Mobbing is imperceptible for victims

• May 2, 2024

Despite being on everyone's lips lately, the mobbing or occupational psychoterror has a long history. In the mid-1970s several cases of labor harassers were studied, but it was in 1990 when the Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann defined it as the employment of a psychological violence Extreme, systematic and prolonged in time (with a minimum of six months) on another person in the workplace. For this, he used the English verb "to mob", which means to attack with violence.

In an interview for GetQoralHealth , the Regional Coordinator of the Women's Institute, María de Lourdes Montes de Oca, He explains what is mobbing:

Leymann accompanied this definition with the description of 45 harassing behaviors that generally appeared in the form of actions against reputation or dignity, and the exercise of a person's work, through the manipulation of communication or information and actions of great injustice.

The mobbing and its symptoms

One of the problems of mobbing is that their victims are not aware that they suffer from it, until it is too late to find a solution; However, there are a number of factors that are common in these cases, by which we can discover if we are being psychologically harassed in our workplace.

These factors, executed in a hidden and surreptitious way, isolate or isolate the victim from his companions, make him feel invisible and systematically criticize his work in a malicious way.

The victim of mobbing it can be attacked through organizational measures: its possibilities of speaking can be restricted, its location is changed and it is separated from its peers; they are forbidden to talk to the victim, their performance is judged offensively, their decisions are questioned, they are not assigned tasks. It is possible that the victim will be subjected to attacks on his private life through permanent criticism, telephone terror or denigrating mockery.

The physical violence, the attacks to the attitudes and beliefs of the victim, the verbal aggressions (cries, insults, threats) and the rumors finish completing the picture of harassment that the affected suffer.

How to find solutions?

1. Become aware of the damage. This is an important step because the harasser takes advantage of the victim's ignorance.
2. Collect evidence (documents, witnesses or medical certificates) that support the attack, because the mobbing part of small acts that, although individually do not mean anything, together generate an important aggression.
3. Report the situation to the company doctor, a labor inspector and the competent authorities (IMSS, ISSSTE, unions), so that the aggression is considered as an accident at work.

Consequences of mobbing

In summary, the five aspects that define a situation of this type are:

1. Limit the communication and social contact
2. To discredit the person before his companions
3. Discredit your professional ability and labor
4. Compromise health

The consequences not only affect the individual in their work environment, but also in their family and social environment. The work performance suffers and the interrelation with the partners worsens.

Occupational accidents can also increase, because the worker does not concentrate on work tasks, which can cause him to lose his job.

In Mexico, the only indicator that could be taken into account to recognize the phenomenon is the increase in the demands presented to the Conciliation and Arbitration Boards . From January to July 10, 2008, the local board registered 16 thousand 339 cases. In the same period, but this year, 18,661 had been counted.

Have you been a victim of mobbing?