lets talk about mobbing

• Gang bullying or group bullying is often called mobbing and usually involves scapegoating and victimization.

The purpose of mobbing is to punish, isolate, and exile the target. It can have serious outcomes, causing victims to lose their jobs (or residences in the housing context) and to suffer significant medical and psychological health problems resulting from stress.

The word mobbing is preferred to bullying in continental Europe and in those situations where a target is selected and bullied (mobbed) by a group of people rather than by one individual. However, every group has a ringleader. If this ringleader is an extrovert it will be obvious who is coercing group members into mobbing the selected target. If the ringleader is an introvert type, he or she is likely to be in the background coercing and manipulating group members into mobbing the selected target; introvert ringleaders are much more dangerous than extrovert ringleaders.

Throughout the mobbing experience, the target is deceived into fighting, blaming and trying to hold accountable the minor bullies of the mobbing group rather than the chief bully. The main reason a psychopathic chief bully gets away with his (or her) behavior repeatedly is that no-one wants to believe that s/he could be the monster s/he is. This is also the reason that many pedophiles and wife-batterers evade accountability and sanction for years, often decades. They appear so charming and plausible to naive, unenlightened and inexperienced people - usually those who haven't experienced bullying themselves. Psychopathic chief bullies are very likely to have everyone in human resources and management in their pocket, who are then manipulated into further mobbing, victimizing and persecuting the target.

What makes mobbing so dangerous is that it's so subtle, so hard to prove. But the effects are devastating.

Victims may suffer stress-induced ailments, including headaches, stomach aches, high blood pressure and psychological problems.

In extreme cases, mobbing can even be life-threatening. Some mobbing victims contemplate suicide.

Group harassment can have tragic consequences for all involved as in the 1999 case of former OC Transpo employee Pierre Lebrun, who shot and killed four people at the company in Ottawa and then himself. The coroner's inquest indicated that Mr. Lebrun had been ridiculed and ostracized, and recommended new laws and company policies to prevent hostile behaviour from getting out of control.