Psychiatric Distress and Symptoms of Ptsd Among Victims of Bullying at Work

In the text given, PTSD and bullying is the topic being discussed and questioned. It has been argued that many victims of long term bullying at work may in fact suffer from PTSD (Bjorkqvist et al., 1994; Einarsen & Hellesoy,1998; Leymann,1992). Several studies/interviews have been conducted to determine this. O’Moore and associates found that all subjects among the Irish and American victims interviewed, reported that either anxiety, irritability, feelings of depression and paranoia as a consequence, as well as mood swings and feelings of helplessness, lowered self-esteem and a range of physical symptoms occurred. (O’Moore et al.,1998) On the clinical observations also showed grave effects such as social isolation, social maladjustment, psychosomatic illness, depressions, helplessness, anger, anxiety and despair (Leymann, 1990a). There were interviews and clinical observations with American victims of work harassment, Brodsky, (1976) that showed vague physical symptoms such as weakness, loss of strength, chronic fatigue, pains and various aches, while others reacted with depression and related symptoms such as impotence lack of self-esteem and sleeplessness.

The results show that bullied victims reported higher levels of psychiatric distress. It is