Therapy for Bullying Victims in London

Therapy to learn skills and confidence, with Marcus, to stand up to bullies and build your capacity for assertiveness

Therapy for Bullying can help whether you are:

a victim of bullying
concerned for someone showing signs or symptoms of being bullied
someone who was victim of bullying in your childhood
a bully, or someone with a tendency to bully

If you are the victim or target or feel affected by past bullying, Therapy for Bullying can help you free yourself from the painful, unsafe and distressing situation you are trapped in or that still has an impact on you, and enable you to get back in charge of your life.

What is Bullying?

Bullying is the deliberate – usually ongoing – wounding and undermining of a person based on their perceived ‘weakness’, by a person who is, for all sorts of possible reasons, more powerful.

There is very often, though not always, a pattern linking childhood and adult experiences of bullying, whether as victim or perpetrator or sometimes both.

“It ain’t what they call you, it’s what you answer to.”
W.C. Fields, comedian

Bullying and Harassment can occur

in the workplace
in families
in schools, colleges, professions, religious bodies, the army or any other institution
in intimate relationships

It ranges across the whole gamut, including physical aggression and torture, discrimination and hate crime, sexual harassment, and domestic or verbal or emotional abuse, manipulation and oppression.

You can be bullied at any time, no matter who you are, where you live, how old you are, how rich or poor you are or where you or your family are from.

What types of Bullying are there:

Bullying behaviour can be in a form which is:

physical: kicking, punching, stealing
verbal: insulting, name calling, threatening
social: excluding, ostracising, slandering
electronic: cyber bullying, online harassment, revenge porn
emotional: controlling, pressuring behaviour

Cyber bullying and harassment

Cyber bullying is any form of bullying which takes place online or through smartphones and tablets. Social media, social networking sites, messaging apps, gaming sites and chat rooms – for example, Facebook, twitter, XBox Live, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat – can be arenas where online or cyber bullying takes place, and false or offensive messages can spread rapidly. Cyber bullying may be illegal in some circumstances.

Online bullying can take the form of:

Harassing people with offensive or abusive messages and comments.
Denigrating people by means of damaging information and rumours, even posting altered photos.
Flaming, which means starting online fights by using extreme, offensive language.
Impersonating someone, using their identity to send vicious or embarrassing material or post fake profiles.
Outing people by sharing their private, confidential information.
Tricking people into revealing secrets, images and videos and sharing them with others.
Cyber stalking, i.e. alarming people with intimidating, harassing messages.
Excluding people from group conversations, as a form of bullying.
Spreading vicious rumours and gossip online.
Harassment by email or text.

What are the Effects of Bullying on Victims

Many survivors of bullying have abundant empathy for others, but little patience for themselves. The effects of the one being bullied has stripped away their confidence, self-esteem and self-belief. Fear of conflict stops them from progressing in life and impedes their ability to make sound judgments.

Longstanding bullying may have interfered with their development of social and communication skills and the ability to form healthy, close friendships and intimate relationships. They can come across as passive, submissive characters, whilst others, who have survived being bullied tend to appear aggressive and tense.

Therapy for Bullying and Victims of Harassment

Learning the skills of standing up for yourself is a process that may take a little time, and that does not mean you are not a strong or resilient person. You can be both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’: these qualities are not mutually exclusive.

Therapy for bullying or harassment usually involves working with a twin focus on the strategies and defences needed in the present, along with an exploration of any relevant, early background events through the use of body-based behavioural therapy techniques such as Pesso-Boyden Therapy (PBSP) [link] and formative psychotherapy or somatic experiencing.

These methods gently undo the shock and trauma that may keep us in a disempowered, helpless and vulnerable state. The result is healing, new perspectives and greater compassion and empathy for yourself as well as for others.

Therapy for Victims of Bullying & Harassment

If you are currently or have, in the past, been a victim, Therapy for Bullying will help you to take charge of your life and free yourself from the bully’s control, contact Marcus.

Contact Marcus

Resources & help for those being bullied or those concerned about someone being targeted by a bully

If you are or have been the victim of bullying or if you are worried about someone, adult or child, who is being bullied or harassed here are some organisations that can offer help and advice.

Breaking the barriers of bullying: