Taras Ivashchenko, psychotherapist and consultant at mobbingu.net interviewed three of his colleagues from Riga who are involved in emergency psychological care, which is called “crisis intervention”, especially for the website*.
I'll assume that our tradition in the former Soviet Union does not imply a “complaint” that someone is offending you. My childhood books often wrote about how children got out of all dangerous situations on their own. Adults themselves were often afraid to complain about colleagues/bosses because of possible consequences, and there was simply no full-fledged institution of psychoemotional assistance back then. I still remember a phrase from an old book I found while studying as a residency student that claimed that psychotherapy was a manifestation of “the false doctrine of decaying capitalism”. These are just some of the reasons why a culture of “asking for help” in cases of violence has not developed.
Although it is now believed that seeking help is a sign of mental health, people rarely go to “crisis centers” for help because of the situation of mobbing/bullying. Mobbing, as a rule, is detected during a conversation and is only a passing reason for seeking emergency psychological help. Many people are embarrassed to contact or do not consider this a problem that requires specialist intervention. A person who finds himself in a mobbing situation is often afraid of being blamed for creating this situation. Although for many people one call to a crisis center is enough to understand what they are facing and draw some useful conclusions, unfortunately, we do not know what the fate of these people will be like in the future.
How hard is it to seek help? Can mobbing drive a person to commit suicide? Are people ashamed of being “victims”? How does mobbing relate to family? When should I ask for help? How are people in Latvia aware of the meaning of the terms “mobbing/bullying”? I asked my colleagues these questions. The choice fell on Santa Ozolina, a representative of a crisis center with experience in crisis intervention, a psychologist with experience in crisis intervention, Natalia Morozova, a clinical psychologist with experience in crisis intervention, and Oleg Plesunov, a psychotherapist with experience in crisis intervention. I would like to express my deep gratitude to them for finding time to talk.
Psychotherapist Taras Ivashchenko
Clinical psychologist Natalya Morozova (Riga).
Taras Ivashchenko: Please tell us about yourself: what is your specialization? What do you do in your professional field?
Natalya Morozova: I'm a clinical psychologist. At the moment, I have a private practice, see adults and children, and also work in a hospital, doing psychodiagnostics for a psychiatrist to clarify the diagnosis.
T.I.: As I understand it, did you have quite a lot of experience as a crisis psychologist?
N.M.: Yes, I worked as a crisis psychologist at a crisis center.
T.I.: How often did people come up with problems related to mobbing/bullying? And who applied more often — adults or children?
N.M.:More often than not, adults say that there are some problems at work related to emotional abuse. When there is violence in the family, they usually use different words to describe it.
T.I.: Do people even use the terms “mobbing/bullying”, or are they just describing the situation?
N.M.: Most often they just describe the situation. But there are people who understand without any terms what situation they are in. For example, teachers or representatives of other professions are very clear: this is the situation, I am in it now, what should I do?
T.I.: Are there more calls from citizens or are they calling from districts as well? And are there any specific professions whose representatives are more likely to seek help?
N.M.: In fact, teachers are asking more and, not surprisingly, there are doctors or hospital staff - nurses and nurses. There was one good example. I haven't worked with this teacher for a long time, but she was emotionally abused by both her colleagues and students. And since she was already an elderly woman, she accordingly had her own well-established work style, but she didn't know how to make presentations and didn't know how to make presentations. And this woman began to feel dissatisfied with her colleagues and children. Gradually, this problem began to grow. But that was certainly one of the reasons. There, too, relations within the team played a big role.
T.I.: Are people ashamed of being “victims”? Is it hard for them to seek help?
N.M.: It seems to me that most people do not seek help at all precisely because they are ashamed, and they believe that it is their own fault for provoking this situation. This is especially noticeable when domestic violence occurs. As a rule, the victim rarely comes for help or, if she does, only after some time and for another reason. And when she starts trusting a specialist, it suddenly turns out that in fact, the main problem is emotional abuse. If there are any problems at work, the person talks about them quite directly. However, in case of mobbing at the workplace, people are afraid that this information will become known. And they ask me: “Are you sure no one will know about this?”
T.I.:Do you think one consultation or one phone call is enough in this case?
N.M.: In this case, we need to understand whether the person came for psychological counseling, psychotherapy, or ordered only one consultation... If a person knows that a specialist offers this kind of crisis assistance, then yes, in principle, one conversation helps, because the focus is on the current situation and the emotions associated with it. That's why you're working with exactly what you're working with right now. But it is still desirable in such cases to continue working - psychological counseling or psychotherapy. But it happens that one meeting is enough for a person to sort everything out. Therefore, when a person calls, it is necessary to specify very clearly what kind of help they want to receive.
T.I.: Do people often come to therapy after a consultation?
N.M.: Of all the people who called the crisis phone, not a single one came for counseling and therapy. Perhaps this is due to the fact that most of those people are from small towns and they don't have the opportunity to come. Also, I think this is due to the trend I'm seeing: people use this type of help in cases where a “third party” is involved and they don't know how to help these “third parties”.
T.I.: Have you ever faced a case of incitement to suicide in practice? Does this happen? Many people think this is impossible.
N.M.: Driving a person to suicide? There has been no such case in my practice. But the foreign press and colleagues' studies mention such cases, as mobbing is one of the most common types of violence. I don't know what we have in Latvia; I just haven't seen the research results. This is a very serious problem in America. There are known cases when an adult, but more often a teenager, is driven to commit suicide. And it is social networks that play a big role in this situation. Emotional abuse often thrives there: they humiliate them, spread nasty information, threaten and even encourage suicide. And teenagers who are very sensitive also react very emotionally to this. It is important for an adult to see this in time and intervene. But, as a rule, unfortunately, teenagers do not want to talk about their problems with adults. Therefore, I am sure that it is possible to drive a young man to commit suicide.
T.I.: So we can conclude that if a person faces such a problem, does it make sense to seek help, and is there nothing to be ashamed of?
N.M.: That's right. A person who needs all kinds of help should not be ashamed to ask for it. And it doesn't matter whether it's psychological help or some other kind of help. Because, first of all, psychological assistance is emotional support. And anyone, whatever they are, no matter what situation they find themselves in, deserves to have someone by their side right now. And I think this is the most important thing.
T.I.:I might add that seeking help when you need it is a sign of mental health.
N.M.: Yes, it is.
Psychotherapist Oleg Plesunov (Riga).
Taras Ivashchenko: Could you tell us what you specialize in and what do you do?
Oleg Plesunov: I am a psychotherapist specializing in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychosomatic disorders.
T.I.: Do people come to you who find themselves in a situation of persecution and bullying — mobbing/bullying? Do you think people who come to you know mobbing/bullying?
FR. P. : Basically, I think a lot of people understand this as a symptom or complaint. In my practice, such cases are extremely rare. Only a few patients mentioned that they had “mobbing” at work and none of them had this as a primary complaint. In my practice, there have been maybe 70-80 patients who mentioned mobbing over the entire period. But no one ever complained about mobbing or anything like that in the first place.
T.I.: So they don't come directly with such complaints?
O.P. : No, no.
T.I.: Of those you saw and met, were there people who were victims of mobbing/bullying by their superiors, the team you worked for, or by their family?
O.P.: There were several patients who suffered from this along with some other problems, but the most striking case was when a woman worked under the supervision of her new lover, who abused her at work. And there was one man under whose supervision his mother worked, and she tried to control him somehow. You could call it mobbing because she wasn't his boss. In principle, I have had only a few such cases.
T.I.: Tell me, please, are people embarrassed to find themselves in such situations? Do they think it's embarrassing to talk about it or is it not even customary?
Oleg Plesunov: Are they shy? Those who spoke, perhaps to some extent. I wouldn't say it's too much. I rather noticed that they are shy if there are any boss-subordinate relationships at work between relatives and family members. People were somewhat embarrassed about this. Well, no.
T.I.: Do you think one consultation is enough in similar situations? Could it be enough?
FR. P.: No. Not at all, I think. In the tradition of psychoanalytic psychotherapy, a person at work feels enslaved and controlled, which means that common problems are transferred from the family.
T.I.: So this is partly a family problem? Can we encourage the whole family, or most of them, to seek help?
FR. P.: No. I don't think so. If a person is an adult and an adult, has an independent income and a place of residence, this is absolutely unnecessary. It is also possible to work effectively individually.
T.I.: As a specialist, do you think it is possible to commit suicide as a result of mobbing/bullying? The survey found that most people consider this to be a myth.
FR. P.: If a person has already suffered from some personality disorders before and is prone to severe depression, then, of course, this is possible. If you recall the film about drummer Whiplash, in which an orchestra conductor drove his players to suicide, I think this is quite likely in real life as well. But again, on condition that a person had already been internally unstable, prone to destructiveness and extreme submission.
T.I.: Is it okay to seek help in these situations or do you mostly need to do it yourself?
FR. P.: This is a very individual question. After all, if a person feels that he can do it on his own: change his job, change his status at this job, then he can do it on his own. If you feel exhausted, hopeless, desperate, then it is better to seek help. It all depends on the maturity of the individual, on the personality itself, and on some kind of individual resilience. I think this is all very individual.
Santa Ozolina, a consultant at the Latvian Crisis Center “Skalbes”, a psychologist, Master of Psychology.
Taras Ivashchenko: How often do people come to you with mobbing or bullying problems?
Santa Ozolina: Both mobbing and bullying are quite common. This is a common problem, but it is not a reason to seek help. It happens that during a conversation it turns out that a person also suffers from these problems. It is impossible to name the exact number of requests in this regard; this is how statistics were not kept. In my practice, I currently have one child who is a victim of bullying. On average, 2-3 children a year come with this problem. Based on 7 years of experience working on the “crisis phone”, I talked to 4 adults who suffered from mobing.
T.I.: Do people know such concepts as “mobbing” and “bullying” or do they describe the problem situation in their own words?
S.O.: Young children can't call it that, but as part of the Shadow Day program, where we worked with students, they were well aware of these terms, because they talk about it a lot at school (for example, Riga English Gymnasium, French Lyceum, Riga First Gymnasium). Adults mostly recognize these concepts, however, when talking to colleagues, I came to the conclusion that the concepts of “mobbing/bullying” are more often associated with higher education.
T.I.: What are the most common situations?
S.O.: People complain about humiliation at work by colleagues — reservations, slander, ridicule, damage to work materials, the spread of false rumors, sarcastic remarks, including open verbal aggression. Children complain about the same thing at school and about online humiliation.
T.I.: Do students turn to you for help?
S.O.: Yes, but parents usually look for help, because they begin to notice that the child is closed, depressed, grades have deteriorated, and absenteeism has appeared. Children need more time to start talking openly about what they've been through or are going through.
T.I.: It happens that students are mobbing/bullied by the teacher, but there are also situations when a teacher is bullied by a student. Which situations are more common?
S.O.: Sometimes kids say they don't get support from a teacher when they're offended. There are cases when teachers publicly insult a child by naming them. In my practice, there were no teachers who asked for help. However, over the entire period of the crisis phone's operation, there have been cases when a teacher complained that she had been mobbed by colleagues and superiors, and, according to her, children were also turned against her.
T.I.: Do you mostly get calls from big cities in Latvia, or do you also receive calls from rural areas?
S.O.: They call from different places: from districts and from Riga. No special trend has been noticed in the place of residence.
T.I.: Are there any professions in which people are most likely to be mobbed?
S.O.:There are no statistics about professional representatives. It seems to me that people without higher education are most often looking for help. I personally talked to a teacher, telephone operator, saleswoman and accountant who were mobbed at work.
T.I.:When people find themselves in a mobbing situation, what emotions do they most often feel? Are they embarrassed to become a “victim”? Is it difficult for people to ask for help in this situation?
S.O.:Children are the most embarrassed, and you can see that they have trouble showing anger. Anger usually appears passively, often as self-destruction (self-destruction). Adults are able to be openly angry. However, both adults and children are much more withdrawn and depressed after experiencing mobbing/bullying. I've noticed that people are more likely to seek help because they feel ashamed and guilty, especially among children.
T.I.: In your opinion, is one help session — crisis intervention — enough to improve the situation if a person seeks help only once?
S.O.:A crisis intervention can be useful as a first step to help a person better understand what is happening to them and to “ventilate” their emotions. In order for a person to regain their self-esteem and feel more confident in deciding not to let themselves be offended, or to make some more radical decision, for example, to change jobs, a longer therapeutic process (individually) is necessary. It is important to identify resources that can provide a person with support outside of sessions with a psychologist, for example, support from relatives or friends.
T.I.: How often do people come for a face-to-face consultation after telephone consultations?
S.O.:Since telephone consultations are anonymous and various specialists consult by phone and “live”, it is impossible to identify whether a person has called before. However, those who have already come to the consultation usually continue their sessions.
I.E.: In your practice or the practice of your colleagues, have there been cases when people committed suicide when they find themselves in a situation of persecution and bullying?
S.O.:Neither in my practice nor in the practice of my colleagues have such cases been recorded, but we do not know what happened to the people who called the crisis phone. I've noticed that teenagers often think about suicide, but they don't have a specific plan. They are characterized by self-destructive behavior, such as cutting themselves or using various substances. I don't think that incitement to suicide depends only on mobbing/bullying. As you know, this decision is influenced by general mental health, a person's life history, relationships, etc.
It seems to me that all three interviews with specialists providing emergency psychological assistance very clearly demonstrate that people who experience emotional abuse at school, in the family and at work, often do not tell anyone about this and do not ask for help in time.
That's why it's important to make at least one call sometimes.
*Crisis intervention is emergency psychological and psychotherapeutic assistance to a person in crisis. It is based on the principles of short-term, realistic, and personal involvement of a crisis care professional or volunteer.
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