Workplace Bullying: What the Conversation Is Missing

How past experiences and sometimes intergenerational trauma can shape what workplace bullying activates in us.

Workplace bullying can affect anyone.

Repeated humiliation, intimidation, exclusion, manipulation, threats, or undermining can take a psychological toll regardless of who we are or what we experienced before we arrived at work.

But there is another part of the conversation we may be missing.

When workplace bullying occurs, we understandably focus on what is happening now: the person engaging in the behavior, the leader, the organizational culture, the policies, and whether the organization responded appropriately.

All those things matter.

But what if understanding the impact also requires us to ask:

What might this experience be activating?

People do not enter the workplace as blank slates.

We bring histories: relationships, experiences with authority and power, previous workplaces, family systems, coping patterns, adversity, and trauma.

For some people, those experiences may include childhood abuse or neglect, exposure to violence, bullying, abusive relationships, significant loss, serious accidents, natural disasters, military or community violence, discrimination, previous workplace harassment or bullying, or other experiences that created fear, helplessness, or a loss of safety. For others, family histories shaped by war, displacement, violence, oppression, or other severe experiences may also influence patterns carried across generations.

Not every difficult experience becomes trauma, and people can respond very differently to similar events. But experiences from earlier in life can become part of the context we bring into the present (American Psychological Association, n.d.; Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2026a).

• None of that causes workplace bullying
• None of it excuses the person engaging in it
• And none of it means someone with a difficult history is somehow less resilient

But our histories may influence what certain experiences mean to us, what they activate, and how we respond.

And understanding that connection may give us something important:

More awareness. More choices. More agency over what happens next!

What happens at work can connect with what happened before work.

Research has consistently found an association between workplace bullying and poorer mental-health outcomes, including anxiety, depression, psychological distress, and PTSD-related symptoms.

A meta-analysis by Verkuil et al. (2015), incorporating both cross-sectional and longitudinal research, found that workplace bullying was associated with later mental-health difficulties. The research also suggests that the relationship may be more complex than a simple one-way pathway.

There is also evidence suggesting that earlier experiences may intersect with what happens later in the workplace.

In a 17-year prospective study, Hoprekstad et al. (2021) followed 536 people from adolescence into adulthood. Those who reported greater exposure to bullying during adolescence later reported somewhat greater exposure to bullying behaviors at work and higher depressive tendencies. Interestingly, prior bullying did not intensify the relationship between workplace bullying and depressive symptoms in adulthood. In fact, that relationship was weaker among those who had experienced more bullying earlier in life.

The finding is an important reminder that personal history may be relevant, but it does not determine how someone will respond. Prior experiences may shape how we interpret, recognize, or navigate later workplace dynamics without automatically making someone more vulnerable to them.

For some people, that history may extend beyond their own direct experiences.

Research into intergenerational trauma has identified psychological, relational, developmental, and stress-related effects among descendants of people exposed to severe trauma such as war, genocide, displacement, and systemic oppression. Researchers continue to debate exactly how those effects are transmitted, particularly claims involving biological or epigenetic inheritance (Yehuda & Lehrner, 2018).

So, this is not a story of inevitability.

Our history is not our destiny.

But our history can become part of the context through which we experience the present.

Sometimes the important question is: “Does this feel familiar?”

Imagine being repeatedly undermined by someone with power.

• Perhaps you recognize it immediately and confront it
• Perhaps you withdraw
• You freeze
• You appease
• You work harder
• You over-explain
• You start questioning your own judgment
• You avoid saying anything because challenging someone in authority feels unsafe
• Or you remain in an unhealthy environment much longer than you ever imagined you would

None of those responses automatically tells us why someone is responding that way.

But they can give us something worth exploring.

Does this dynamic feel familiar?

• Have you experienced controlling, unpredictable, threatening, demeaning, or highly critical relationships before?
• Did you grow up in an environment where keeping the peace meant staying quiet?
• Were authority figures unpredictable?
• Did you learn to become highly vigilant to changes in another person’s mood?
• Have previous workplaces taught you that speaking up carries consequences?
• Have earlier experiences shaped how safe—or unsafe—it feels to establish a boundary?

The objective is not to diagnose ourselves from a LinkedIn article.

It is to become curious about our own patterns.

Instead of asking:

“Why am I letting this affect me?”

Perhaps the more useful question is:

“What is happening here, and is any part of my response familiar?”

Looking inward does not let the organization off the hook

This distinction is critical.

Understanding our personal history does not transfer responsibility for bullying to the person experiencing it.

We can hold two ideas at the same time.

1. Organizations have a responsibility to prevent and address harmful workplace behavior. AND
2. We can increase our understanding of ourselves.

If you are experiencing workplace bullying, practical steps can include:

• documenting what is occurring
• learning the organization’s policies and reporting options
• identifying trusted sources of support
• considering appropriate professional or legal guidance depending on the circumstances

But there can also be value in noticing what is happening internally.

• Is the situation affecting your sleep?
• Are you constantly anticipating the next interaction?
• Have you begun avoiding people or situations you previously handled comfortably?
• Are you experiencing unusually intense fear when setting boundaries?
• Are older memories, feelings, or relationship patterns resurfacing?

If a current workplace situation appears to be activating earlier trauma or is significantly affecting your well-being or functioning, support from a qualified mental-health professional, particularly someone with trauma-informed experience, may help separate what is happening now from what happened then (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2026b).

That is not about learning to tolerate bullying.

It is about expanding the choices available to us when we encounter it.

Healing an earlier wound does not excuse someone for creating a new one.

But greater awareness helps us:

• recognize patterns sooner
• establish boundaries
• seek appropriate support
• respond more intentionally rather than solely from an old survival pattern

The workplace needs a broader lens, too

There is another reason this conversation matters.

Different disciplines may look at the same situation and see very different things.

• A manager might initially see an interpersonal or performance issue
• HR may examine conduct, documentation, policy, and employee relations
• An organizational-development practitioner may look at culture, leadership, power, and the wider system
• A mental-health professional may recognize a possible trauma or threat responses
• A researcher asks what the available evidence actually supports—and what it does not

A multidisciplinary scholar-practitioner can bring those perspectives together before deciding what the problem is.

That matters because complex human problems rarely fit neatly within a single discipline.

What appears on the surface to be an employee-relations problem may sit at the intersection of leadership behavior, organizational culture, power, personal history, psychological processes, and the structures that permit harmful behavior to continue.

Looking more broadly does not dilute accountability.

It helps us understand the whole problem and system.

Perhaps that is what our workplace-bullying conversation has been missing.

We have become increasingly willing to talk about the behavior occurring in organizations.

That is progress.

But we may also need to become more willing to understand the human being experiencing it.

Not because that person caused the bullying.

Not because some people should simply become more resilient.

But because understanding our own history can help us recognize when the present is activating something from the past, and give us more options for what we do next.

Organizations must address the behavior causing harm.

Individuals deserve support in understanding and healing what that behavior may activate.

We should not have to choose between stopping the bullying and supporting the person experiencing it.

We should be doing both. Let’s keep this conversation going and Flip the Script!

References

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Trauma. American Psychological Association. https://www.apa.org/topics/trauma

Hoprekstad, Ø. L., Hetland, J., Wold, B., Torp, H., & Einarsen, S. V. (2021). Exposure to bullying behaviors at work and depressive tendencies: The moderating role of victimization from bullying during adolescence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(23–24), 11576–11601. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0886260519900272

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2026a). Trauma and violence: What is trauma and its effects? U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/trauma-violence

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2026b). Trauma-informed approaches and programs. https://www.samhsa.gov/mental-health/trauma-violence/trauma-informed-approaches-programs

Verkuil, B., Atasayi, S., & Molendijk, M. L. (2015). Workplace bullying and mental health: A meta-analysis on cross-sectional and longitudinal data. PLOS ONE, 10(8), e0135225. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0135225

Yehuda, R., & Lehrner, A. (2018). Intergenerational transmission of trauma effects: Putative role of epigenetic mechanisms. World Psychiatry, 17(3), 243–257. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20568