Surviving workplace bullying, emotional abuse and harassment

Abstract

Though workplace bullying is an extreme social stressor that inflicts severe harm on targets, the latter deploy overt, covert, embodied, routine and formal resistance, either as single or joint strategies, to tackle the problem. This chapter, drawing on international literature rooted mainly in postpositivism, elaborates on the specific practices of counteraggression, revenge, retaliation, forgiveness and identity work as the resistance strategies that targets engage as they counter interpersonal bullying and depersonalized/organizational bullying at work. Whereas targets’ attempts may have limited or no effect in eliminating or resolving the abusive situations they face, these resistance practices can lead them to resilience and post-traumatic growth. Targets may attempt to get even or transcend their experiences while reconstructing their sense of self, in the process displaying agency, regaining equilibrium, re-establishing control, retrieving self-esteem and realizing well-being. The sense of justice so achieved leads targets to survive, and perhaps even thrive, despite the detriment and debilitation that emotional abuse at work entails.