ABSTRACT

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the impact of interpersonal conflict at work. The expression of this conflict can result in physical or psychological violence and victimisation. Although physical violence and threats of violence have been widely studied within the field of traumatology, this is not the case with psychological victimisation, mobbing or bullying. Indeed the criterion for diagnosing post-traumatic stress does not include the behaviours which would be regarded as bullying (Ravin and Boal 1989). Despite the lack of formal recognition of bullying as a cause of post-traumatic stress, practitioners and researchers working with victims of bullying recognise the similarities between their symptoms and post-traumatic stress (Scott and Stradling 1992a; Weaver 2000; Tehrani in press).