Abusive Procedures - Emotional Abuse in the Workplace

"Physical violence can be testified to be outside evidence: eyewitness, police, and medical reports. With emotional abuse, there is no proof. It's a clean violence. Nobody sees anything. Violence and abuse originate in companies when envy of power and perversity collide. The overpoweringly destructive examples of emotional abuse in couples are less likely to be found but, unfortunately, the small abuse of daily living that does exist in businesses are largely trivialized or ignored.

In companies, universities, and institutions, harassing or abusive procedures are more stereotypical than in the private arena. 

They are no less destructive, although the victims are less exposed because they often leave (illness or resignation) in order to survive. 

WHAT IS ABUSE?
By emotional abuse in the workplace, we mean any abusive conduct---whether by words, looks, gestures, or in writing---that infringes upon the personality, the dignity, or the physical or psychical integrity of a person; also, behavior that endangers the employment of said person or degrades the climate of the workplace.

… Businesses, as well as the media, have tended to focus on sexual harassment, which is only one aspect of harassment in the larger sense. This psychological war in the workplace consists of two elements:

. Abuse of power: often quickly revealed and not accepted by the employees

. Emotional manipulation: more insidious and more destructive from the beginning

Emotional abuse and harassment starts harmless enough and spread insidiously. Initially, the people involved are reluctant to take offense and gloss over quarrels and bullying. Later, the attacks multiply and the victim is regularly besieged; he is made to feel inferior and submitted to hostile and degrading maneuvers over a long period. Obviously, one does not drop dead on the spot as a result of these aggressions, but one does lose a part of oneself. One gets home every night worn out, humiliated, and damaged. It’s difficult to recover.

WHO IS TARGETED
Contrary to what their aggressors have others believe, victims are not, at the outset, particularly weak or mentally unhealthy individuals. Quite the opposite: harassment is often set in motion when a victim refuses to give in to a boss’s authoritarian procedures. She is targeted because of her capacity to resist authority, even under pressure. …

…The victim is stigmatized once the process of harassment gets going. They say she’s impossible to work with, has a terrible disposition, or even that she’s crazy. They attribute to her character the consequences of the conflict, forgetting what she was before or what she is now in another context. Pushed to the limit, she often becomes what the employer wants her to become

ISOLATION
Once the decision has been made to psychologically destroy an employee, in order to forestall any possible defense, the person must be isolated by breaking up potential alliances. It’s much more difficult to rebel if you’re alone, especially if you’ve been made to believe that everyone is against you. 

Excerpt from the book 

Stalking the Soul by Marie-France Hirigoyen Chapter about Emotional Abuse in the Work Place

Read about the harassment and emotional abuse I went through at my job of nine and a half years in the links below. 

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2015/02/emotional-abuse-in-workplace.html?m=1

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-word-safety-with-regard-to-women.html?m=1

Also, read the article in the link below:

https://sylvieshene.blogspot.com/2022/05/toxic-workplaces-are-billion-dollar.html?m=1