Children are sometimes bullied in the classroom or the schoolyard. Often, this is dealt with on the spot and everyone moves on, none the worse for wear. However, in more serious cases, bullying can lead to fear, anxiety, and emotional distress. The child’s learning may suffer. They may be frightened to go back to school. Sometimes the child in question will develop physical symptoms such as stomach-aches or headaches leading to unproductive medical investigations.
In the most serious cases of persistent, long-term harassment or exclusion, children carry the wounds of school day bullying for the rest of their lives. Adults who have lived through this childhood trauma will sometimes report that it has coloured the relationships in adult life, making them fearful of intimacy, rejection or being ostracized.
In recent years, we have come to understand that bullying doesn’t necessarily stop when we reach adulthood. There is a growing awareness that bullying and harassment in the workplace can be detrimental to an individual’s emotional and even physical well-being. Whether in an office setting or on a construction site, there is no excuse for abuse. Harassment is now considered a violation of workplace health and safety standards and is not to be tolerated. Abusive treatment by employers or coworkers can trigger prolonged boats of debilitating anxiety and/or depression resulting in time off work, and necessitating professional intervention and even, in some cases, medication.
At Park Bench Counselling, we work with many individuals who have been subjected to unfair or inappropriate treatment in the workplace, providing them with support and guidance in real time. It is sometimes necessary to provide feedback and recommendations to employers or even to establish appropriate conditions for return to work after a period of absence. Ideally, we are helping employers and workers to understand the detrimental effect of teasing, harassment, unwanted attention, or abuse of any kind in the workplace setting, and to develop strategies to reduce or eliminate these unacceptable behaviours.
Generally speaking, with appropriate support, our clients are able to return to productive and meaningful engagement in their chosen career while feeling safe and secure in doing so.