Psychological Abuse At The Workplace

Psychological Abuse In The Workplace by Robyn Mann

• Introduction
• How this can happen in the workplace
• Why this type of abuse is difficult to detect and document
• What is lost if this is allowed to continue
• What the aware Manager can do.
• About the abuser
• For the victims
• Cocktail of elements
• Defining psychological abuse in the workplace
• Tracking a path of debilitation
• Conclusion
• Biography of Robyn Mann

Introduction

When are actions, dismissed in the workplace as 'culturally acceptable behaviour', 'office politics', 'adjustment to culture', 'initiation to regime' or 'mentoring', really abuse of power in the workplace?

Bullying in schools and in the home is out in the open, recognised as a problem within our society. In the workplace, legislation ensures that physical abuse and sexual harassment are seen as unacceptable, and perpetrators of this type of abuse face legal action. Yet, bullying in the workplace continues unrecognised, or at least justified as inevitable, in the world of corporate affairs and workplace politics.

The level of abuse in the workplace is difficult to gauge. If the ‘horror stories’ that surface at any mention of this subject are an indication of how widespread this problem is, then there is an urgent need to address this issue, by documenting incidents, finding the source of the abuse and what and who perpetrates it, and developing a procedure to eliminate the abusive behaviour.

This paper discusses one form of abuse in the workplace: sustained psychological abuse. This form of abuse systematically undermines self-esteem and destroys self-confidence by undermining the rights of the victim. Its subtlety is insidious; those people perpetrating the abuse are masters at disguising their actions and the effect on the victim is difficult to detect or to isolate. Furthermore, those inflicting the damage do not see their behaviour as wrong or unjust because they can justify their actions as being for the good of the company or the workgroup.

In order to identify the process of abuse leading to complete compliance by the victim, one can use a model based on the severest form of abuse - that of physical and mental torture - developed by Biderman after studying the breakdown of American soldiers through emotional and physical torture during the Korean War. His work is reported by Amnesty International in their Report on Torture (1975).

Amnesty International suggests there is no precise and scientific definition of torture because ‘it describes human behaviour, and each human being is unique, with his own pain threshold, his own psychological make-up, [and] his own cultural conditioning’, (Biderman 1975, p.33) However, it is indicated that the following elements give the term ‘torture’ its meaning and should be incorporated in any comprehensive definition:

• involves at least two people
• inflicts acute pain and suffering
• breaks the victim’s will
• follows a systematic process
• has a rational purpose in the mind of the torturer.

The outcome of this process ensures that ‘[the] victim is trapped in a situation in which the stresses are manipulated so as constantly to frustrate this need to behave in a consistent, learned personal behaviour pattern and in accordance with an esteemed self-image - both of which are necessary for the protection of basic self-identity’. (Biderman 1975, p.52)

Elements of psychological abuse in the workplace correspond with elements of torture and the outcome of the torture process. The chart that follows parallels stages of psychological abuse in the workplace with those stages outlined in Biderman’s Chart of Coercion.

Reproduced with the express permission of Robyn Mann (2000).