Rank	%-age	Health Item
3	82	Loss of concentration
2	84	Disrupted sleep
1	94	Anxiety, stress, excessive worry
6	64	Stress headaches
	48	Racing heart rate
	41	Diagnosed depression
	49	Shame or embarassment that changed lifestyle/routines
5	76	Obsession over details of bully's tactics
	28	Skin changes, e.g., acne
	25	Compulsive behaviors
4	80	Feeling edgy, irritable, easily startled, on guard (paranoia)
	46	Recurrent memories, nightmares and flashbacks
	49	Needing to avoid feelings, thoughts, traumatizing situations
	33	Panic attacks
	21	Thinking about being violent to others
	22	Suicidal thoughts
	18	Worsened or new asthma or allergies
	43	New body aches--muscles or joints
	32	TMJ (jaw tightening/teeth grinding)
	6	Fibromyalgia
	23	Migraines
	10	Hair loss
	40	Significant weight change (up or down)
	31	Chronic fatigue syndrome
	45	Exhaustion, taking to bed, unable to function
	25	Irritable bowel syndrome (colitis)
	8	Ulcers
	21	Chest pains
	5	Heart arythmia (taking beta blocker medication)
	2	Angina
	16	High blood pressure/hypertension
	.4	Heart attack(s)
	.3	Congestive heart failure
	5	First-ever use of substances to cope: tobacco, alcohol, drugs, food
	35	Increased use of substances to cope: tobacco, alcohol, drugs, food

Key Findings

41% were diagnosed with depression; 35% increased their use of substances to cope (tobacco, alcohol, drugs, food); over 80% reported problems that interfere with one's ability to be productive at work and fatigue-free (anxiety, sleep disruption, loss of concentration, stress headaches); 76% report an obsessiveness (this proves taxing to all those who know the Target and to lawyers and other outsiders from whom help is sought).

One hypothesized connection between bullying and workplace violence is that the psychologically abused person's frustration builds to a point of explosion. The Target would then be the perpetrator. In certain instances of highly publicized violence, this may have been true given who the victims of the violence were ‚ supervisors, HR people, EEO officers.

However, from our extensive coaching experience, Targets are non-confrontive, introverted and non-violent. A much different hypothesis about their violence potential emerges when one considers the downward emotional spiral that most experience from anxiety, through depression to prolonged PTSD. If violence is likely, it is most likely in a form turned inward ‚ suicide.

The nearly identical percentages of thinking about violence toward others and suicide (21% and 22%, respectively) confirms that suicide is as likely as directing hostility toward others.

Here's a striking comment from a female Target describing how hard bullying can get:

"I am very ashamed, but I honestly feel like I just should have slept with my first supervisor. He left the company and his best friend, my boss, always blamed me for having an affair with him and dumping him. He carried on a vendetta for his buddy's sake. If sleeping with him and/or marrying him would have made the retaliation by the bully, and the stalking by the now non-existent man, go away then that's what I should have done. It sounds like a cop-out, but that's how badly this has affected my life."

This is a relatively new phrase in the occupational health lexicon. In the psychiatric literature, the phenomenon of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) describes the experience of many Targets. Unfortunately, the cumulative and prolonged reality of bullying is not captured in the clinical definition of PTSD that is based primarily on a single, overwhelming event. That is why there are some who argue for a different kind of category of Trauma, prolonged stress disorder. Until the definitional conflict is resolved, PTSD does adequately illustrate the three manifestations or forms that Trauma that a person can adopt (one or more):

- hypervigilance (easily startled, on guard, feeling edgy, paranoia)
- thought intrusions (nightmares, flashbacks, recurrent memories)
- aversion (numbing of thoughts, feelings, need to avoid sites of prior trauma)

All of the symptom categories were included in the Health Item checklist. For each individual, a Trauma Cluster score was computed with a score range of 0 to 3.

The proportion of those exhibiting all three trauma symptoms: women -- 31% , men 21%. The bully's gender was not related to the generation of Work Trauma. The maximum trauma cluster score of 3 could be equally attributed to women bullies (51%) and men bullies (49%).

Average trauma scores for Women Targets were significantly higher than for men Targets (1.80 vs. 1.51, respectively) (t = 3.02, p = .003).

Naturally, previously traumatized Targets experienced more Work Trauma than those with no prior experience ( 2.07 vs. 1.63, t = 3.75, p=.0002). This finding supports the argument made in the book The Bully At Work that a small proportion of people becomes Targets because of prior experiences that rendered them vulnerable.

Another common sense theory related to Work Trauma is that support would minimize the negative impact. There was a small inverse correlation between Trauma scores and extent of positive support given by friends outside of work (r = -.087, p<.035). but there was no such relationship between trauma and support from spouses or partners.

The interesting reason for the absence of such a correlation surfaces when Targets with partners are segregated from those without partners (27.5% of the respondents in this survey). It turns out that female Targets with partners had a slightly average trauma score (1.81) than females without partners (1.77); whereas male Targets with partners had a much lower average trauma score (1.46) than males without partners (1.76). This means that partners can mitigate the Work Trauma experience. However, it is primarily the men's partners who provide the helpful support and not the women's partners.

© 2000, Gary Namie. Use without permission prohibited.