If you are a victim of bullying, one way to stop it is to understand how and why it might be happening, writes Catherine Foley

What would you do if somebody started to bully you? It could be at work. It could even be at home. And what if your children were picked on at school? One of the most useful responses can be to understand how bullying works, including why people bully and how they choose their victims.

People need to become acutely aware of bullying before they can end it, according to Father Tony Byrne, who is running a course on bullying that starts in Dublin next Tuesday.

"When you are acutely aware, when you name it and understand it, then you are motivated to take action," he says. "I think one of the basic fundamental strategies for addressing bullying is to assert one's rights. Very often, are inefficient and see the victims as a threat. Usually, the victim is popular and a high achiever."

Bullying in the workplace can take many forms, says Byrne, listing examples he has come across: reducing people's workloads, not inviting them to meetings, moving their desks to peripheral areas of offices, belittling their roles through jokes or comments, excluding them from decisions and expecting them to come to work every day with nothing to do.

Father Byrne's experience of bullying, along with his growing awareness of the problem through his pastoral work as a Holy Ghost priest, prompted him to organise the course, with Sister Kathleen Maguire of the Presentation Sisters as facilitator.

In 1998, the year he returned from working in Africa, 504 people killed themselves in the Republic. And about one in seven suicides is associated with bullying. "I decided we had to do something about that," he says. "We started the programmes in the Blessed Sacrament Church, on Bachelors Walk. They were queuing down the Liffey."

The first course was called Facing Up To Suicide. The second was called Harmony In The Home. Confronting Bullying is the third course they have organised together.

The five-week programme is aimed at a range of people, including the victims of bullying, professionals such as teachers, nurses, prison officers and gardaí, employers from the corporate sector and anybody else "who wants to know more". Over five consecutive Tuesdays, they will look at bullying in schools, in the workplace and in the home.

Bullying is "quite a bland term for a significant and serious problem that deals with issues of power and manipulation", according to Dr Marie Murray, director of psychology at St Vincent's Hospital in Fairview, Dublin, one of the authors of The ABC Of Bullying and a speaker on the course.

"It's an insidious problem that can weave its way through a person's life from childhood and through to old age. Having once been a victim, you are at greater risk of being a victim again, depending on how it's managed," says Murray. "Victims can carry that aura of vulnerability into second-level and then into the workplace unless we intervene.

"If an adult ridicules a child, exposes a prejudice or makes a racist remark, that is a communication that says some people are targets."

Trying to appease a bully by working harder always fails, according to Ann Frey, a counsellor at the Anti-Bullying Research & Resource Centre at Trinity College in Dublin, who will be leading workshops during the course. Coping strategies only attract further bullying, she says. Hoping it will go away won't work, either.

The other speakers on the course, which will take place at St Mary's College in Rathmines, Dublin, are John Lonergan, governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dr Martin O'Sullivan, a consultant psychiatrist at St Vincent's Hospital, Dr Brendan Byrne, an author and counsellor, and Anne Dunne, a barrister, who will speak about the law and bullying.

Father Byrne's belief that awareness about bullying helps victims confront their attackers is based on a methodology developed by Paolo Freire, a Brazilian justice activist and author. It distinguishes between a naive or vague awareness of bullying and an acute awareness of the profound pain that bullying causes its victims.

"There has been a culture of silence about this for years," says Father Byrne. "I can tell people about the terrible pain I had in the pit of my stomach." He points out that bullying leads to insomnia, withdrawal, shame, blame, rejection, loneliness and marginalisation. "I started researching my rights and I spoke a lot to friends."

Sister Maguire, who was also bullied for many years, is unsure why she was picked on. "It may have been my personality," she says. "I just regarded the bully as somebody who didn't like me. I got angry. I thought: I'm going to get the better of this person. I wouldn't satisfy them by letting them see that I was noticing.

"I had unbelievable support from others around me. I felt very confident in what I was doing. I was popular. I was a liberated woman. I put it down to the fact that this person doesn't like women, especially liberated women.

"I actually didn't confront it. I just fought quietly. And - a big thing - I felt I was getting the better of the person by not [letting on\] that I noticed."

In the end, she says, she was sustained by a great belief in what she was doing and the support she got from friends and colleagues.

Father Byrne says: "We see bullying as repeated agression, either verbal, psychological or physical, which is conducted by an individual or group against others. The bully will very often not admit to being wrong. The repeated acts are very often secretive, very often irrational."

His experience of being bullied led him to a counsellor. "I wasn't sleeping. I was kind of withdrawn . . . But I had a very clear vision of what I was doing and a very good spiritual life. It was prayer that helped me cope."

The facts

A survey by the Economic and Social Research Institute in 2001 found that one in 12 people had been bullied at work.

The organisation reported that it was more likely to happen in education, public administration and financial services than in manual occupations.

It was also more common in larger companies, with women at greater risk than men. And although women reported being bullied by both men and women, men tended to be bullied only by other men.

The study also found that victims were unlikely to report bullying to their human resources department or union. Only half reported it to a supervisor.

They had most commonly been subjected to direct verbal aggression, criticism of their work and indirect bullying, through the spread of rumours and forced isolation.

The effects included loss of concentration and confidence at work: 54 per cent considered leaving their jobs and 11 per cent did leave; a quarter considered seeking transfers and about 15 per cent did so; another 14 per cent considered leaving the workforce altogether.

Although codes of practice have been drawn up to highlight bullying as a workplace issue, last year SIPTU concluded that only a third of Irish workplaces have written policies about bullying.

Research suggests bullying is a result of dissatisfaction with leadership and social climate, of a feeling of powerlessness over one's work and, in particular, a lack of clear goals. Psychologists say that bullying-related resignations could be avoided were managers trained to recognise early indications of conflict.

Several human resources consultancies run courses for bullies and their victims. You can sample the type of programme they offer by visiting www.psm.ie, the website of one such company, PSM (01-6606677).