury claim. See BMA: ethics advice and the articles Abuse of Medical Assessments to Dismiss Whistleblowers and Battered Plaintiffs - injuries from hired guns and compliant courts and Giving Workers the Treatment: if you raise a stink, you go to a shrink!
• Reassure and educate your partner/family that your symptoms are a psychiatric injury and will get better. Encourage those around you to read up on bullying and PTSD (see suggested reading, also David Kinchin' book Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: the invisible injury, 2005 edition).
• If the bullying has caused you to be off sick with stress, anxiety, depression etc (collectively your symptoms may amount to PTSD) and the employer is trying to coerce you back to work, write a letter to the employer stating that your absence "...is due to symptoms of psychiatric injury resulting from stress caused by the inappropriate behaviours of others and unduly stressful working conditions and that you look forward to returning to work at the earliest opportunity and ... to facilitate your return ask that the employer assures you, in writing, that they will fulfil their obligation of duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act to provide you with both a safe place of work and a safe system of work".
• Inform your employer that your psychiatric injury (and the ill health of others) is due to bullying by another member of staff and that this employee's behaviour is a danger to the health & safety of employees; highlight the high staff turnover in that individual's department and the corresponding amount of sickness absence / stress breakdowns / early and ill-health retirement / attempted or actual suicides / deaths in service. If you are subsequently victimised for reporting this health and safety hazard you may find the provisions of the Trade Union Reform and Employment Rights Act 1993 apply, under which tribunals may award substantial compensation; click here.
• Search the web for the name of your bully. As the name implies, serial bullies are repeat offenders and your bully may have featured in previous cases. For a list of search engines see action/search.htm and try two or three. Search for the full name in quotes, eg "John Doe" as well as variations and alternative spellings.
• Follow the grievance procedure, but beware that such procedures are biased in favour of the manager, as well as being inappropriate for dealing with bullying. Understand the profile of the serial bully and the four subtypes and emphasise the Jekyll and Hyde nature and compulsive lying. The bully will already have deceived personnel and his/her superiors. If you go to employment tribunal later, the tribunal will look to see if you've followed all the options open to you (regardless of whether or not they work). In the UK, the Employment Act 2002 (in force from April 2004) makes it mandatory for employees and employers to follow grievance and disciplinary & dismissal procedures, otherwise any dismissal is automatically unfair and compensation will be affected.
• Check your rights at work - if you're in the UK read Your rights at work: the TUC Guide
• If the bully prevents you from being accompanied to grievance and disciplinary meetings, check your rights under UK law.
• If the bully is making unwarranted criticisms in public or on your record, you may feel it appropriate to ask your solicitor to write a letter to the bully pointing out that he or she is subject to the laws of slander, libel and defamation of character.
• If your employer refuses to get involved, or backs the bully in his/her attempt to get rid of you, you might consider asking your solicitor to write to someone in authority (with legal responsibility) outlining the way your manager has treated you, stating that your rights in law will be vigorously defended against the unacceptable behaviour of one of their employees whose actions will be monitored as a consequence of his or her declared intentions. This turns the spotlight on the bully rather than on the target. If your employer is unwilling to address the bullying - perhaps because the bullying is hiding incompetence which is endemic in the organisation - expect fireworks.
• Consider leaving - regard it as a positive decision in the face of overwhelming odds which are not of your choosing, not of you making, and over which you have no control. In this type of situation, walking away is the best thing to do, for in doing so, you regain control. Choose to move on and find an employer who truly values you and your skills and where your career can flourish. Refuse to allow your health to be destroyed and your career to be wrecked by a loser. Serial bullies are obsessive and compulsive in their behaviour; once they start on their target they won't let go until that person is destroyed. For most people, the top priority is to be financially stable. What's more important - your job, or your health, career, life and family?
• If you are forced into leaving, make it clear to your employer in writing that this is due to bullying. Get professional advice before signing anything.
• If there's any problem with a reference, see case law for Spring v. Corinium and Guardian Assurance and Coote v. Granada Hospitality.
• Do your utmost to obtain an agreed reference. Without one you may not be able to get another job, especially in the professions. Most employers require a reference from your previous employer and the bully never misses the opportunity to sabotage your career. If you believe the bully is giving prospective employers a bad or misleading reference by phone, contact us for some suggestions on how to deal with this.
• If all else fails, consider taking your employer to an Employment Tribunal; for a free booklet on the Tribunal procedure call the UK ET Helpline on telephone 08457 959775. Read Employment Tribunal Claims, A Practical Guide by Brown, Mortlock, Rankin and Phillips, published by and obtainable from The Stationery Office. £30 but you can order it through your library. Tells you how to put together a bundle, what documents, what order, who/when etc. See also the Legal page. If you can't afford a solicitor see the Law Centres web pages. If your union is not giving you legal support, check your household insurance policies to see if you are covered for legal expenses. If your union fails to support you, the union may be in breach of contract - if you're in the UK and this applies to you see http://www.certoffice.org/pages/index.cfm
• If you're in Canada and considering legal action, read Conducting a wrongful dismissal action by David J Corry and James M Petrie (Carswell Thomson Professional Publishing, 1996).
• If you've no alternative but to go to Employment Tribunal, previous cases ("case law") are listed in Industrial Relations Law Reports (IRLR), a copy of which is available in some specialist (eg university or college or business) libraries which are oftne open to the public.
• Seek out self-help groups for mutual support - or consider starting one - a positive and cathartic exercise. Existing support groups are listed on the Links page. For ideas and guidance on starting a bullying survivor support group, click here.
• Consider suing for personal injury - solicitors may now do this on a no win no fee basis. Bear in mind that this might take 3 years (County Court - awards up to £50,000) or 5 years (High Court - awards over £50,000) or more. For many though, especially those suffering trauma, the legal system can be more abusive than the original bullying. Defence lawyers will often string out the proceedings as long as possible in the hope you'll get fed up and go away, or run out of money, or become so ill you'll have to withdraw, or even die. What a nice world we live in. They're also likely to go through your past and dig up any trauma (including bereavement) and claim that is the origin of your present ill health. This process is similar to victims of rape being portrayed as "loose women" and therefore responsible for the rape. Ironically, anyone suffering PTSD is likely to be frustrated from pursuing a case in proportion to how deserving their case is - to see why click here. If your PTSD is as a direct result of harassment or discrimination on the grounds of gender, race or disability you will have to pursue personal injury at tribunal (ref the case of Sheriff v. Klyne Tugs (Lowestoft) Ltd - see legal page).
• Consider going public - awareness is rising, the media are interested and sympathetic; ask for anonymity at the outset if required. For the latest media opportunities, click here.
• If you do take on the bully, beware that bullies can be very vindictive. Often, you are dealing with a socialised psychopath (sociopath) or disordered personality who does not share the same moral values as you. Bullies think they are above the law - but insist that you stay rigidly within the law.
• The Number One mistake people make is to not recognise the serial bully as a sociopath or disordered personality. Naivety is the greatest enemy - most people can't or won't believe that the person they're tackling is a serial bully, and consequently expect the bully to recognise their wrongdoing and make amends. Serial bullies cannot and will not - but they will ruthlessly exploit other people's naivety to ensure their own survival. Never underestimate the serial bully's deviousness, ruthlessness, cunning, and ability to deceive - and their vindictiveness.
  
  Phrases you might find useful:
  
  "By the way s/he chooses to behave, s/he prevents myself and others from fulfilling our duties."
  
  "By the way s/he chooses to behave, s/he brings her/himself, the staff, the department and the employer into disrepute."
  
  "The purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy; bullying is a breach of the implied term of mutual trust and confidence."
  
  "Your criticisms and allegations lack substantive and quantifiable evidence."

If you are fighting a case of bullying against a serial bully and the employer chooses to not respond positively, remember the Achilles heels:

• Bullying is an obsessive compulsive behaviour and therefore repetitive; it's often a lifetime behaviour. It is most likely the serial bully has a history of this behaviour which a little investigation will reveal.
• The serial bully displays an arrogance and fully expects to get away with their behaviour.
• Serial bullying is highly predictable; this site describes the profile of the serial bully (click here to see).
• The serial bully is a compulsive liar with a Jekyll and Hyde nature who excels at deception - therefore their word cannot be trusted. Highlight this at every opportunity.
• When dealing with the serial bully, concentrate on the patterns of incidents rather than the incidents themselves (which are often trivial when taken out of context). The bully can always explain away individual incidents, but s/he cannot explain the pattern. When discussing any single incident, refer repeatedly to the pattern of which this incident is part.
• Bullies are adept at creating conflict between those who would otherwise pool negative information; make it clear to your employer that the bully is working for his or her own self-interest and gains gratification from encouraging the employer and employee to engage in adversarial interaction and destructive conflict. Remind your employer that the bully is deliberately and wilfully causing the employer to incur vicarious liability for their behaviour.
• The purpose of bullying is to hide inadequacy, and people who bully to hide their inadequacy are often incompetent; the worse the bullying, the greater and more widespread the incompetence. Abusive employers will often pay large out-of-court settlements to keep that incompetence secret.
• If all else fails, and legal action proves impossible, remember Klingon wisdom: bortaS bIr jablu'DI'reH QaQqu' nay' which translates as Revenge is a dish best served cold: give media interviews, write articles, contribute to research, or write a book ... use those qualities of competence, popularity, integrity and courage of which the bully was jealous and envious.
• One of the best ways to raise awareness is to create your own web site. Bully OnLine started like this, as did Bullying Online. Click here for ideas and guidance on how to design and build your own web site. Bully OnLine started life as six pages early in 1997, and by its official launch in January 1998 had grown to over a dozen pages. Today there are over 400 pages and it's still growing.

As an employer, what can I do about it?

Information for employers on dealing with bullying - from creating an anti-bullying ethos within the organisation to developing an anti-bullying policy - has been moved to a separate page. Bullies are bad for business and the bully causes you, the employer, to incur vicarious liability for their behaviour.

Training videos which help employers recognise and deal with bullying are listed on the videos page.

Action plan for everybody

• Tell everyone about Bully OnLine at Bully Online Much of the insight into workplace bullying also applies to bullying elsewhere, eg in discrimination, harassment, racism, domestic violence, child and school bullying, elderly abuse, etc. The profile of the serial bully is common to most abusers, including sexual and racial harassers, violent partners, paedophiles, etc. The page on abuse looks at why people become serial bullies and explains why targets of abuse often can't report their abuse.
• Tell your counsellor, therapist, etc about Bully OnLine at Bully Online and the information on Complex PTSD which includes the difference between mental illness and psychiatric injury.
• List and quote Bully OnLine on web sites, links pages, forums, bulletin boards, newsgroups, etc.
• Half the population experience bullying, but most don't recognise it until you give it a name and describe the patterns. This means half the people you know will benefit from this web site, as will their partners, siblings, family, friends and work colleagues - so tell them about Bully OnLine at Bully Online
• Write letters to newspapers, journals, magazines etc alerting them to Bully OnLine at Bully Online and how useful it's been.
• If you've benefited from my book Bully in sight, recommend to your local bookshop and library that they stock copies. If you've bought it from a bookshop, suggest that they have more copies available. See readers' feedback.
• Support The Field Foundation, an organisation being set up by Tim Field to further his work.
• Support other organisations and groups which tackle bullying
• Write to your MP (click here for sample letter), highlight the enormous cost to taxpayers and industry; see the facts, figures and costs page.
• The UK Government (and most governments) do not appreciate the cost and scale of bullying. Lobby your MP and get him/her to support Valerie Davey's Early Day Motion on the Dignity at Work Bill. Click here if you don't know who your MP is. Keep in touch with the Amicus Campaign Against Bullying At Work.
  Write to your MP but keep your letter brief (two pages maximum, preferably one page), professional and polite. Click here for a sample letter. Type it rather than hand write. Avoid detail and the "he-said-she-said.." which is unconvincing to those not familiar with the issue. Welcome the recent reduction of qualifying period from 2 years to 1 year and the proposed increase in maximum compensation for unfair/constructive dismissal from £12K to £50K. Focus on the cost to industry and taxpayers (see facts, figures and costs page), the purpose of bullying (to hide inadequacy), the waste and inefficiency, the drain on the welfare state (sickness absence, ill-health benefit), the loss of income tax to the taxman (unemployment, ill-health retirement etc), the inadequacy of legislation (and that if you're white, British, able-bodied and the same gender as the bully you're discriminated against by not qualifying under discrimination legislation), and the profile of the serial bully. Encourage others to write. To forestall the standard reply, point out the inappropriateness of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) and the Protection from Harassment Act (1996) for dealing with a manager who is interested only in hiding his or her inadequacy by constantly criticising you and abusing the disciplinary procedures to control and subjugate employees.
  Recommend also that:
  a) the one-year qualifying period before you can claim unfair or constructive dismissal should be abolished; tribunals will take length of service into account;
  b) compensation should be unlimited as for sex and race discrimination;
  c) the 12-week application limit for tribunals should be relaxed in cases where the applicant is suffering Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder;
  d) the Dignity at Work Bill should become the Dignity at Work Act as quickly as possible - 103 MPs have signed Valerie Davey's Early Day Motion
• For a sample letter to lobby your MP, click here.
• When you are tackling a social issue such as bullying and aiming to change attitudes, it is often necessary to be responsibly subversive. The ultimate in subversion is education.

Responsibility

Once you become alerted to abuse taking place, if you then choose not to report it, you are accepting a share of the responsibility for all subsequent abuse committed by that person.

Recommended reading on bullying, harassment and psychological violence

Over 10.000 copies sold in more than 30 countries
Bully in sight
How to predict, resist, challenge and combat workplace bullying
Overcoming the silence and denial by which abuse thrives
by
Tim Field
Foreword by Diana Lamplugh OBE
ISBN 0952912104
Published by Success Unlimited 1996
Paperback, 16 chapters, 384 pages, resources, index
Click book cover (left) for more details

"Will be eagerly read by those waiting for an update [to Andrea Adams' book]"
Times Educational Supplement 7/3/97
"Powerful, compassionate, practical" Nursing Times, 1/1/97
"Bully in sight is a Godsend. I think you're the only person in the world who really understands what happens when you're bullied at work. As a result of your book personnel are starting to take me seriously for the first time, management are backtracking (they were threatening to dismiss me) and the bully (a power freak who's destroyed several predecessors) is looking stressed for the first time in her life. I can't thank you enough." (UK employee)

Readers' feedback and comments.

Written with the experience and insight only a fellow experiencer can impart, Bully in sight:

Confirms and validates your experience of bullying when those around you are trying to deny it
Enables you to regain your sanity, stability and objectivity
Offers practical advice throughout, is rich in content and free of psychobabble
Invigorates you with insight and information
Teaches you that you are not alone in your experience of being bullied
Identifies and describes the injury to health caused by bullying and harassment
Enables you to overcome the feelings of shame, embarrassment, fear and guilt that bullies use to control you
Re-empowers you so you are able to regain control of yourself, your situation, and your life
Provides the means for you to break the bully's hold over you
Explains to partner, family and others the hell you are experiencing
Assists you with the legal process including case law for constructive dismissal
Helps you restart your existing career or start on the path to a new career
Is packed with insight, ideas and direction, plus sources of help and suggested reading

Bully in sight identifies bullying as the common denominator of harassment, discrimination, prejudice, abuse, conflict and violence, and describes the principal perpetrator of psychological violence, the serial bully.

Order a signed copy:
 Online with secure credit card ordering
 By fax or letter with printed order form

Recommended reading on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and recovery from trauma

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
The invisible injury, 2004 edition
by
David Kinchin

ISBN 0952912147
Published by Success Unlimited 2004
Paperback, 16 chapters, 224 pages, resources, index
Click book cover (left) for more details

"This is the book I so badly wanted when I was traumatised."
David Kinchin, Author

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: the invisible injury provides clear, practical advice for recovery from major traumatic experiences, including violence, harassment, assault, rape, accident, fire, explosion, disaster, or witnessing such events.

PTSD is a natural emotional reaction to a deeply shocking and disturbing experience. The symptoms are surprisingly common and include sleep problems, nightmares and waking early, impaired memory, inability to concentrate, hypervigilance (feels like but is not paranoia), jumpiness and exaggerated startle response, fragility and hypersensitivity, irritability, violent outbursts, joint and muscle pains, panic attacks, fatigue, low self-esteem, exaggerated feelings of guilt, feelings of nervousness and anxiety.

David Kinchin's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: the invisible injury is a revised and updated edition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: a practical guide to recovery published by Thorsons in 1994.

Order a copy:
 Online with secure credit card ordering
 By fax or letter with printed order form

Where now?
Lots of information and ideas for tackling bullying including the legal aspects
Action Home Page | Action to tackle bullying
Guidance for employers on policy development
Bullying and the trade unions | Bullying and the law
Case law on bullying, harassment, stress and personal injury
Court judgements in cases relevant to bullying
Long v. Mercury Mobile Communications Services
Hatton Barber et al: 16 practical propositions for a personal injury case
Right to be accompanied | The need for risk assessment
High Court injunction to prevent unfair dismissal | Obstruction to justice
Bullyonline action forum for validation and re-empowerment
UK Dignity at Work Bill | Swedish law on Victimization at Work
Bullying and human rights | Waters v. London Metropolitan Police
Barber v. Somerset County Council
Zimmerman: retaliation in the US courts
Bullying history: books, articles and publications since 1992
How to lobby your MP: example letter and summary of inadequacy of UK law
Amicus Campaign Against Bullying At Work (CABAW)
Tim Field's written submission to the Dignity at Work Bill debate
Getting another job after bullying | How to recover from bullying
Setting up a bullying survivor support group | Sample support group constitution
Using the search engines to find other sites on bullying etc
Dealing with viruses, worms, spam etc
Designing and building your own web site
Advice and guidance for new Internet users
Tim Field's book Bully in sight validates the experience of bullying and
defines the injury to health caused by bullying and harassment