Author Archives: Jonathan Delisle

Echo Bullying

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on août 19, 2015 10:17 am

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Echo bullying is a term I’ve developed based on both personal and clinical experiences. It is a phenomenon that occurs long after the bullying ends. It is an internal self-depreciation that continually underlies the former victim’s self-perception. The depreciating internal dialogue perpetuates the past bullying (usually sub-consciously). This internal dialogue is the echo of the bully’s message to his former victim.

Bullies direct hurtful comments or behaviours at you, and then you walk away and think nothing more of it or you may even try to repress or distort the memory of it while trying to convince yourself that you don’t care. Continue reading →




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: Breaking Away from the Bully’s Grasp

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on juillet 23, 2015 8:09 am

Breaking out of an abusive relationship is harder than it sounds. In order to manage it, the victim needs to become empowered and either set the terms of the relationship or put an end to it. The following five steps are taken, once again, from Mrs. Hirigoyen’s book “Le harcèlement moral: la violence perverse au quotidien”.separate

  1. Acknowledge: As we wake up from the daze of being pummeled by constant abuse, we open our eyes to see a very different world from the one we used to know or made ourselves believe existed. It’s like our world got hit by a massive earthquake or a hurricane. The difference from a natural phenomenon of mass destruction is that you have a culprit responsible for it. This wasn’t natural. It was an injustice.
  2. Assess: As you begin to understand how you were manipulated and used, you will likely become upset and angry with the bully. It’s OK to feel indignant and sad. However, it’s crucial that you do not let that anger reverse your roles where you become a bully. This is often how bullies are made. You have a right to be angry, to be respected, and to speak up when you feel violated in any way. Those rights have been downplayed and denied to you while under the bully’s influence.
  3. New Strategies: Set boundaries, with the intention of opening up communication, breaking the isolation, and protecting yourself from falling prey to the bully’s paralyzing traps that aim at forcing you into your former victim role. Like a narcissist, the bully feels like he’s entitled to overstep boundaries and take what he wants, without giving so much as a single thought to the fact that he’s violating your rights.
  4. Stand Your Ground: Expect tantrums to test how far you will go before one of you gives up. This tantrum doesn’t have to be physical (throwing or breaking something). A good dose of passive aggression and guilt-trip is as good as any tantrum. “If you ever give in to a tantrum, you’re back to square one; it’s reinforced that if they stick to their guns, they’ll win and you’ll relent.” (Brown, 2014)
  5. Free Yourself: The relationship dynamic has to end in order for the victim to become truly free. Validate where validation is due, but do not condone the abusive treatment in any way. Thus you provide some healing to that narcissistic injury through your validation and, through your boundaries, protect yourself.

As a now empowered person, you no longer play the victim and you show others to do the same through your own example.

References:
Delisle, Jonathan; https://lighthousecounselling.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/breaking-the-bullying-cycle/
Hirigoyen, M.-F.; Le harcèlement moral : la violence perverse au quotidien; Éditions La Découverte et Syros, Paris, 1998; ISBN :978-2-266-22277-8
Brown, H. (2014). How To Deal with the Narcissist in Your Life. Psych Central. Retrieved on May 27, 2014, from http://blogs.psychcentral.com/bonding-time/2014/03/how-to-deal-with-the-narcissist-in-your-life/




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: Codependence

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on juillet 15, 2015 9:52 am

Before addressing the issue of breaking out of the bullying relationship, it is important to note that there’s an underlying dynamic that makes the process of ending the abuse so much more difficult: codependence. We’ve all had the experience of knowing someone in an obviously bad relationship, be it intimate, professional or otherwise. We wonder why he or she insists in staycycleing in that relationship. The answer seems simple: just get out. In reality, it’s not that simple. Both parties have come to depend on one another to meet certain needs; hence, they are co-dependents.

Dr. Stephen B. Karpman’s Drama Triangle is a good way to illustrate the dynamic of codependent dynamic of the bully-victim relationship.

From the point of view of the bully, we’ve already pointed out his dependence: he wants his scapegoat and source of narcissistic supply. But what is the victim trying to get out of that relationship? Usually, for the bully to change the dynamic: an apology, a change of heart, an awareness of the pain he’s inflicting, validation, etc… Perhaps the victimized one is secretly hoping that his abuser will become a rescuer, since there is no one else who seems to be able to save him, due to his isolation from all support. When all hope of rescue is gone, it is then that the victim either throws in the towel to accept moral death (sometimes leads to suicide) or snaps and attempts to take control and fight off the bully. Continue reading →




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying – The Bully’s Strategies

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on juillet 9, 2015 8:00 am
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Ever wonder why bullies get away with what they do to others? Sometimes they walk away with little or no consequences for their abuse. For those of us who have been on the receiving end of the abuse, how many times have we racked our brains to figure out how we let the abuse happen? The following points are taken once more from Mrs. Hirigoyen’s book, though the author doesn’t lay them out this wtunnel-vision-212923_640ay explicitly.

Bullying has three essential steps that overlap. Even though they overlap, there’s a progressive emphasis on each of these.

Seduction: This is the first step to get a hold on his victim. The violence hides behind flattery and intimidation. At the onset, its manifestation is passive-aggressive: sarcasm, non-verbal cues, manipulation, ambiguity, lies, etc. The victim comes to question whether the tension or conflict he perceives with the not-yet-obvious abuser is his fault, whether it’s in his imagination, or whether there really is underlying violence in the other’s actions or words.

Paralysis: The bully will do everything to cut-off his prey from any kind of support that could help break his hold (isolation). The observers to the acts of aggression will likely choose to walk away and turn a blind eye to those acts so as not to draw the hostility towards them. Unfortunately, the cowardice can easily be interpreted by both victim and bully as agreement with the abuse. Thus the victim begins to feel isolated and cornered.

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*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: Under the Bully’s Mask

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on juin 10, 2015 8:33 am
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anonymous-438427_640Ever wonder why bullies bully? What’s their problem? That’s exactly the point… they are struggling with a problem. Bullying is an act of violence, and violence is an expression of anger. Bullies have an anger problem. Following Karyn Hall PhD’s thoughts (2012), the bully’s anger serves a few possible purposes: to protect himself, to control, and to connect:

Emotional Shield: Bullies fight hard to protect themselves from feeling powerless. As former victims themselves, they’ve had their share of feeling powerless. Anger is an empowering feeling that pushes them to break that all-too-familiar barrier of paralyzing fear.

Source of Control: Bullies fear to lose their victim as a scapegoat, which they desperately hold on to. Through anger, they can intimidate and manipulate others into submission to play the abuse game by their rules.

Safer Connection: Dr. Hall paraphrases Steven Stosny’s words on core hurts from his book Treating Attachment Abuse (1995): “He identifies core hurts, some of which are feeling ignored, unimportant, accused, guilty, untrustworthy, devalued, rejected, powerless, and unlovable”. These core hurts are the result of serious narcissistic injuries. They give rise to difficult emotions, such as fear, sadness, depression, vulnerability, etc. Anger then becomes a way of connecting with other people without having to deal with those difficult emotions.

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*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: The Aftermath

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on mai 29, 2015 8:19 am
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Living under the influence of a bully is no walk in the park, as we’ve seen in my last post. To add insult to injury, the battle doesn’t end with the realization of what’s happening or the desire to put an end to the abusive influence. There are consequences to deal with in the aftermath of the abuse. In her book Le harcèlement moral: la violence perverse au quotidien, Mrs. Hirigoyen lists four steps to the aftermath of bullying.

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Shock: There is a crucial turning point in abusive relationships when the victim realizes what the bully was doing all this time. While being the first step towards liberation, that moment of enlightenment hits the victim like a tidal wave. From this point on, the victim relives every bullying moment in his/her mind, seeing for the first time the extent of the abusive nature of the relationship. This experience can be quite traumatizing. With it comes turbulence of emotions: hurt, helplessness, humiliation, and eventually anger when the shock wears off. Continue reading →




*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: Under the Bully’s Influence

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on mai 13, 2015 12:47 pm
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This blog post on bullying has to do with the short-term effects that bullying has on the victims while under the bully’s influence.  The points I will be explaining are taken from Marie-France Hirigoyen’s book “Le harcèlement moral: la violence perverse au quotidien”.  Although the points are mainly hers, I will be explaining them in my own words. The following points are tell-tale signs that we, counsellors, may have a victim of bullying sitting in front of us.

Standing Down: Victims of bullying generally stand down out of fear of undesired consequences: retaliation, break up, guilt-trip, humiliation, loss, etc.  The bully will use this fear as leverage, thus mentally paralyzing his victim.

Confusion:  Most of the bullying is passive-aggressive and ambiguous at the onset, which leaves room to doubt the aggressive nature of the actions committed or the woalone ballrds spoken.  As a result of the confusion, it is not uncommon over time for the individual to experience poor concentration, frequent loss of train of thought, delayed reactions, reduced ability to perform complex intellectual activities, etc.

Self-doubt:  The bully sees to it that the victim think that he is guilty about what happens and yet feel powerless to do anything about it.  Self-doubt in the face of the violence suffered creates paralyzing confusion. As the victim becomes defenseless, he also becomes the scapegoat upon whom the aggressor puts all of his own insecurities, faults, flaws, etc…
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*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Adult Bullying: It’s a Reality

Posted by: Jonathan Delisle on avril 29, 2015 2:52 pm
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If you were to ask your clients what bullying is, some would identify events where they felt violated or pushed around by others. Some would recall an incident that made them feel targeted by others. Still some would think of specific people with whom they had negative experiences. Many would probably think back to that school bully. We’ve all experienced bullying and can say something about it, but it’s not easy to define it. It has a source. It has consequences. It has patterns.

Bullying isn’t a problem that exists in schools and children’s lives only. It is a problem that is very much present in the adult world. Anyone is capable of bullying, regardless of age, maturity, beliefs, or moral values. “Sometimes it looks different or is called by different names: sexual harassment, stalking, workplace aggression, or scapegoating. But like in childhood, bullying is one person controlling or harming someone else by use of power.” (Harmon, 2012)   As counsellors and psychotherapists, we deal mostly with the aftermath of the abuse.

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*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA