When Bullies Play the Victim Role

On January 6, 2020January 6, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Cult Behaviour, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

A bully pretends to be a victim in order to manipulate others.

Because most people are good and compassionate, this is bullying at its worst.
When a bully acts like a victim, they also gain the unwitting compliance of others into bullying you. Naïve, compassionate people will chastise you for not caring about the bully’s victimization, and not changing your behaviour to meet the bully’s desires.

Although this particularly nasty form of bullying occurs occasionally in the workplace, it is more common at home, where it represents emotional blackmail.

A bully exaggerates the impact of your actions on them

Read more here:

KickBully

Parental Estrangement

On January 6, 2020January 7, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bereavement and Grief, Bullying, Family Concerns, Infliction of Abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, Religious Cults, Slander, Gossip and Lies, Understanding AutismLeave a comment

Many clients consult us concerning family problems and this particular subject is a common problem, The following article looks at the reasons for it.

Oscar Wilde once warned that children begin their lives loving their parents, then grow up to judge them. If so, surely there is no harsher judgment of a parent than to be deliberately cut out of a child’s life for ever. Parental estrangement by adult children is a national epidemic, and it’s not always the parent’s fault.

Psychologist Dr Ludwig Lowenstein believes this generation have been empowered to judge their parents. He hears from up to six parents a day, a third of them women, asking advice because they fear estrangement from their children.

There are no official statistics to show that the problem is increasing. But numerous leading psychologists claim it is, and online chatter suggests it is.

Understanding Scapegoating

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Cult Behaviour, Family Concerns, Infliction of Abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, Religious Cults, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

This is another subject clients consult us about and we have had the experience and ability to help them.

The ego defense of displacement plays a role in scapegoating, in which uncomfortable feelings such as anger frustration envy and guilt are displaced and projected onto another, often the more vulnerable, person or group. The scapegoated target is then persecuted, providing the person doing the scapegoating not only with a conduit for his uncomfortable feelings, but also with pleasurable feelings of piety and self-righteous indignation. The creation of a villain necessarily implies that of a hero, even if both are purely fictional.

Some would say that Satan the Devil was used as a Scapegoat for sins and interestingly they also depict his image as half man half goat.

Read more here:

Psychology Today.

Friends, Enemies and Frenemies.

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

Have you ever been confused about whether to call a schoolmate, family member, coworker, employee, boss, partner, acquaintance, or social contact a friend, an enemy, even a bully, or something in between – a “frenemy?” It turns out that getting clarity, identifying the taxonomy, taking action to prevent sadness, harm or even tragedy is possible, as confusing as it looks on first glance.

There needs to be an understanding of exactly what makes a friend.

Maybe you’ve been on Facebook, Twitter, online matchmaking sites, or had email exchanges with an acquaintance or business contact, or schoolmate and felt concerned about your privacy, being labeled, slandered, or objectified for the lack of being known personally, or worrying about their intentions?

There’s actually a quick, practical way of assessing this.

Read more here:

Psychology Today

Can You Trust Friends Who Associate With Your Enemies?

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

This scenario can be fraught with difficulties……..

It’s a familiar story. A group of three or more friends, having the best of times. Then two of those three friends begin a feud and the third, innocent party is stuck to choose. We’ve all been there and I know from personal experience it’s hard to tell whether or not you can trust a friend who’s friends with your enemy, but it’s also hard to be friends with two people who hate each other.

For the innocent party who just wants to be friends with everyone, it’s really hard. I personally don’t know if it’s actually possible because I’ve never seen it work out. You’re going to like one friend more than the other, or you’re going to accidentally betray one or the other friend and they’re going to turn on you.
I understand wanting to keep your friends, but unless you can be perfect and schedule the same amount of friend dates for the same amount of time, while also not becoming the middle person for their petty vendettas, it just isn’t going to work and someone is going to end up losing.

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The Odessy Online

Causes of Suicide

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bereavement and Grief, Bullying, Cult Behaviour, Divorce, Family Concerns, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Mental Health Disorders, Narcissistic Abuse, Religious Cults, Sexual Abuse, Slander, Gossip and Lies, SuicideLeave a comment

Suicide is newsworthy because life is precious. In 1993, a 6-year old girl living in Florida stepped in front of a train. She left a note saying that she “wanted to be with her mother” who recently died from a terminal illness.

This is the power of the human mind. A small girl thinks of the past and imagines a future that is so bleak, so devoid of meaningful moments without her mom, that she takes her own life. The same mental tools that distinguish us from other animals, the same mental tools that allow us to solve problems and produce creative works that give us symbolic immortality are the same tools that allow a 6-year old to contemplate a future that is terrible enough to physically leap into an oncoming train. If a 6-year old has the cognitive capacity to kill herself, then we need to step up our efforts to understand and prevent it from happening.

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Psychology Today

Why People Commit Suicide

Understanding why people commit suicide and what is causing the need for such drastic measures may help you prevent a suicide attempt before it happens.

Bullying and Suicide

Bullying is ongoing aggressive or abusive behavior from one person or a group of people who harm and threaten another either physically or emotionally or both. Bullies come in many varieties and are not always physical in peer groups. Sometimes the popular or older adults band together to ostracize the person. Maybe they were once friends. They will pick on the person or ridicule them over social media such as Facebook and Twitter with harsh words and criticisms aimed at making them feel bad about themselves.

Read more here:

No Bullying

Family Dynamics

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Family Concerns, Infliction of Abuse, Mental Health Disorders, Narcissistic Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

Understanding Family Dynamics

Can’t we all get along? That’s a tall order when your limelight has been snatched away by your adorable new little brother. Family, you love them and you hate them. There are so many things to consider when you think of family: there’s birth order, rivalries, the only child, to name a few.

So what is a functional family? How do we know if we have one? How would you define a functional family?

Read more here:

Psych Central.

Roles in Families

Were you considered the responsible child while your younger brother or sister was the rebel or ‘Mummy’s little one’?
According to experts as children we all played a specific role in our family, although which role was not always within our control. It may be due to gender, family culture or the order in which we were born. However the legacies of being the model child or the baby may continue to help or haunt us in our adult lives and understanding these silent family agreements can help us break behavioural patterns which could at times be disabling. Flavia Mazelin Salvi explains the four different roles:

The Mind Journal

Dan Edmunds – Psychology Today

Psychology of Mob Mentality

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Cult Behaviour, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Narcissistic Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

What is mobbing?

The word bullying is used to describe a repeated pattern of negative intrusive violational behaviour against one or more targets and comprises constant trivial nit-picking criticism, refusal to value and acknowledge, undermining, discrediting and a host of other behaviours.

The Psychology of Mob Mentality or Groupthink

The overwhelming need for many individuals to blindly and unquestioningly follow others is commonly known as ‘mob mentality’ , ‘herd mentality’ or ‘groupthink’.

The consensus nature of groupthink and the collective rigidity and irrationality of their attitudes may result in extreme measures to preserve the consensus, even to the point of attacking any who disagree and perceiving them to be enemies who must be silenced

Social Psychology and Mob Mentality

Social Media – the New Mob Mentality?

We’ve all heard of ‘mob’ or ‘herd mentality’. That is, when individuals get together in a group, lose their sense of self and start to act as the group without feeling responsibility for their individual actions. Classic examples of this are riots, looting, and many other instances of violence where people commit acts as part of a group that they would never commit on their own. There’s something about being part of a collective that dissolves personal accountability and causes people to behave in strange ways. Psychologists call this ‘deindividuation’.

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Road Less Travelled

What Makes One a Target for Bullying?

In recent years, there has been a great deal of research on bullying, and we are beginning to understand more about the motivations of bullies, and the effects of bullying. Here are the factors that are associated with being the target of bullies:

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Psychology Today

Coping with Terminal Illness

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bereavement and Grief, Family ConcernsLeave a comment

Saying Goodbye- Coping with a Loved One’s Terminal Illness

Lingering terminal illnesses are becoming more common than sudden deaths, and this process has many stages. It’s important to point out that the grieving process is borne by families, not just individuals.

Read more here:

Help Guide

Preparing for Passing

All About Counselling

Terminally Ill Parents

Joseph Nowinski PhD – Psychology Today

Judging a Situation without Hearing Both Sides

On January 6, 2020January 8, 2020 By LaetitiaIn Bullying, Friends, Enemies and 'Frenemies', Infliction of Abuse, Slander, Gossip and LiesLeave a comment

Certain members of a social group can listen to an opposing (and not always truthful) side of a dispute and choose to believe the opposing version without approaching their other associates to hear the full story. I have reasearched why this occurs.

This subject has also been raised by clients during consultations so these occurrences inspired me to do further research.

Read This If You Have Been Judged By Others Who Have Not Heard The Full Story