A Couple of Quickies...

In Scandinavian research, ... mobbing is seen as an extreme social phenomenon, triggered by extreme social stressors, causing a range of negative effects, such as biological and psychic stress reactions.
Heinz Leymann
The Mobbing Encylopaedia

This guy has got most of it. PL

Also See


CHECKLIST OF MOBBING INDICATORS
http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/~kwesthue/checklist.htm
Kenneth Westhues, 2006

As workplace mobbing becomes more widely known and deplored, it is to be expected that many workers in academe, as in other fields, will claim to be mobbed as a way of warding off criticism and strengthening their positions in office politics. Indeed, many workers will genuinely feel that they are being mobbed and will attribute lack of sympathy from others as proof that the others are part of the mob. It is therefore essential that any claimed or apparent case of mobbing be subjected to hard-nosed scrutiny in light of empirical indicators, measurable criteria by which to conclude that yes, this is a case of mobbing, or no, it is not.
Below is a checklist of 16 indicators or measures that I have used in my research, and offered on workshop handouts entitled, "WAMI, The Waterloo Anti-Mobbing Instruments (PDF)." In the introduction to my 2006 book, The Prevention and Remedy of Mobbing in Higher Education, I apply these 16 indicators systematically to two different mobbing cases, to illustrate variations on common themes. There is nothing sacred about the list.


In my book, The Envy of Excellence, the 16 indicators are boiled down to ten. Perhaps the most important indicator is shown here as No. 12, the enlargement of some real or imagined misdeed or fault in order to smear the target's whole identity, so that he or she is seen as personally abhorrent — a totally alien other, a dangerous, repugnant entity that turns the stomachs of good and decent people.
1. By standard criteria of job performance, the target is at least average, probably above average.
2. Rumours and gossip circulate about the target’s misdeeds: “Did you hear what she did last week?”
3. The target is not invited to meetings or voted onto committees, is excluded or excludes self.
4. Collective focus on a critical incident that “shows what kind of man he really is.”
5. Shared conviction that the target needs some kind of formal punishment, “to be taught a lesson.”
6. Unusual timing of the decision to punish, e. g., apart from the annual performance review.
7. Emotion-laden, defamatory rhetoric about the target in oral and written communications.
8. Formal expressions of collective negative sentiment toward the target, e. g. a vote of censure, signatures on a petition, meeting to discuss what to do about the target.
9. High value on secrecy, confidentiality, and collegial solidarity among the mobbers.
10. Loss of diversity of argument, so that it becomes dangerous to “speak up for”or defend the target.
11. The adding up of the target’s real or imagined venial sins to make a mortal sin that cries for action.
12. The target is seen as personally abhorrent, with no redeeming qualities; stigmatizing, exclusionary labels are applied.
13. Disregard of established procedures, as mobbers take matters into their own hands.
14. Resistance to independent, outside review of sanctions imposed on the target.
15. Outraged response to any appeals for outside help the target may make.
16. Mobbers’ fear of violence from target, target’s fear of violence from mobbers, or both.

Making A Difference

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

First Posted January 2006

To understand the subtle difference between someone who recognizes herself as the subject of a vicious rumour mill and someone who is hallucinating conversations born out of an unconscious need to seek fame, you need only read the label.

All lunatics are clearly labeled in order to prevent public confusion related to the similarity of perceptions and reactions between the sane and the insane.

And speaking of the subtle differences...did you hear the news? According to CTV, it is believed that terrorist Websites are sending operatives messages which are very difficult to prove are intended to be heard as covert instructions for aggressive acts because they are presented in a form of language which could best be described as ambiguous. It could be "interpreted" more than one way.

Does that sound familiar to anyone? .

Psychiatric Survivours Speak Out

Tell The "Help" How It Really is For T.H.E.M.

You won't hear any "happy consumer" voices promoting the system nor uttering statements like: "It's for their own good" here. ( A grandiose statement if ever there was one) These people tend to speak for themselves. (when they are "allowed" to speak that is) This is the side of "reality" most of those promoting the system would rather you didn't hear and which it works very hard to suppress.

The degree of passion varies with the individual, many of whom are still loaded with drugs which suppress their emotions, whether they like it or not, by force.
Still, showing strength and courage under enormous pressure and often constant invalidation, these are the Voices of the Psychiatrized.

. Magick98765
By Christopher Heimarck

Collaborative Possibilities
By Brian Milliken

The Church of Schizophrenia
A Little Semi/Serious "Fun"
By My Friend Walter

Wilderness Hermit Charlie's World
By Wilderness Charlie

Poor Leonard's Almanack
By Leonard Roy Frank

Spiritual Emergency

Esquizofrenia,Pensando
By Dayan Paiva, Brazil

An Empathic Mind

Been Broken
United Kingdom

Shift the Focus

Why we all need to STOP focusing on the ‘identified patient’ (usually “covertly”) and Look at the WHOLE GROUP- PL

Personality as a diagnostic feature
© Heinz Leymann - file 32170e


One quite often hears the theory that a harassed person´s "pre-morbid personality" should be blamed as the social factor that triggers for mobbing situations. This notion is also very widely spread amongst professionals. But until today, empirical research on adult mobbing, which began in 1982, has not been able to relate the cause of a mobbing process to the victim's personality. Not even similar research concerning child mobbing in schools (e. g. Olweus, 1993) has shown any such connection.

... We have seen individuals with both symptoms, mainly individuals who, after several years of trying to protect themselves, are still suffering from lengthy and daily victimization at work....
Cashew Commentary: You know how this sounds to me? Like the aggressor who states, “I would not be doing this to you if you weren’t making me do it.” Gee ...poor sick ‘us’....FOCUS on the symptoms of the ‘sick’ GROUP with the same gusto that you now use with that ‘clinical gaze’ focused on the targeted victim.

Thought for Today, June 17 2009

"If the human race survives, future men will, I suspect, look back on our enlightened epoch as a veritable Age of Darkness... They will see that what was considered 'schizophrenic' was one of the forms in which, often through quite ordinary people, the light began to break into our all-too-closed
minds."
— Dr. R.D. Laing

"Trickle Down" Madness

By Patricia Lefave, Labelled, D.D.(P)

First Posted January 2006

It only takes two degrees of separation to keep the whole truth from ever being seen and to permanently prevent resolution from occurring.
When a system, focused on maintenance of the status quo, states they are "moving towards a goal of prevention" that is a true statement. Let's not assume though that we already understand what It is that is being "prevented."
If the group participants in an event are told, in "secret," by the "authority" figure at the top of a pyramid of power that they are to stop talking about the event and they are not to admit to anything...

AND

the victim of the primary aggressor and the group involved is told she is not to confront her protagonist, nor ask any questions of those involved, nor try to tell them anything, a permanent state of separation and mystery is created and maintained. We have circled the truth all the way around and back to 358 degrees but have yet to complete the trip through the infinite loop of dysfunction.
You may go almost all the way around that circle, over and over again, travel back and forth forever, but unless both sides break their silence and stop co-operating with covering up the event, and it's genesis, the WHOLE truth will never be seen nor understood and resolution will be made impossible.

For those operating with a hidden agenda of domination and submission, this IS the planned and desired outcome. It is resolution itself which is being "prevented" and for as long as that remains the goal, those with the hidden agenda will remain hidden to most, and continue to receive an endless supply of "satisfaction" for their efforts.

"Reason " has nothing to do with It.

The Psychiatric Dance

By Patricia Lefave, labelled, Delusional Disorder, Paranoid

You cannot tell a psychiatrist that you are the target of an aggressor with a hidden agenda and expect to be heard by the psychiatrist. Here is the reason why.

You tell a psychiatrist that you are a target of someone and that you are being watched, followed and reported on by people who are strangers to you but who are reporting to someone who lets you know that he has access to you anytime he wants it. You realize your stalker wants to see how afraid you are and that he is enjoying himself by doing this".

The psychiatrist asks you, "how long have you been 'feeling' this way and what makes you 'think' that this is happening?"
What your psychiatrist really believes is in the questions he asks. There will be no talking your psychiatrist into hearing you after that because NOW, everything you say that is the truth, will be heard by your psychiatrist as a symptom 'proving' it is your 'illness' talking. Your psychiatrist is an expert and is very sure he understands your experience better than you do. Your psychiatrist has already been trained to hear what you say in the terms of his own training. In other words, he (or she) cannot really hear you at all. S/he can only hear what you say as pre-defined meanings and this has occurred long before you even walked in the door.Of course, you will not know that until later on when you realize this truth only AFTER it is too late.

So, you have now entered The Tautology Zone, The Nexus of Meaning, the Razor's Edge of Sanity/Insanity, and what happens next goes like this:

Your psychiatrist sees that you 'believe' you are a 'target' of someone and that you 'imagine' you are being 'watched, followed and reported on' by 'strangers' who do not know you but who have somehow been manipulated to report to your 'stalker.' (oh you poor paranoid thing you) You have 'admitted' that you feel fear (which of course is not 'real' fear but merely some sort of bad brain chemistry problem which will be checked off on the symptom list as well) Your fear will grow as you realize you are not being heard or taken seriously.Since the psychiatrist has decided you need 'help' (not help) you will be watched to see what you do or say next. Anything you say that suggests you 'believe' that you are being 'watched' will be heard in clinical terms. This is because the watchers have deluded themselves that you cannot see or understand them since you are defined by them as 'inferior' and perhaps (most likely in fact) a genetic defective. SINCE you cannot see or understand them, THEY cannot BE among the people watching, following and reporting on you. Therefore the people you 'think' are doing that must be imaginary people who exist nowhere but within your own mind. Since they exist nowhere but in your own mind, this is another indicator that you are very ill. Your fear now increases as you realize the implications for you in the experts thinking processes. As you realize no one is going to help you and you are now also in danger of being locked up and psychiatrized, your fight or flight response kicks into high gear, and the non stop adrenaline production keeps you awake and running in high gear as you search for ANY way out of the tautological trap that you now understand you are caught within. You will find no answers, no matter how hard your brain works by searching for it. Soon the lack of sleep, the stress, the confusion and the very real sense of being controlled by others who talk as if they were automatons, will begin to drive you into the altered state known as psychosis.

Your psychiatrist will not be at all surprised by this of course as he was expecting it. For your own good more people will watch you follow you and report on you, in 'secret' of course, certain that they are not a part of the 'imaginary' people you 'believe' to be watching you, following you and reporting on you. If this goes on long enough before your complete mental breakdown, you may begin to laugh. It is so absurd you cannot help it. If you do though, the watchers and followers will understand that 'laughing for no reason' is another symptom of your mental illness. The prophecy has been fulfilled. They now have enough 'symptoms' on the check list to give you a 'good' objective diagnosis. Usually this will be: schizophrenia, (or one of the sub group) bi-polar disorder, delusional disorder or borderline disorder. This may reflect the individual's psychiatrist's beliefs and will be subject to change, often frequent, in your future as a mad person dependent upon WHOM you are assigned as your doctor. Nothing you say after that will change anything other than in minor ways. The doctors are always right. That is because the diagnoses they give you are based on beliefs not medicine.

It is unlikely that the original cause of your breakdown will EVER be known or understood since those diagnosing you think they already understand it perfectly and there is nothing YOU can tell them that will change that.
Welcome to your new career as a mad person. Now anyone can violate your personal boundaries anytime they like and there is not a damned thing you can do about it as it is 'official' and you are now invisible as a human being.

Don't worry too much though as anytime you show any fear or distress you will be tranquilised right away. It is for your own good. After all, the world does not want crazy people like you running around loose, unmedicated and accusing others 'falsely.'Those in charge want to make you as close to being like THEM as they possibly can.

It's all just a matter of changing your perspective perspective. Because they don't like to change THEIRS.