Janice Harper: Surviving and Thriving From Mobbing

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/11/07

Janice Harper is a cultural anthropologist and the author of Mobbed! What to Do When They Really Are Out to Get You. She has written on the topic of mobbing and collective aggression for Psychology Today, The Huffington Post, and other publications. 

Harper discusses about mobbing and bullying, exploring the escalation of false accusations and the emotional toll on targets. They discuss how mobbing can lead to severe consequences like suicide or violence. Harper emphasizes self-reflection and gentleness, advising targets to move on, thrive, and find peace by accepting their experiences without internalizing victimhood.

Scott Douglas Jacobsen: So today, we are here with—should I say famous or infamous? No. Janice, Janice—we are here with the lovely Janice Harper. We’re going to be talking primarily about mobbing.

I sent an email focused mainly on narcissism. While it’s not your area of focus, an element of commentary here will be relevant to that series. So, how do we define mobbing? And how do we define bullying in a more precise context based on your experience?

Janice Harper: Bullying is a form of one-on-one interpersonal aggression. It might involve a few people targeting a single individual with aggression, such as verbal abuse or put-downs in the workplace. It could include sabotaging someone’s work, like the typical hostile colleague who singles someone out for abuse and writes them up for every minor issue. Mobbing is bullying on a larger scale, where someone in a position of power identifies a person to be eliminated and begins soliciting negative feedback about them, spreading rumours and gossip and encouraging others to join in.

In the workplace, the person might be subjected to investigation after investigation—often completely unfounded. However, the constant investigations create a perceived sense of wrongdoing. Mobbing is intended to eliminate someone from the workplace, group, or community. If not in a workplace, it could happen in a school, church, place of worship, or another community setting where the goal is to eliminate the individual because they won’t leave voluntarily, and direct elimination isn’t easy.

There’s a clear objective with mobbing—it’s not just how things are. The goal is to get rid of someone. Does that make sense?

Jacobsen: Mobbing can also involve false accusations, and these accusations can escalate into extraordinarily bizarre claims. For example, you were accused of building a hydrogen bomb and were investigated for it, right?

Harper: Yes, that’s correct.

Jacobsen: And you were exonerated, to be clear. So, what’s the danger in mobbing when things escalate to such a high level, where someone’s identity is being questioned and fabricated in such extreme ways?

Harper: Well, it’s a steady process. It doesn’t start with accusations like, “Oh, you’re building a hydrogen bomb.” In almost all cases, there’s a gradual escalation. In my case, it started with accusations that I lacked congeniality when I went up for tenure because I reported inappropriate behaviour by an instructor. It started with “she’s too negative,” then escalated to “she’s crazy,” then “she’s making suicidal threats,” then “she’s making homicidal threats.” Eventually, “she’s building a hydrogen bomb.”

You often see this steady progression of accusations in mobbing cases.

Jacobsen: How do these situations escalate so far out of hand? What are the dangers for people in these situations?

Harper: So, people amid mobbing experience significant dangers, including high rates of suicide. There are high rates of suicide among people who are mobbed because they’re stripped of their identity and publicly shamed. In my book, I write about the primal need for group support. When that group support is lost, especially in the workplace where someone’s means of making a living is threatened, it becomes primal.

People are threatening your economic survival. Your social survival is also threatened. You are so dehumanized, and your identity is so recast that there’s a high risk of suicide. Almost all mobbing targets who have contacted me have said they contemplated, if not attempted, suicide. Another danger is workplace violence, and I’ve written elsewhere about a case in Connecticut. I can’t recall the man’s name, but he worked in a trucking firm and eventually went postal. Even the term “going postal” comes from the aggression and mobbing that occurs with postal employees.

When someone is driven to the point of being completely dehumanized, feeling like they have no other option, and if they’re a male gun owner, there can be a real threat of violence. There are many cases where you hear about shootings in the workplace. Not in every case, but often, if you look behind it, there have been escalating attacks.

Now, what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is the person perceived as potentially violent, so they become a target? Or can a person who isn’t at all violent be pushed to that extreme? In certain contexts, yes, they can. But the primary threat of mobbing is suicide for the targets. 

Jacobsen: I want to ensure we take a constructive frame here because, on a practical level. So, there are two stages to address: planning an exit and merging that with surviving and thriving after the exit. What are your main tips for finding a way out—from a community, family, workplace, religious setting–church, or mosque?

Harper: The first stage is recognizing that you’re the target of mobbing. And often, it takes people a long time to realize this. It did for me, too, because I initially saw it through the lens of bullying, focused on one abusive department chair. I was aware of the concept of mobbing, but it still took a while for me to recognize, “Oh, that’s what’s going on here.”

So, the first step is acknowledging that this is happening. Then, you have to get out of the situation. That’s the most difficult part for people. In the workplace, mobbing happens when eliminating a worker, which is not easy. A union, tenure, or other reasons may protect them. They aren’t going to quit easily because it’s hard to find another job or relocate their entire family to a new community for a new position. People are reluctant to leave, and often, there’s this accompanying feeling of, “I want justice. I’m innocent.” I certainly felt that way, too.

And almost everyone who comes to me is still in that mindset of “I’m going to fight this. I’m going to see lawyers.” And you can, but the more you fight it, the meaner they will get. The more they’re going to try to prove that you deserve this. So, getting out as early as possible gives you the best chance for survival. Once you get out, and even as you’re trying to get out, it’s important to address the obsessive thinking about it and the emotional flooding. Both happen when you’re being mobbed. 

Jacobsen: I’ve experienced it, though probably not to the degree of being investigated for building a hydrogen bomb. Right, yet I recall it’s almost like taking out the poison, or the source of the poison—removing the poison needle. That’s the equivalent of getting out. The immune system and the body need time to recover from the impact of that poison circulating through the system. It can take a while.

Harper: Yeah, it’s hard because the attacks are so wrong and constant. You are still determining what they’re going to do next. It’s like, “Oh my god, what’s next?” You’re not sleeping, constantly worrying and thinking about it all the time. And when you let your guard down, they pull more tricks—accuse you of something else, move you to a different position, take away responsibilities, or hold meetings without informing you. You find yourself shunned. It consumes your thinking, and it’s all you can focus on. In my book, I talk about techniques for controlling obsessive thinking.

Working with a therapist who understands cognitive behavioural techniques is important. They can help you break the cycle of obsessive thoughts—how one thought sparks another and keeps playing in your head repeatedly. Then there’s the emotional flooding, which is painful and humiliating.

You experience pain, shame, and rage over what’s happening to you. It’s crazy-making, and it can make you appear unhinged to others. They see you not performing well, acting paranoid, temperamental, and moody. It’s truly crazy-making.

So, address the emotional flooding, manage the obsessive thinking, and understand that you’re going through a grief process. Whether you’re losing your job, your community, or both, you’ll go through the stages of grief. Recognize it as grief—the bargaining, the anger, the denial, the depression, and finally, the acceptance.

The most important thing is this: in anti-bullying literature, they often say that bullies destroy lives. No. Perhaps they destroy aspects of your life, but they can only destroy your life if you decide to let them. It will be difficult to grow and heal if you stay in that place of rage and continue fighting for justice without moving on.

A central part of recovery is self-reflection. Some people accuse me of victim-blaming when I say this. Still, if you’ve been the target of mobbing, it’s important to understand how your actions or reactions may have contributed. That doesn’t mean it’s your fault, but it means you’re taking a holistic view of the situation.

Because even if it’s not to say it’s your fault it happened, how did you react to these situations? How did people perceive you? 

Jacobsen: Let me reflect on what I’m hearing. If this is a sticking point for people, it’s important to clarify quickly. I’m hearing that a community victimizes an individual. It’s important to make sure that has happened. This doesn’t deny the fact that victimization occurred, right?

Harper: Exactly. 

Jacobsen: Acknowledging that victimization occurred is essential, but also, as an individual, you must think, “How can I make sure I don’t take this on as my permanent identity so I can heal, grow, and move on?” And secondly, “How could any of my current or future actions potentially make this situation worse than it needs to be?” It’s a tricky consideration, a subtle point that can blow up for many people. It might be confused with victim-blaming; but as you’re describing, it’s more about empowering those who’ve been victimized. It’s empowering because it shifts the narrative for the individual.

Harper: Yes, the anti-bullying framework tends to say there is nothing you did, and the only reason this happened to you is because you’re so good at what you do that others felt threatened. That suggests you can’t be bullied if you’re a lousy employee, which is absurd. Anyone can be bullied, and maybe there was something you did or didn’t. But if you believe there’s absolutely nothing you could have done or did, that’s disempowering because it means, in your next job, you’re just as helpless.

However, if you think, “What about my reactions? In what way might my actions or reactions have played a part?” That can change things. Many people I’ve encountered have been so combative and aggressive (and I probably was one of them) that once the initial abuse begins, they become so pugilistic that it invites more abuse.

There’s a line in Frasier where the two brothers complain about being bullied when they were kids, and their dad says, “Yeah, but you didn’t need to take a briefcase to school.” And they say, “Briefcases? They were valises!” And he responds, “Yeah, but it invited it.” So, self-reflection is important, but it needs to come from a place of gentleness. You have to be gentle with yourself because if you’ve been mobbed, a crowd has already beaten you up, and you’re laying there bloodied on the ground, essentially. You don’t want to keep beating yourself up.

It’s about self-reflection with loving gentleness that helps you see how your responses, actions, or reactions may have contributed to your perception. Another part of the anti-bullying narrative says, “This happened to you because they were jealous—you’re so good at what you do.” There’s often an element of threat, but it’s a perceived threat.

If someone is good at what they do but also has a vulnerability, and others can sense that vulnerability, they’ll go after them. However, they see you as competent and without that perceived vulnerability. In that case, they may target you differently.

That’s a stellar employee. They’re rising in the ranks. No one will go after them unless that person has obvious insecurity or someone in a position of power identifies them as radioactive—stay away from this person. So, it’s got to be that combination of threat plus vulnerability to make them a target.

Jacobsen: What does thriving look like? Go.

Harper: Thriving—we all define that for ourselves. It’s being able to move on from it and to see it as an experience you went through, and as horrific as it was, it helps you learn more about yourself and others. It helps you not become bitter and to become a more multidimensional person. You might be wounded and likely come out of it with economic wounds. You’d come out of it with some professional wounds if it were in the workplace.

So, thriving is about accepting your life and who you are, regardless of any status that may have been pulled out from under you. Your livelihood may have taken a major blow. You may have taken major steps back socially, professionally, and economically. Still, it’s about being content with who you are and seeing that experience as, in some ways, a gift. Even if it wasn’t a welcomed gift, it helped you to see yourself and others in a more realistic but compassionate light.

Jacobsen: So, how do you feel now, beyond the indifference? How’s your life now?

Harper: Oh, it’s pretty great. It could be better, and I wish I were still a professor sometimes, so I feel that loss. But I work for myself now. I make far more than I ever did as a professor, working fewer hours. I live in a beautiful part of the world. I own a couple of homes.

I went from having nothing and losing everything to being probably much better off than I ever would have been if I’d stayed a professor—economically and financially. But it didn’t start that way. There were some rough years. But my life is good. I have a loving family and supportive friends, and it’s good.

But, like any major loss, it’s not like you think, “Oh, I wish this loss didn’t matter.” It’s a real loss; I wish I hadn’t lost my career. But that’s life. We only have one life, and it gets shorter every year. So, it’s up to us what we do with it.

Jacobsen: That’s wise advice. It was nice to meet you. Thank you so much for contributing to this exciting little series. It’s a positive topic.

Harper: Alright. Good luck with your project, Scott.

Jacobsen: Thank you so much. Nice to meet you.

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