ABSTRACT
The academic study of bullying does little to reveal the deep psychological distress that is experienced by the targets of bullies. Debates about personality characteristics of victims and bullies, the role of organisational factors and the legislative context are vital yet inadvertently they obscure the dreadful anguish that many victims live with year after year. It may be a truism to state that anyone can become a victim of bullying by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, simply by working or living within an environment that fosters harassment and in the vicinity of people who gain positive reinforcement from aggressive activity. Yet, frequently the clinical narratives of those who experience prolonged bullying and suffer the severest of insults to their self-constructs provide an historical dimension to their suffering which extends the span and complexity of antecedents considerably.
