BULLYING ADVICE LINE FOUNDER WELCOMES STRESS BRAIN DAMAGE RESEARCH

For release Sunday 2 March 1997. For immediate release

Thousands of people who are currently suing their employers for psychiatric injury resulting from bullying at work will have their claims strengthened by new research.

Dr John O'Brien, consultant in old age psychiatry at Newcastle University writes in the Journal of the Royal College of Psychiatrists that prolonged stress can lead to loss of nerve cells in the hippocampus area of the brain.

The research adds weight to Tim Field's view of bullying as a life-threatening behaviour. As founder of the National Workplace Bullying Advice Line, he deals daily with callers near or in breakdown or contemplating suicide as a result of bullying at work by managers and peers.

With an IPD survey suggesting 1 in 8 people are bullied at work (28/11/96), and Staffordshire University Business School suggesting a figure of 1 in 2, the implications are staggering.

One of the first to be studying the implications will be Sun Alliance, whose defence of allegations of malicious treatment and bullying were rejected by an Employment Appeal Tribunal judgement recently. Lyn Witheridge, co-founder and executive director of the Andrea Adams Trust, a former personnel manager at the finance giant, has been battling for five years to expose bullying through her allegation of unfair redundancy.

A recent upsurge in settlements, tribunals, and bullying articles and headlines are alerting employers to the real purpose of bullying - to hide inadequacy. "Good managers manage, bad managers bully; in choosing to bully, a manager confesses their inadequacy. Bullying alienates, disenchants, and demotivates, resulting in dysfunction and inefficiency" says Tim Field, who is a speaker at the first Strategies for Avoiding Bullying at Work Litigation conference to be held on 11 March 1997 in London.

For further press information contact:

Tim Field
Founder, National Workplace Bullying Advice Line
Author, Bully in sight: how to predict, resist, challenge and combat workplace bullying
PO Box 67, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 9YS, UK

Other contacts

Lyn Witheridge, Andrea Adams Trust, Tel/fax 01273 704900

Charlotte Raynor, Staffordshire University Business School, Tel 01785 353775 Fax 01785 227471

Melissa Compton-Edwards, IPD, IPD House, Camp Road, London SW19 4UX, Tel 0181 263 3240

11 March 1997 Conference: IBC UK Conferences Ltd, Tel 0171 637 4383, Fax 0171 631 3214. Conference proceedings are available; contact IBC for details.