essay about bullying experience

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My experience of being bullied.

Ever since primary people had always bullied me because I was from another country. I had no friends and everyone isolated me. I cried and cried but I could not find the courage to tell my parents. The teachers ignored me and did not do anything to support me. Soon it got worse and I was blamed for the things I never did. The teachers did not believe me because my bullies acted differently in front of the teachers than they did with me. Several years later I found the courage to tell my parents where they took action and the police was involved in this too. The bullying had stopped but new people started to bully me too. They made fun of my name called me names made fun of my personality and the way I spoke people also laughed at me and pointed at me. I was always picked last on sport teams despite being good at sports. I would even get isolated and people would ignore me.

People called me retarded but when I told the teachers they got attention from other people and somehow even though I was the victim it was put against me. Rumors were spread about me and nobody was there to support me except my parents. Eventually everything ended as I moved schools in another town to a school where I had actually became popular and had lots of friends. But everything ended once again as everyone moved their separate paths in Secondary school.

I had started in a class which I liked and where I had two friends. But then I was moved to another class for whatever reason I cannot remember. I had made friends with two girls but they eventually found a better friend and started ignoring me and isolating me even spreading rumors about me and laughing at me. I accidentally came upon a friend when I was picked for a school team. She sat beside me and we had a good conversation. From then on as time began to pass we became best friends and would do everything together there was even a time where I had forgotten all of my pain and misery and I was actually starting to enjoy life.

But life did not go so smoothly. Problems came upon me and I made several mistakes in my life once of those where my haters took the advantage over my life. The only important and special person I had in my school was my best friend she was always there for me when I needed her. But eventually my haters came up with a plan to separate us and to leave me all alone in the shadows. By that time I also started to fail my exams and had personal problems I was lost in the world. My biggest mistake yet was to ask my friend for space. I did not want her to follow my footsteps the only thing I wanted for her was to have a good time and to be popular and to make a path for her own self instead of following me everywhere. Rumors were spread about me by my haters and my best friend had taken a liking upon them. I tried fixing my mistakes by apologizing to her but that wasn’t enough my haters would always interfere and she had no time to have a proper talk with me anymore.

But I too wasn’t a saint and I was friends with her ex best friend her enemy but that was only because she left me no choice. I accidentally told her enemy something I shouldn’t have and she got in trouble for it. But she managed to forgive me and we became friends again. But time went by and she started to ignore me even when I was nice to her. Strange occurring also took place in the school. My book had gone missing and someone had wrote my name all over the school furniture. I confronted her but she replied in a way in which I was convinced it was her but she had also hurt my feelings.

I had done my best to look alright through the time she ignored me and hurt me. Day and day again she would ignore me and walk off with my haters. My haters would brag about all the good times they had and how they were becoming best friends. One day I heard two boys calling out my name. They told me that my friend had called me bad names. I was very convinced therefore I confronted her and told her I did not want to be her friend anymore..I even told her I would tell the whole school of her secret but honestly deep within I was never planning to do that. I just felt so hurt being ditched by a person who meant so much to me. My hater pretended to be the hero and told me to never do this to any of her friends or else. My hater told on me and so did my friend.

The principal investigated and found out it was my hater who said those mean things…I asked her to explain to my friend. But she probably explained for her own advantage. I was going to apologize to my friend the following week but I became ill and was not able to attend school. Upon coming back I had discovered that my best friend had teamed up with them completely and they had even had so many great times. In school I do not have any friends and I can call myself a loner. I wish this did not happen and I wish everything was how it used to be but life does not flow smoothly. Upon facing deep depression and hatred from people I eventually started focusing more on school and my after school life. I had joined several clubs outside of school and I took a huge liking to studying.

Eventually little by little I had managed to recover although facing depression and hatred from people I had managed to start sticking up for myself and being able to look on the bright side of life. Life is sure unfair sometimes but there is always a chance for tomorrow. Life is not about failing and falling it’s about being able to stand up and to try again no matter how many times it takes to achieve something. Practice makes perfect and hard efforts are always rewarded.

I may be a loner in school and I may have no friends but that does not mean I have no friends outside of school. I always find something to do when I have nothing to do in school. At break I sometimes tend to study in a classroom. Everyday at break time I go and buy lunch and sit with people. After eating I organize my locker. Sometimes I help out a teacher with errands around the school and things as such. I also like to read books. Although my life is not the best I am very grateful to myself for being able to be there for myself. No matter how tough life gets I will always have the courage to endure it. It’s not always about friends and popularity. It’s about yourself and being able to be who you truly are. I will never give up and I shall always strive to try my best and no matter how long it takes I will always keep trying until I succeed for that is my way of life.

Bullying Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on bullying.

Bullying refers to aggressive behavior so as to dominate the other person. It refers to the coercion of power over others so that one individual can dominate others. It is an act that is not one time, instead, it keeps on repeating over frequent intervals.  The person(s) who bullies others can be termed as bullies, who make fun of others due to several reasons. Bullying is a result of someone’s perception of the imbalance of power.

Types of bullying :

There can be various types of bullying, like:

• Physical bullying:  When the bullies try to physically hurt or torture someone, or even touch someone without his/her consent can be termed as physical bullying .
• Verbal bullying:  It is when a person taunts or teases the other person.
• Psychological bullying:  When a person or group of persons gossip about another person or exclude them from being part of the group, can be termed as psychological bullying.
• Cyber bullying:  When bullies make use of social media to insult or hurt someone. They may make comments bad and degrading comments on the person at the public forum and hence make the other person feel embarrassed. Bullies may also post personal information, pictures or videos on social media to deteriorate some one’s public image.

Read Essay on Cyber Bullying

Bullying can happen at any stage of life, such as school bullying, College bullying, Workplace bullying, Public Place bullying, etc. Many times not only the other persons but the family members or parents also unknowingly bully an individual by making constant discouraging remarks. Hence the victim gradually starts losing his/her self-esteem, and may also suffer from psychological disorders.

A UNESCO report says that 32% of students are bullied at schools worldwide. In our country as well, bullying is becoming quite common. Instead, bullying is becoming a major problem worldwide. It has been noted that physical bullying is prevalent amongst boys and psychological bullying is prevalent amongst girls.

Prevention strategies:

In the case of school bullying, parents and teachers can play an important role. They should try and notice the early symptoms of children/students such as behavioral change, lack of self-esteem, concentration deficit, etc. Early recognition of symptoms, prompt action and timely counseling can reduce the after-effects of bullying on the victim.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Anti-bullying laws :

One should be aware of the anti-bullying laws in India. Awareness about such laws may also create discouragement to the act of bullying amongst children and youngsters. Some information about anti-bullying laws is as follows:

• Laws in School: To put a notice on the notice board that if any student is found bullying other students then he/she can be rusticated. A committee should be formed which can have representatives from school, parents, legal, etc.
• Laws in Colleges: The government of India, in order to prevent ragging , has created guideline called “UGC regulations on curbing the menace of ragging in Higher Education Institutions,2009”.
• Cyber Bullying Laws: The victim can file a complaint under the Indian Penal Code .

Conclusion:

It is the duty of the parents to constantly preach their children about not bullying anyone and that it is wrong. Hence, if we, as a society need to grow and develop then we have to collectively work towards discouraging the act of bullying and hence make our children feel secure.

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5 Essays About Bullying

There have always been bullies, but in more recent years, society has become more aware of the impacts of bullying. With the rise of the internet and social media, cyberbullying has also become a serious issue. In 2018, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics reported that ⅓ of young teens worldwide recently experienced bullying. Overall, boys are at a higher risk than girls – 32% compared to 28%. However, in countries with the most incidents of bullying, girls experienced more. Bullying can drive young people to suicide, self-harm, and other tragic consequences. Here are five essays that shed light on the issue:

“The Origins of Bullying”

Author: Hogan Sherrow  | From: Scientific American Sherrow opens his guest post on the Scientific American blog with the story of Jamey Rodemeyer. At age 14, the teen posted messages online describing the pain he endured from bullying and then took his own life. Sadly, this is not uncommon. In this 2011 essay, Sherrow explores why people bully others. Where does this type of behavior come from? To address bullying effectively, we need to understand the roots of bullying. He first defines bullying and presents evidence that bullying is something found in every culture. Sherrow describes it as a “part of the human condition.” Things take a turn into other species as Sherrow asks the question, “Is bullying unique to humans?” Based on research, bullying-like behaviors are found in other animals, including other primates.

This essay presents interesting scientific research on the root of bullying and how it’s evolved in humans. Hogan Sherrow is an assistant professor of anthropology at Ohio University and the director of the Hominid Behavior Research project.

“Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem”

Author: Taylor Lorenz | From: The Atlantic This essay opens up with the story of someone who experienced Instagram harassment. At age 14, Brandon joined Instagram to share about his life and rare condition. Soon, he was bombarded with hateful messages, including death threats. It ruined his high school experience. Brandon’s story is just one of countless others where people – often very young teens – are bullied through Instagram. The platform does not have a good track record on monitoring or addressing the bullying. This contrasts sharply with the polished image it projects and markets itself with. While sites like Youtube and Twitter have had bigger dealings with harassment, Instagram seems like an oasis for the internet. What is it doing exactly? According to users who have faced horrific threats, not much. Author Taylor Lorenz is a former staff writer for The Atlantic.

“Shame and Survival”

Author: Monica Lewinsky | From: Vanity Fair Bullying often occurs in a bubble, like a middle school or a social media site, but for Monica Lewinsky, the harassment played out on a much larger scale. In 1998, the 24-year old became the center of a presidential scandal. There were countless jokes made at her expense. Even while Bill Clinton emerged relatively unscathed, the shame followed Lewinsky for years. In this feature from 2014, she recounts her experience with public humiliation, how difficult it was to move on, and the concern she feels for young people today as cyberbullying becomes so prevalent. The essay is a great example of the long-term impact of humiliation on a national scale. Monica Lewinsky is a TV personality, former fashion designer, speaker, and social activist.

“Bullying In the Age of Trump”

By: Emily Bazelon | From: The New York Times Published in November 2016, this op-ed takes a brief look at how bullying evolved with the election of Donald Trump. The Southern Poverty Law Center tracks harassment and hate speech. Since President Trump’s election, they’ve reported a surge in bullying incidents. What this teaches us is that while bullying is always around, it can increase based on what’s going on in the culture. When someone who exhibits classic bullying behavior is put in a position of power, it sends the message that their behavior is acceptable. Emily Bazelon is the author of “Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Character and Empathy” and a staff writer for the New York Times Magazine.

“Bullying has an impact that lasts years” 

By: Anita Sethi | From: The Guardian Written in recognition of Anti-Bullying Week, this piece describes the author’s personal experience with bullying and its lasting effects. As a child, Sethi experienced physical and emotional bullying. How bullies use language can be the most hurtful. The first thing they often do is take a victim’s name, so dehumanizing them is easier. Years after the bullying, a person’s mental health can suffer lasting consequences. What can be done? Teaching empathy is key. Anita Sethi is a writer, journalist, and contributor to Three Things I’d Tell My Younger Self.

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Bullying — Overcoming Bullying: My Journey to Self-Confidence

Overcoming Bullying: My Journey to Self-confidence

• Categories: Bullying Personal Experience

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Words: 407 |

Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 407 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

My experience with bullying, finding inner strength and self-confidence, steps to building self-confidence, a challenging but rewarding journey.

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Articles & Advice > College Admission > Blog

How to Write About Bullying in Your College Essay

Bullying is a sensitive subject you may feel isn't good for your college essay, but here's how and why it could be a great application essay topic for you.

by Kim Lifton President, Wow Writing Workshop

Last Updated: Sep 27, 2023

Originally Posted: Nov 10, 2020

October was National Bullying Awareness Month, and although it has come and gone, anytime is a good time to address such an important issue and answer a question we get asked often: Is it okay to write about sensitive topics like bullying in your college essay? Of course it is. You can write about bullying, coming out, political opinions, death and loss, depression, anxiety, drugs, religion, or any other sensitive topic in your college essay. In fact, you can write anything you want as long as you have a good reason for doing so. But let’s focus on bullying and the ways you can comfortably and impactfully address the topic.

Telling your story

To be effective in your college essay—no matter the topic—you must answer the prompt, show insight, and share something meaningful that colleges might not learn elsewhere in your application. Here are two questions to help you decide if writing about a topic like bullying will work for you:

• Why are you telling this story about bullying?
• What do you want colleges to take away about you after reading your story about bullying? 

Let me give you some context. A few years back, I worked with a young woman on a package of college essays for multiple schools. She chose to tell a story about bullying to answer the fourth Common Application essay prompt : Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.  

This was the perfect prompt for her topic; she wanted to share something about herself through a challenge she had experienced. She wrote a beautiful story about teaching a five-year-old camper how to handle a bully, connecting to her camper because she was also bullied during middle school. Her story showcased problem-solving skills, kindness, and empathy. 

Related: Mental Health: What It Is and How You Can Find Help  

What her essay did right

This student’s story highlighted growth and learning related to her own experience being bullied. To write her story effectively, she focused on what was learned, not how she was forced to learn it, and how she used what she learned to help one of her campers confront her own bully. In her story, she:

• Answered the prompt
• Showed insight
• Shared something meaningful to her
• Highlighted a positive trait or characteristic  

This student explained in gorgeous detail what the problem was that she cared about (teaching a camper how to cope with a girl who was mean to her) and how she helped solve the challenge (helping the camper ignore the mean girl). The key to this successful essay: She didn’t focus on the bullying; instead, she focused on her personal growth and problem-solving skills—something she learned through her own experiences back in middle school. This showcased to admission officers that she learned a lot from a difficult time in her life when she faced insecurities while hanging out with people who were mean to her. And she had grown significantly from that hard time.

This student got into her first-choice college (a highly selective public university) with a fabulous application that included a personal statement focused on a topic that some well-meaning adults might call too sensitive or controversial.

What to keep in mind as you write your college essay

As you make decisions about your own college application essay topics , consider that no topic is off limits if you handle it appropriately. And as you begin the process, always keep in mind:

• What you’re writing about: A story about you (not about bullying or any other controversial topic)
• Who you’re writing for: College admission representatives
• Why you’re writing it: 1) To illustrate something meaningful about yourself; 2) To demonstrate how you think; 3) To help admission officers round out your application package; and 4) To show that this college is a good fit for you and vice versa

Your essay should also be:

• Specific : Don’t write about your entire summer working on a construction site. Choose an important moment or other small piece of that experience, then demonstrate why that moment matters.
• Clear : Speak in your own voice. Don’t try to be funnier, smarter, or more creative than you actually are. Make sure you sound like you .
• Direct : Say what you mean in plain language. This ties back to “don’t try to sound smarter.” Throwing in fancy vocabulary you’ve never used before will only sound inauthentic.
• Unique : Even if your experience seems mundane, the fact that it happened to you makes it unique.

Related: What NOT to Do in Your College Application Essay

Focus on your traits and not just a topic

Too many students get hung up on the topic of their college essay long before they’re even ready to start the application process . They look for huge topics they think will attract attention or activities that might lead to stories, and they devote a lot of time talking about their experiences and accomplishments. That’s why college essays seem so difficult. Students start in the middle without even knowing they skipped the first part of the process.

Have you been thinking about what makes a great topic? Because bullying or coming out or similar subjects are only good topics if you can reflect on them. Do you think you know what you’re going to write about? If so, slow down. What do you want colleges to know about you if you did get bullied? Did it change you? Have you learned anything from that bad experience? Take two steps backward if you plan to start your college essay with a certain situation in mind. Instead, focus on a few traits and qualities that make you great. How would you describe yourself?

• Are you kind? Funny?
• Are you resourceful? Curious?
• Are you industrious? Patient?
• Are you compassionate? Competitive? 

Determine what your best qualities are and how you want to highlight them, then choose a topic or experience you believe will allow you to do just that. Think about my student, the young woman who taught a camper how to face a bully. She knew how because she had been bullied herself. She’s resilient. She’s a problem-solver. She’s mature—and so very kind. If you follow this advice and put the topic aside while you focus instead on your own traits and characteristics, you’ll hit your college essay right out of the ballpark.

Related: Now Is the Time to Start Your College Essay

The college essay is a hurdle all applicants have to face, and students are often afraid to touch on sensitive topics—but it’s absolutely okay as long as you remember your end goal: sharing something with the admission committee that will show them who you really are and why you belong at their school. Focus on what you learned about yourself from the hard experience you want to write about and how it made you grow, and college admission counselors will surely see you for all you’re worth.

For more expert advice on how to write your best college essay, check out our College Admission—Application Essay Clinic section.

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About Kim Lifton

Kim Lifton is President and Co-founder of  Wow Writing Workshop , which teaches students and educational professionals a simple, step-by-step process for writing effective college essays so they can stand out and tell their stories. Kim supervises a team of writers and teachers who understand the writing process inside and out. Since 2009, Wow has been leading the college admissions industry with their unique approach to communicating messages effectively through application essays, including personal statements, activity and short-answer essays, and supplements. From Farmington Hills, Michigan, Kim is also a board member of the Michigan Association for College Admission Counseling.

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Essays About Bullying: 12 Ideas For Students

Explore these 12 ideas for essays about bullying to find inspiration for your next writing assignment.

Bullying is on the rise in today’s society, and it can create an imbalance of power between the bully and the victim. This problem is complex, making it a good candidate for essay topics.

According to the National Bullying Prevention Center, one out of every five students reports being bullied. Bullying can happen at school, on the school bus, and even via a student’s phone. However, this behavior is not limited to schools. Bullying can happen in the workplace and the general community and affects people of all ages.

The problem of bullying is not easy to solve, but it is an important matter of human rights. Bullying essays will discuss everything from causes of bullying to solutions. If you need to write an essay about bullying, consider some essay topics. For help with your essays. check out our roundup of best essay checkers !

1. What Contributes to the Rise of CyberBullying

2. why cyber bullying is worse than physical bullying, 3. bullying in schools: are bullying rules effective, 4. is bullying a school issue or a parent issue, 5. the impact of bullying on student academic achievement, 6. how cell phones make bullying into a growing problem, 7. my personal experience as a bullying victim, 8. my personal experience as a bully, 9. what workplace bullying looks like, 10. the impacts of bullying, 11. is bullying an attempt to increase low self-esteem, 12. explore the different types of bullying.

Cyberbullying is a serious problem for today’s parents. Comparitech performed a survey of 1,000 parents to discuss bullying, and 60% of the respondents indicated their children were victims of bullies. One-fifth occurred through social media apps, 7.9% through online video games, 6.8% through other Internet sites, and 11% through text messages. This indicates that bullying behavior shows up through technology regularly.

There are many factors leading to this increase. Increased media use, the isolation and online nature of life during the pandemic, and less parental involvement are just some of these factors. Your essay can explore what contributes to this rise so that parents can understand the risk their children face.

Cyberbullying is a type of bullying that is very invasive. Children and teens cannot get away from their bullies when they are victims of bullying through phones and computers. This makes the bullying more intense and dangerous for some students than when they have a face-to-face bully at school that they can leave behind at the end of the day.

To a bystander, in-person bullying seems more dangerous, but the friends and family members of the victim can’t always see the internal emotional struggle caused by cyberbullying. Your essay could establish that cyberbullying has a more intense effect on bullying victims than other types of bullying. Then, use the essay to support your thesis with statistics and relevant facts.

Looking for more? Check out these essays about cyberbullying .

No school advocates bullying, and most have anti-bullying rules that are supposed to protect students from the effects of bullying. But are these effective? This essay lets you explore what does and does not work to fight bullying in schools.

Suppose you find that some things effectively fight to bully, but other rules are not; you can discuss why. Then, you can give guidance schools can follow to help reduce bullying behaviors.

There is much talk about bullying in high school and elementary school classrooms, but is this an issue for schools to address or parents? Is it a combination of both? This thought can give you a good direction for your bullying essay as you expound on whether you think bullying is an issue for parents or schools to address.

As you research this topic, you will likely conclude that it is both. Then, you can delve into how parents and schools can work together to create anti-bullying programs that effectively reduce aggressive behavior and protect victims. With a cooperative approach, communities often see better success as they work to stop bullying.

Is bullying just a social issue, or does it affect students’ learning ability? According to the American Psychological Association , school bullying is directly linked to lower academic achievement. This means it is both a social issue and an academic issue.

In this essay, you can discuss why bullying affects students academically. You can also look at whether this is a long-term effect or a temporary one. Does the educational impact of bullying stops when the bullying stops, or does it continue through the child’s educational years? These questions have complex answers, making them good topics for your bullying essay.

Increased cell phone use among adolescents is why cyberbullying is on the rise. Your essay can explore this trend by drawing a correlation between cell phone use by children and teens and increased bullying statistics.

For example, in 2013, 19% of third graders had their cell phones. In 2017, that increased to 45%, more than double. Interestingly, three-quarters of the third-graders who exhibited bullying behaviors carried cell phones. You can explore this link more in-depth and suggest limiting bullying and unwanted cell phone activities to help protect children. You might be interested in these articles about racism in schools .

Have you been the victim of a bully? If your essay is personal, you can transform your bullying experience into your essay topic. Make sure that you tie in how your bullying experience helped or hurt you and what you learned from it.

In your essay, don’t be afraid, to be honest. Did your experience as a bullying victim make you stronger or more compassionate? Were there some benefits in addition to the challenges? Dive into these ideas to make a compelling essay.

Everyone makes mistakes, and it may be that you weren’t the bullying victim as a child but the bully. You could create an essay out of this by exploring why you exhibited this aggressive behavior, and you could discuss what made you change.

Be careful with this type of personal essay. You want to be clear that you do not support bullying of any sort but that you were able to learn from your past mistakes. Show how you have grown and improved since your childhood and what you are doing now to help support anti-bullying efforts.

Much of the discussion about bullying focuses on young people, but workplace bullying also happens. Your essay could discuss this form of bullying and how it shows up in a group of employees. This type of bullying is often more subtle than the type seen in middle school and high school classrooms, but it can significantly impact the overall feeling of the workplace.

After looking at how workplace bullying appears, you can also discuss how this form of harassment impacts workers and their mental health. You can end the essay by discussing bullying prevention initiatives employers can implement to limit these behaviors, so workers can feel safe when they clock in each day.

Bullying impacts people in many ways. It can lead to low self-esteem and poor mental health and damage academic performance or workplace effectiveness.

Build an essay around the impacts of bullying. Weave many statistics into the essay that show how hurtful it is in today’s society. Consider the long-term effects and the short-term ones in your essay, and use it to show why the problem of bullying is such a serious one.

When a child is bullied, you often hear well-meaning teachers or parents tell them that the bully is simply eating because they have low self-esteem, and taunting or name-calling makes them feel better about themselves. Is this true? You could explore this as your essay to determine if it is.

Research has shown that it is less a sense of self-esteem and more a sense of shame that leads to bullying incidents. When a young person does not live up to their standards, they feel shame, and that shame can cause them to lash out at others so that they can share the shame. This negative behavior takes attention away from the parts of them they feel shame about, which can significantly lessen the feeling of shame.

Bullying is not limited to sending mean text messages or teasing. It can take many forms , and discussing these can make an interesting essay. Explore each, and then discuss their impact on the victim and why the many types make bullying a challenging problem to solve.

Verbal bullying occurs when people call other people names or tease and taunt them. Physical bullying involves hitting, punching, pinching, or pushing the victim. Social or relational bullying is a more covert form that happens behind the back of the victim, including spreading rumors about them or making mean faces at them. Cyberbullying involves bullying using computers, phones, or other electronic devices.

If you are interested in learning more, check out our essay writing tips !

Nicole Harms has been writing professionally since 2006. She specializes in education content and real estate writing but enjoys a wide gamut of topics. Her goal is to connect with the reader in an engaging, but informative way. Her work has been featured on USA Today, and she ghostwrites for many high-profile companies. As a former teacher, she is passionate about both research and grammar, giving her clients the quality they demand in today's online marketing world.

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Bullying Experiences, Depression, and the Moderating Role of Resilience Among Adolescents

1 Department of Leisure Industry and Health Promotion, National Taipei University of Nursing and Health Sciences, Taipei, Taiwan

Yu-Ning Chien

2 Master Program of Big Data Analysis in Biomedicine, College of Medicine, Fu Jen Catholic University, New Tapei City, Taiwan

Yi-Hua Chen

3 School of Public Health, College of Public Health, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan

4 Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli County, Taiwan

Hung-Yi Chiou

Associated data.

Data are available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to H-YC, wt.ude.umt@uoihcyh .

Introduction

Resilience refers to the ability to adapt to difficult situation or adversity. Resilience is what gives people the psychological strength to cope with stress and hardship. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between resilience and bullying victimization and mental health problems. But whether the moderating effect of resilience against depression varies among victims of different types of bullying victimization remains unknown.

The study used data from the Taiwan Adolescent to Adult Longitudinal Study (TAALS), which was a school based, nationwide, longitudinal study conducted among adolescents in Taiwan. Between 2015 and 2019, the survey was repeated three times to capture changes in health behaviors. Meanwhile, our study is a cross-sectional study focusing on the 2nd follow-up survey of the TAALS, where we recruited 4,771 Grade 7 (12–13 years) and Grade 10 (15–16 years) students who had experienced bullying at school.

This study confirms the protective effect of resilience on depression among adolescents who have experienced bullying. The mode resilience score was used as a reference group. Compared to the reference group, victims of verbal bullying from the lowest resilience group were at the greatest risk of depression (OR = 5.91, CI = 4.38–7.99). Compared to the reference group, victims of cyber bullying from the highest resilience group had the lowest risk of depression (OR = 0.72, CI = 0.57–0.90).

Regardless of the type of bullying victimization, resilience has been shown to offer protection against depression. Specifically, higher resilience levels offer the greatest protection against depression for victims of cyber bullying compared to other three types of bullying victimization. Early interventions to reduce negative effects of bullying victimization may start with increasing an individual's resilience during adolescence.

Adolescence is a critical period of development and the start of the transition to adulthood. One important reason for evaluating young people's experiences of bullying and being victimized by bullies is these experiences have significant associations with a range of mental health problems ( 1 , 2 ). Being bullied during adolescence is a common, distressing and preventable experience and has been associated with mental illness, substance misuse, and suicide risk in adulthood ( 3 – 5 ). Bullying can take many forms including physical violence, name calling, social exclusion, spreading rumors, and sending insulting or threatening online messages. Exposure to violence has been associated with severe and permanent mental health problems; such as low self-esteem, depression or anxiety, antisocial or disruptive behaviors, academic failure, or self-harm ( 6 – 8 ). Violence here is defined as direct physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and perceptions of neighborhood violence ( 6 , 8 ). Studies have suggested that victims of bullying not only have a high risk of developing depression or anxiety but are also likely to commit self-harm ( 9 , 10 ). Several studies have estimated that approximately 20–35% of adolescents have had at least one experience of bullying, victimization, or both ( 11 , 12 ). In Taiwan, a recent study estimated that ~19% of junior high school students in Taiwan have experienced violence in school ( 13 ). The high prevalence of bullying in schools in Taiwan has prompted calls for Taiwan's government to develop a policy response to prevent bullying in schools.

Although bullying has been strongly correlated with mental health problems among adolescents, some positive psychological traits like “resilience” and “positive-thinking personality” may be protective during stressful circumstances and prevent adolescents from developing mental health problems following a bullying episode ( 14 ). Resilience comes from the accumulation of positive interactions with family members, peers, neighbors, and the community, rather than being an inherent personality trait ( 14 , 15 ). Resiliency theory provides a conceptual framework for understanding why youths grow up to be healthy adults despite exposure to adversity ( 16 – 18 ). Resiliency focuses on positive contextual, social, and individual variables that interfere with the developmental trajectories from adversity to problematic behaviors, mental distress, and poor health outcomes. These positive contextual, social, and individual variables are known as promotive factors, work in opposition to adversity, and help youth to overcome negative effects of adversity exposure ( 19 , 20 ). The two types of promotive factors identified by Fergus and Zimmerman ( 19 ) are assets and resources. Self-efficacy or problem-solving skill are known as positive factors reside within individuals. On the other hand, resources are referred to factors outside individuals such as social support, family support, interpersonal skills, mentorship programs that provide opportunities for youth to learn and practice skills ( 21 ). For instance, in a cross-sectional study conducted by Santos et al., it analyzed resilience as a protective factor against the development of depression symptoms and decreased satisfaction with life among victims of cyberbullying ( 22 ). In a meta-analysis, resilience was found to correlate negatively with anxiety and depression, but positively with positive indicators of mental health and life satisfaction ( 23 ). Adolescents with higher resilience appear to have better outcomes after encountering adversity than adolescents with lower resilience. Resilient individuals bounce back from stressful events more quickly and effectively ( 24 ).

Previous studies have investigated the relationship between resilience and bullying victimization and various mental health problems including depression, suicide, or psychiatric disorders. Many studies have shown that adolescents exposed to violence are more likely to have adverse outcomes in adulthood including mental health problems and suicidal thoughts ( 8 , 25 ). Resilience is likely to be a recovery mechanism that restores individuals' emotional status back to normal after experiencing adversity or stress ( 26 ). Other studies have shown that resilience can be strengthened by other protective factors like self-esteem and social support ( 27 , 28 ).

Many studies have indicated that resilience is negatively related to bullying and cyberbullying, and it moderates the relation between bullying victimization and youths' negative mental health outcomes. For instance, Zhou et al. ( 29 ) found resilience is an important factor that mediates the relationship between bullying victimization and childhood depression. Huang and Mossige ( 30 ) found that resilience has a significant negative association with poor mental health, and also moderates the negative relation between poly-victimization and young people's mental health. Many recent studies investigating the effect of resilience on mental health have some limitations. For instance, many studies have focused on estimating whether resilience can reduce mental health problems following bullying but few studies have examined if the interaction between resilience, bulling, and mental health problems varies by the type of bullying victimizations ( 31 ). Secondly, previous studies have mostly evaluated the mean effect of resilience without considering the range of different resilience levels that bullying victims have. Different levels of resilience may exert different modifying effects on mental illness and psychological distress following bullying. Resilience also showed significant correlation with positive mental health indicators such as life satisfaction and perceived wellbeing ( 32 – 34 ). One study examined late adolescents' resilience as a moderator of the relationship between poly-bullying victimization and subjective wellbeing ( 35 ). Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine whether resilience plays a protective role in preventing depression among bullying victims and whether the extent of protection differs depending on the type of bullying victimization and resilience level.

Study Design and Participants

The present study used data from the Taiwan Adolescent to Adult Longitudinal Study (TAALS) ( 36 ), which was a school-based, nationally representative, longitudinal study conducted among adolescents between 2015 and 2019. A multistage stratified sampling approach with probability proportional to size sampling was applied to obtain a nationally representative sample of adolescents. The baseline survey for the TAALS was conducted in 2015, and between 2015 and 2019 the survey was repeated three times. During the first wave of the cohort study (Wave 1), 6,903 junior high school students and 11,742 high school students were interviewed, for a total of 18,645 students. Among those 18,645 students, in the second wave of the cohort study (our present study), 4,771 students Grade 7 students (age range: 12–13) and Grade 10 students (age range: 15–16) were identified as ever had bullying experience at school. Bullying experiences were defined as “pure-targets” and “target-perpetrators.” Target-perpetrators refers to participants who were not only bullied but also bullied others. The questionnaire used for the TAALS was developed through a systematic review of multiple large-scale international youth studies. The TAALS was a cohort study funded by Taiwan's Health Promotion Administration (HPA) and our access to the TAALS dataset was granted by the HPA. The original data collection for the TAALS study and our subsequent analysis of the survey results were both approved by the Joint Institutional Review Board of Taipei Medical University, Taiwan (TMU-JIRB-201410043).

Measurement of Depressive Symptom

Depressive symptoms were evaluated using the Chinese version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Short Depression Scale (CES-D) ( 37 ). Shrout and Yager ( 38 ) had examined the sensitivity and specificity of the 5, 10, and 20-item versions of CES-D scale and found the sensitivity and specificity of the 5-item CES-D scale was similar to those of the full 20-item scale. Previous studies have also suggested that researchers can select CES-D items with the highest factor loading through factor analysis. Therefore, we used factor analysis to select 5 items with the 5 highest factor loadings from the 10-item CES-D scale. Depressive symptoms experienced in the past seven days was evaluated using the following questions: (1) I did not feel like eating; my appetite was poor; (2) I could not get “going;” (3) I felt depressed; (4) I felt everything I did was an effort; (5) I felt lonely. The 5-point scale was validated by an internal expert committee meeting who reviewed the validity of different versions of the CES-D scale and selected the final version of the survey. The five-item scale was found to have a high internal consistency with a Cronbach α value of 0.79. Finally, item responses were rated on a four-point Likert scale ranging from 0 to 3 and the sum of all the responses was used to calculate a total score, which ranged from 0 to 15. Participants who obtained a score ≥ 7 were considered to have depression.

Measurement of Resilience

The questionnaire used to evaluate resilience level was adapted from the Chinese version of the Inventory of Adolescent Resilience (IAR), which is a 28-item questionnaire that was used in a previous study to assess resilience levels among Taiwanese 7 and 9th grade students ( 39 ). The IAR contains 4 dimensions: problem solving and cognitive maturity, hope and optimism, empathy and interpersonal interaction, and emotional regulation. In addition to the expert evaluation, like Shrout and Yager ( 38 ), we applied factor analysis to select three questions with the highest factor loadings from each of the four dimensions, resulting in 12 questions for the entire survey. The twelve questions used to measure resilience are: “I can solve problems in an organized way,” “I am an optimistic person,” “I can control my emotion when being upset by others,” “I can find effective solutions to the problems, “I am an outgoing person,” “I choose not to react to the people who make fun of me,” “When I'm upset, I usually can quickly return to peace,” “I can make myself happy,” “I can make others feel warm and willing to share emotions and feelings with me,” “I don't give up easily when encountering setbacks,” “I can treat others with kindness and generosity.” These 12 questions were used to measure resilience level and all questions reached a good internal consistency (Cronbach's α coefficient of 0.84). Responses were rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4 (strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree) and the sum was used to calculate a total score. A higher score indicated that a participant is more resilient.

Measurement of Bullying Victimization

Participants' bullying experiences and type of bullying victimization were determined in this study. We modified the assessment tool developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called “Measuring Bullying Victimization, Perpetration, and Bystander Experiences” ( 40 ) to determine whether participants had been exposed to bullying at school during the past 6 months. We used the following four questions to assess participants' bullying experience during the past 6 months: “I was pushed, shoved, slapped, or kicked by other students,” “I was teased by other students,” “I was ignored or felt left out of activities or games on purpose,” and “Some pictures or words were posted online, (through email, computer text message, or Facebook), by someone else to make others laugh.” Each question was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 0 being “Never” to 4 being “Always.” If students scored 1–4 for one of the questions, they were identified as victims. In addition, we adopted a similar approach to identify students' bullying victimization type. For example, if participants scored 1–4 on the question “I was pushed, shoved, slapped, or kicked by other students,” they were identified as being a victim of physical bullying. If participants scored 1–4 on the question “I was teased by other students,” they were identified as being a victim of verbal bullying. If participants scored 1–4 on the question “I was ignored or felt left out of activities or games on purpose,” they were identified as being a victim of relational bullying. Finally, if participants scored 1–4 on the question “Some pictures or words were posted online by someone else to make others laugh,” they were identified as being a victim of cyber bullying.

Measurement of Social and Family Support

The level of peer support was quantified using a 5-item questionnaire developed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ( 40 ). Questions used to access peer support during the past 6 months included “My classmates/friends truly care about things that happened to me,” “When I am in need for help, my classmates/friends will help me,” “I have classmates/friends that I can trust,” “My classmates/friends care about my feelings,” “My classmates/friends only care about themselves,” and “My classmates/friends think that I'm not good enough.” Responses were rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (None of them) to 3 (All of them) and summed up to calculate the total score. The total score ranged from 0 to 15, and the higher score indicated stronger peer support. The level of perceived support from family was measured by the 6-item questionnaire adapted from the 40-item Inventory of Socially Supportive Behaviors (ISSB) ( 41 ). The questions used to access family support during the past 3 months included: “My family members understand and support my decisions and behaviors,” “My family members are willing to listen when I need to vent about something,” “When I'm feeling down, my family members will talk to me and encourage me,” “My family members will fully support me regardless the cost when is necessary,” “When I encounter some problems, my family members will share their solutions with me,” and “When I need to make a decision, my family members will discuss and share their ideas with me.” Responses were rated on a 4-point scale ranging from 0 (Never) to 3 (Always) and summed up to calculate the total score. The total score ranged from 0 to 18, and the higher score represented more family support received.

Confounders

Sex, academic grade level, family support, and peer support were measured at baseline and were incorporated as potential confounders in both the regression and the RCS models. Additionally, socioeconomic factors including mother's highest level of education achieved (junior high school graduate or below, senior high school graduate, or University graduate), mother's ethnicity (Chinese/Aboriginal/immigrant), father's employment status (full-time, part-time, unemployed), and household structure (live with parents and grandparents, live with parents, live with only grandparents, live with collateral relatives) are also important confounders affecting an individual's resilience level, and were adjusted in both the regression and the RCS models.

Statistical Analysis

Descriptive statistics were used to describe individual and socioeconomic characteristics among participants with and without depression. Differences in bullying experience (pure targets/target-perpetrators), bullying victimization type, resilience level, mother's ethnicity, mother's education level, father's employment status, household structure were evaluated using a chi-square test. Because there are currently no universal cutoff values available to define levels of resilience, we therefore took an approach of dividing the resilience scores into six groups according to centiles. The six levels of resilience were classified as the following: ≤ 10th percentile (resilience score ≤ 28), 11–20th percentile (resilience scores between 29 and 31), 21–40th percentile (resilience scores between 32 and 34), 41–60th percentile (resilience scores between 35 and 37), 61–80th percentile (resilience scores between 38 and 41), and ≥80th percentile (resilience scores ≥ 42). In order to capture any change in the protective effect from different levels of resilience against depression, two methods were used: a logistic regression model and a restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression model ( 42 ). First, we divided resilience levels into six categories by percentile and performed a logistic regression to evaluate the odds ratio of depression among all participants being bullied at school ( Table 2 ). Next, we performed another logistic regression to evaluate the association between resilience level and depression stratified by bullying victimization type (i.e., physical, verbal, relational, and cyber bullying victimization) ( Table 3 ). Since logistic regression models are unable to capture the continuous changes of non-linear factor (i.e., resilience), we performed a restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression to examine the association between resilience and depression among bullied participants ( Figure 1 ). Next, the association between resilience level and depression stratified by bullying victimization types was also analyzed by the RCS regression ( Figure 2 ). All statistical analyses were conducted using STATA 12 statistical software and results were considered significant at p < 0.05.

Odds ratios of depression stratified by different resilience scores among victims of bullying. The odds ratios were calculated using a Restricted Cubic Spline (RSC) regression model, adjusted for gender, age, peer support, family support, mother's ethnicity, mother's education, father's employment status, and household structure. The reference group was defined at the 50 th percentile resilience level, which included all the resilience scores from 36 to 37.

Odds ratio of depression stratified by resilience score and type of bullying victimization. (A) Physical bullying victimization. (B) Verbal bullying victimization. (C) Relational bullying victimization. (D) Cyber bullying Victimization. The odds ratios were calculated by the Restrict Cubit Spline (RCS) Regression model, adjusted by gender, age, peer support, family support, mother's ethnicity, mother's education, father's employment status, and household structure. Reference group was defined at the 50 th percentile resilience level, which included all the resilience scores from 36 to 37.

Participants Baseline Characteristics

Participants' characteristics at baseline are presented in Table 1 . Among the 4,771 participants there were slightly more participants from Grade 10 than from Grade 7 students (53 vs.47%), and more male than female participants (53 vs. 48%). There were more target-perpetrators than pure targets (71 vs. 29%) and verbal bullying victimization was most common among the four types of bullying victimization (77.2%). Most of the participants had a resilience level at 21–40th and 61–80th percentiles (21.4 and 20.8%), most lived with their parents (75%), and had their father working full-time (83%). Among all the variables, sex, type of bullying victimization, resilience level, father's employment status, household structure, and social support (i.e., peer and family support) were significantly different in participants with depression compared to those without depression. The results showed no significant difference in bullying experience, mother's ethnicity, and mother's education level among participants with depression compared to participants without depression.

Baseline characteristics among victims of bullying with and without depression.

***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. The bold values are referring to those with statistical significance .

Association Between Resilience Level and Depression

For our regression models, we used the 41–60th percentile resilience level group as the reference group. In the crude model, lower resilience levels, (i.e., ≤ 10th percentile, 11–20th percentile, and 21–40th percentile), were significantly associated with an increased risk of depression when compared to the reference group. In addition, higher resilience levels, (i.e., 61–80th percentile and ≥80th percentile), were associated with a reduced risk of depression when compared to the reference group, however the results were not significant. In the final adjusted model, (adjusting for grade level, age, peer support, family support, mother's ethnicity, mother education, father's employment status, and household structure), similar findings were observed where lower resilience levels were significantly associated with increased risk of depression compared to the reference group. Higher resilience levels were associated with a reduced risk of depression compared to the reference group although the association was not significant ( Table 2 ).

Odds ratio of depression stratified by different resilience levels among victims of bullying.

The crude model was a simple logistic regression. The adjusted model was adjusted for gender, age, peer support, family support, mother's ethnicity, mother's education, father's employment status, and household structure. Robust standard deviation was used. A trend test was also completed to examine if resilience score (from low to high) as a continuous variable, has a trend effect on depression and the effect was found to be significant (p-trend = < 0.0001). ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05 .

Association Between Resilience Level and Depression Stratified by Bullying Victimization Type

We investigated whether the type of victimization plays a role in the association between resilience level and depression. Among all four types of bullying victimization, as the resilience level increased, the risk of depression significantly decreased when compared to the reference group (i.e., 41–60th percentile). Additionally, for all types of bullying victimization, the highest resilience level (≥80 percentile) was associated with a reduced risk of depression compared to the reference group, although the association was not significant ( Table 3 ).

Odds ratio of depression stratified by resilience level and type of bullying victimization among victims of bullying.

Each model was adjusted for gender, age, peer support, family support, mother's ethnicity, mother's education, father's employment status, and household structure. Robust standard deviation was used. A trend test was also performed to examine if resilience score (from low to high) as a continuous variable, has a trend effect on depression. The trend effects in all four models were found to be significant (p = < 0.0001). ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05 .

Odds Ratio of Depression Calculated by Restricted Cubic Spline Regression

The logistic model showed that lower resilience levels were significantly associated with a higher risk of depression when compared to the reference group. However, the results did not show higher resilience levels were significantly associated with a lower risk of depression using a linear logistic model. Since the relationship between resilience and depression may not always be linear, the RCS model was used to examine the association between these two variables. The RCS model demonstrated that higher resilience levels are significantly associated with a lower risk of depression among victims of bullying. Figure 1 shows the odds ratio of depression among participants who were bullied stratified by resilience score. The resilience score at the mode (scores between 36 and 37) was used as reference group to reflect most commonly occurring resilience level among participants. Overall, our results revealed an inverse, non-linear association between higher resilience scores and the risk of depression among bullied participants. Participants who experienced bullying and had a resilience level score of 38 or above had a significantly reduced risk of depression when compared to the reference group. In contrast, participants who experienced bullying and had a resilience level score of 35 or lower had a significantly increased risk of depression when compared to the reference group.

Odds Ratio of Depression at Different Resilience Levels Stratified by Different Types of Victimization

In Figure 2 , we further stratified the participants based on the type of bullying victimization, (i.e., physical, verbal, relational, and cyber victimization), to investigate whether the type of bullying victimization modifies the protective effect that resilience has against depression. Our results showed that for the lowest resilience level group (score 13–22), victims of verbal bullying had the highest risk of depression (OR = 5.91; CI:4.38–7.99), followed by victims of relational bullying (OR = 5.40; CI: 3.87–7.55), victims of physical bullying (OR = 4.92; CI: 3.49–6.92), and victims of cyber bullying (OR = 4.72; CI: 3.21–6.93) compared to at the reference resilience level group for each type of bullying (score 36–37). Furthermore, for the highest resilience group (score 42–43), victims of cyber bullying had the lowest risk of depression (OR = 0.72; CI: 0.57–0.90), followed by victims of relational bullying (OR = 0.74; CI: 0.60–0.91), victims of verbal bullying (OR = 0.77; CI: 0.64–0.93), and victims of physical bullying (OR = 0.82; CI: 0.67–1.00) compared to those from the reference resilience level group for each type of bullying (score 36–37).

This study not only confirms the protective effect resilience has against depression among young adolescents who have experienced bullying; to the best of our knowledge, it is also one of very few studies to investigate whether different types of bullying victimization affect the strength of the protective effect that resilience has on depression. Our results showed that a lower resilience score was significantly associated with a higher risk of depression in both the logistic regression model as well as the RCS model. However, higher resilience scores were significantly associated with a reduced risk of depression only in the RCS model. Furthermore, the highest resilience level offers the greatest protection against depression for victims of cyber bullying compared to victims of other types of bullying victimization. In contrast, the lowest resilience level was associated with the highest risk of developing depression in victims of verbal bullying compared to victims of other types of bullying victimization.

Consistent with previous studies ( 43 , 44 ), our main findings indicate that a lower resilience score is associated with an increased risk of depression, while a higher resilience score appears to be protective for victims of bullying against depression. When we first performed the logistic regression to analyze the association between resilience and depression among adolescents who have experienced bullying, our results showed low resilience levels were significantly associated with an increased risk of depression. High resilience levels, on the other hand, were associated with a decreased risk of depression although the association was not significant. When we further performed a restricted cubic spline (RCS) regression, we observed an inverse, non-linear association between resilience level and risk of depression among adolescents with bullying experience. This inverse, non-linear association was consistent with other studies' findings: adolescents who have experienced bullying, (both pure targets and target-perpetrators), usually have a higher risk of depression and suicidal thoughts ( 45 , 46 ). However, resilience appears to reduce the risk of depression among adolescents who have experienced bullying ( 15 ). The consequences of bullying can be severe and long-lasting and include: lower self-esteem, academic failure, behavior problems, psychosis and feelings of hopelessness ( 47 ). Resilience often refers to the process of adapting well in the face of significant adversity or stress ( 16 ). In many empirical studies, resilience is found to be inversely correlated with indicators of mental illness such as depression, anxiety, and negative emotions, and positively associated with positive indicators of mental wellness, such as subjective wellbeing and positive emotions ( 23 ).

Unlike previous studies that examined bullying in general, our present study studied by type of bullying victimization and examined if different types of bully victimization were associated with different risks of depression. Our results indicated that victims of verbal bullying were at the highest risk of depression, followed by victims of relational bullying, victims of physical bullying, and victims of cyber bullying when the resilience level was below the reference group. This finding was consistent with another similar study examining bullying victimization and adolescent mental health, where they also found individuals reporting more frequent verbal bullying experienced higher levels of depression ( 48 ). According to our findings, resilience appears to provide varying levels of protection based on the type of bullying victimization. Among all four types of bullying victimization, our results showed higher resilience levels, (above reference group), were associated with greater protection against depression for victims of cyber bullying, followed by relational bullying, verbal bullying, and physical bullying. Despite a large number of studies focusing on the relationship between bullying and depression, very few have examined the associations between the type of bullying victimization, resilience, and depression. Additionally, many previous studies have focused primarily on general bullying, (all kinds of bullying experiences), rather than examining each type of bullying victimization separately. Future research is needed to explore why the modifying effect that resilience has on the association between bullying and depression is different based on the types of bullying victimization (i.e., physical/verbal/relational/cyber bullying).

Because our study provides further evidence of the inverse association between resilience level and depression, it is worthwhile to identify the variables that may enhance resilience. A study of young adult American college students, (aged between 18 and 24), concluded that resilient functioning can be improved by individual and environmental protective factors like emotional intelligence (EI), spirituality, and social support ( 43 ). EI is comprised of qualities such as understanding one's feelings, differentiating between emotions, and recognizing the influence that one's emotions may have on others. Such abilities can be trained and enhanced with many cognitive and behavioral therapeutic techniques ( 49 ). Several other studies also have shown that various forms of spirituality, are linked to enhanced resilience ( 50 ). In a review of research on adolescent spirituality and mental health, Wong et al. ( 51 ) found that most studies showed a positive relationship between spirituality and adolescent mental health. Another protective factor associated with resilience is social support. Social support is a key correlate of psychological resilience, and preclinical and clinical research finds that weak social support and isolation are associated with indicators of compromised physical and mental health ( 52 ). Social support often refers to support received from parents and peers. Young people who have a good, supportive relationship with their parents are able to build supportive relationships with friends, which in turn is associated with better psychological wellbeing ( 53 ). However, it has been argued that during adolescence, individuals start spending more unsupervised time with their peers and friends and begin relying upon them more than parents for support ( 54 ). Maintaining positive peer relationships has been shown to be associated with a lower risk of being bullied and limit the severity of any bullying that does occur ( 55 ). In summary, social support plays an essential role in promoting positive outcomes for students who have experienced bullying during adolescence.

Clinical and Policy Implications

The findings from our study have several important clinical and policy implications. First, our results suggest that during adolescence clinical interventions should focus on individuals who seem the most isolated, because low social support was associated with lower resilience and a higher risk of depression. Second, improving resilience level may help prevent mental health problems among students who have experienced bullying. This suggests that intervention programs to enhance resilience levels among adolescents could reduce the risk of depression among adolescents. Since resilience can be enhanced by social support, school administrators could develop educational materials for teachers and academic counselors about the signs of disengagement and what steps can be taken to connect students with support networks ( 43 ). In addition, schools could offer resilience training by introducing classes that focus on teaching students resilience skills such as: positive reinterpretation, humor, active coping, planning and handling problems, seeking help and social support ( 56 ). Next, because higher emotional intelligence (EI) is associated with higher resilience, schools could introduce learning lessons related to cognitive and behavioral change techniques that have been shown to increase EI among students ( 57 ). Finally, since some of the participants enrolled in our study are considered young adolescents (those who were 12–13 years old), they may not be aware of the signs of depression. Young adolescents may benefit from psychoeducational materials that include specific information regarding the signs and symptoms of depression that require medical attention, as well as strategies to improve resilient functioning.

Limitations and Strengths

The main strengths of the study lie in its use of a representative sample of adolescents and the use of standardized and previously validated measures of depressive symptoms. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, our study is also the first study to investigate the interaction among different types of bullying victimization, the risk of depression, and levels of resilience. We found that high resilience is protective against depression, regardless of the type of bullying victimization, and this finding has significant clinical and policy implications.

A primary study limitation here is the lack of consistent conceptualization and unified methodology around the definition and utility of resilience measures ( 58 ). This has hindered comparisons of findings and conclusions from resilience in adolescence research. Therefore, our study could only use the mode of resilience level among our study participants as the reference group in order to estimate the effect of resilience against depression in different resilience level groups, (i.e., resilience level below or above the reference group). Next, we used the cross-sectional data from the TAALS, resulting in a smaller sample size that may not accurately reflect the bullying situation and presence of depression among all adolescents in Taiwan. Additionally, the cross-sectional study design precludes the possibility of investigating potential variability in resilience over time and makes causal inference difficult. Resilience may be more or less protective against depression depending on what other factors are present (i.e., social support, self-esteem, emotional intelligence, etc.). Therefore, further intervention research is needed to clarify the causal relationships between bullying, resilience and depression. Finally, the use of self-reported data may introduce response bias, as some participants may not feel comfortable providing accurate responses to some sensitive items, such as the frequency of bullying experienced at school or the presence of depressive symptoms.

Our study results demonstrate that victims of bullying are at higher risk for depression and that resilience plays an important protective modifying role in the association between bullying victimization and risk of depression. Among the types of bullying victimization examined in this study, higher resilience levels offer the greatest protection against depression for victims of cyber bullying. On the other hand, lower resilience levels are associated with the highest risk of depression for victims of verbal bullying. Therefore, strengthening resilience levels among adolescents is central to promoting long-term positive mental health outcomes. Likewise, efforts to counsel youth experiencing bullying victimization may improve if the type of victimization (i.e., verbal, physical, relational, or cyber) are taken into consideration.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Taipei Medical University. Written informed consent to participate in this study was provided by the participants' legal guardian/next of kin.

Author Contributions

L-YL, Y-NC, and H-YC: conceptualization. Y-NC, Y-HC, and L-YL: methodology. Y-NC, Y-HC, and H-YC: validation. Y-NC: formal analysis. L-YL and Y-NC: investigation, writing—original draft preparation, and writing—review and editing. C-YW and H-YC: data curation. Y-HC and H-YC: supervision. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

The work was supported by the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration (HPA), Ministry of Health and Welfare (Grant Number: MOHW105-HPA-H-114-133708).

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher's Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

This study is a part of the TAALS project, a nationwide survey in Taiwan funded by the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration (HPA), Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW105-HPA-H-114-133708). The authors would like to thank the survey participants for sharing their experiences and the Taiwan Health Promotion Administration for funding and supporting the TAALS study. The authors thank Russell Shean for reviewing the manuscript and providing helpful comments.

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Essay on Bullying

Here we have shared the Essay on Bullying in detail so you can use it in your exam or assignment of 150, 300, 500, or 1000 words.

You can use this Essay on Bullying in any assignment or project whether you are in school (class 10th or 12th), college, or answer writing for competitive exams. 

Topics covered in this article.

Essay on Bullying in 150 words

Essay on bullying in 250-300 words, essay on bullying in 500-1000 words.

Bullying is a serious issue that affects individuals of all ages, particularly in schools and online platforms. It involves repeated aggressive behavior aimed at causing harm, imbalance of power, and psychological distress to the victim. Bullying can take various forms, such as physical, verbal, or relational aggression.

The consequences of bullying are significant and long-lasting. Victims often experience emotional and psychological trauma, leading to decreased self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and even suicidal ideation. Bullying also creates an unhealthy and hostile environment, impacting the overall well-being of individuals and hindering their ability to thrive and learn.

To combat bullying, it is crucial to raise awareness, promote empathy, and foster a culture of respect and inclusivity. Schools and communities should implement anti-bullying policies and provide support systems for both victims and perpetrators. Education on the effects of bullying and the importance of kindness and empathy can help prevent and address this issue effectively. It is everyone’s responsibility to stand up against bullying and create a safe and nurturing environment for all individuals.

Bullying is a harmful and pervasive issue that involves repeated aggressive behavior aimed at causing harm, distress, and power imbalance. It manifests in various forms such as physical, verbal, or relational aggression, primarily affecting individuals in schools.

The consequences of bullying are significant and far-reaching. Victims often experience emotional and psychological trauma, leading to decreased self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and, in extreme cases, suicidal ideation. Bullying not only impacts individual victims but also creates an unhealthy environment that hampers overall well-being and learning.

To combat bullying effectively, awareness and prevention strategies are essential. Raising awareness about the nature and consequences of bullying among students, teachers, parents, and communities is crucial. Implementing comprehensive anti-bullying policies in schools, defining bullying, establishing reporting mechanisms, and imposing appropriate consequences for perpetrators is necessary. Fostering a culture of respect, empathy, and inclusivity can prevent bullying and create a safer environment.

Support systems should be in place for both victims and bullies. Victims need access to counseling and resources to cope with the effects of bullying. Intervention programs and counseling can help bullies develop empathy, address underlying issues, and learn alternative behaviors.

Collaboration between schools, parents, and communities is vital. Open communication, encouraging reporting, and proactive measures are necessary to create a positive and safe environment.

In conclusion, bullying is a harmful issue with severe consequences for individuals and communities. By raising awareness, implementing policies, fostering a culture of respect and empathy, and providing support, we can combat bullying effectively. Together, we can create a society where bullying is not tolerated, and individuals can thrive in safe and inclusive environments.

Title: Bullying – The Menace That Demands Immediate Attention

Introduction :

Bullying is a persistent and alarming issue that plagues individuals across various environments, with schools being a common breeding ground for such behavior. This essay aims to explore the definition and types of bullying, its detrimental effects on victims, the underlying causes, the role of bystanders, and the strategies required to effectively address and prevent bullying.

I. Definition and Types of Bullying

Bullying is a form of repeated and intentional aggression characterized by a power imbalance, where the bully seeks to cause harm, distress, and domination over the victim. It can take various forms, including physical aggression, verbal abuse, relational manipulation, and cyberbullying.

II. Detrimental Effects of Bullying

Bullying has severe consequences for the mental, emotional, and social well-being of victims. It can lead to decreased self-esteem, anxiety, depression, academic decline, school avoidance, and in extreme cases, suicidal ideation or attempts. The long-lasting effects of bullying extend beyond the immediate victim, creating a hostile and unhealthy environment for all individuals involved.

III. Underlying Causes of Bullying

Several factors contribute to the development of bullying behavior. These may include family dynamics, exposure to aggression or violence, a desire for power and control, low empathy levels, and a lack of appropriate social skills. Additionally, societal factors such as media influence and cultural norms may indirectly support or perpetuate bullying behavior.

IV. The Role of Bystanders

Bystanders play a significant role in the bullying dynamic. They can either reinforce the bully’s behavior by passively observing or actively participating, or they can intervene and support the victim. Creating a culture where bystanders feel empowered to speak up against bullying and report incidents is crucial in addressing this issue.

V. Strategies to Address and Prevent Bullying

A. awareness and education, b. establishing clear policies and consequences, c. encouraging reporting and support, d. empathy and social-emotional learning, e. involving the community.

Raising awareness about the detrimental effects of bullying and its various forms is essential. Educational institutions should implement comprehensive anti-bullying programs that educate students, teachers, and parents about the signs of bullying, its impact, and the importance of intervention.

Schools should have well-defined anti-bullying policies that outline the definition of bullying, reporting procedures, and consequences for perpetrators. These policies should be communicated effectively to all stakeholders to create a safe and inclusive environment.

Creating a safe reporting system where victims and witnesses feel comfortable reporting incidents is crucial. Offering support and counseling services for victims, as well as intervention programs for bullies, helps address the underlying issues and promote behavioral change.

Integrating empathy and social-emotional learning programs into the curriculum can foster a culture of respect, kindness, and empathy. Teaching students how to manage emotions, develop healthy relationships, and resolve conflicts peacefully can prevent bullying behavior.

Engaging parents, community members, and local organizations in anti-bullying initiatives fosters a collective effort in addressing this issue. Collaboration between schools, families, and communities is essential to create a comprehensive and sustained approach to bullying prevention.

Conclusion :

Bullying is a deeply concerning issue that inflicts significant harm on individuals and communities. By raising awareness, implementing clear policies, fostering empathy, involving bystanders, and providing support, we can effectively address and prevent bullying. It is our collective responsibility to create safe and inclusive environments where every individual can thrive without fear of aggression or harm. Through concerted efforts, we can eradicate bullying and cultivate a society built on respect, empathy, and equality.

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Best Bullying Essay Examples

Personal experience about bullying.

1012 words | 4 page(s)

As Sharp et al. (107) support, bullying is a situation whereby an individual uses strength to force someone to do an action (Sharp et al., 107). This paper will explore a personal experience about bullying to clearly illustrate what bullying is all about. I walked down the school halls with my head low staring at the ground. I was anxious as fear ran all over my body expecting to hear the sarcastic words again. A long time ago I used to think that a school is supposed to be somewhere where a student will go to have fun and be relaxed as learning process takes place but that wasn’t the case. The halls are raged with memories that will haunt me forever. And when I think of the bullying situation I faced it makes me feel that am at the wrong place at the right time.

“You are fat; you look like an elephant!”. These are the words that keep on rushing through my mind and the fear is kicking in again. A box, a simple box I thought that’s all I needed to hide from everyone. I go home to a strict diet regime that never seemed to work. The shape of my body made me be popularly known in the whole school. My classmates, of course, respected me and some of them even feared me because they thought I was strong enough to tease them. Any time I passed near a junior class all I received was abuses from the senior class members. The senior schoolmates that I found in that school never gave me humble time to enjoy my time in school. I went through hell and embarrassment. Anything I tried to oppose subjected me to a beating and they all took it that I was trying to behave rudely to them because of my body size.

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I remember there is a day I stepped on one of the seniors shows while walking towards my classroom. The student squeezed my neck making me chock like for five minutes. He then crowned it by giving me a heavy slap on my back and shouted fat big! Use your eyes. All I heard was laughing sound from the surrounding classes as some of the students stretched their necks outside through the window to look at me. As I proceeded to my class I the teacher on duty saw me and called me. “It seems you do not have something constructive to do that is why you are bouncing around” he quoted. I wish he knew how troubled I was. “Go and clean the staffroom right now”. That is how I was subjected to a punishment. As young as I was in the staffroom cleaning seats and shelves while other teachers were looking at me made me feel embarrassed.

I never enjoyed my moment in school at all. Sometimes I ever looked at myself and imagined how the senior students used to tease me, making fun of my body, and calling me names and I felt I was at the wrong place. It really affected me mentally and I longed to change my learning institution. As Orpinas et al. (213) support, school bullying makes a number of students to affect their academic performance, increase loneliness and change their eating habits (Orpinas et al., 213). I felt that I should just be alone and always being almost doing the opposite thing as others did to see whether I can even eat. I was traumatized and even missing meals because of stress. When a senior student saw one of us passing all you could hear is “Hey! Come here and do me this”. Sometimes you will even be called for nothing for them to see whether you are obedient to them.

School diet was also another issue that made me lose hope on eating the required food. Food was served at the dining hall during lunchtime hour where each table hard five to six members. Break-time tea was also served to us but that was a little bit fair because I could pick the quarter slice loaf of bread directly from the cook. The seniors were allowed to take their meals before us. When our time comes all we could access is food remaining’s. It was hard to fill your stomach and get satisfied as well. Since there was no otherwise I had to eat the remainings. The seniors had no time to do their manual works instead bullying did its part in making us work for them. I had started to define what slavery was. Sometimes I could go to the school shop buy some foodstuffs for consumption but arriving the dining hall, the foodstuffs become publicly shared without my approval. The actions are supported by the statement “the school culture is always like that. No way a young individual can see an elder individual starving and yet the young individual expects to be protected from any harm and danger”.

Time to go home was another terrible moment. I tried to imagine how my senior students could make me carry their bags and other stuff as they freely walked home while playing and made me frustrated. While still carrying their bags they could again try to send me to pick for them either snack from the shop or anything they needed. One by one they will pick their bags from me as they branched to their homes. I hated being what I was at that time and even feared to tell anybody about my condition since I feared they will beat me again and again. And that is how I ended up in stress and lost my weight till now that am regaining. More fear was that I was the only one passing through all these bullying actions, my classmates also used to complain as others even cried due to pain and anger.

• Orpinas, Pamela, and Arthur M. Horne. Bullying prevention: Creating a positive school climate and developing social competence. American Psychological Association, 2006.
• Sharp, Sonia, and Peter K. Smith. School bullying: Insights and perspectives. Routledge, 2002.

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Personal Experience with Bullying.

I have personal direct experience with bullying as a teenager in middle and high school. I was bullied by the same small group of boys. I have been also bullied in the work environment by fellow adults and coworkers. In my own experiences, those in authority who could have and should have done something about it and should had held those responsible for bullying accountable for their behavior and bullying, disrespectful and abusive actions did not do so or refused to do so and often brushed the problem under the rug and tolerated such behavior. I tend to blame too many people found in a postition to do something about preventing bullying from continuing to happen and holding those responsible for bullying, refusing to do so and having a tendency to ignore such issues and not responding to them all or respond in a way that makes matters worse. From my own experience they often ignore the issues when presented to them and tend to not respond at all and do not handle the issue with bullying at all. So the victim is often frequently victimized, which has a long term damaging affect and impact on them. Often those who bullied me in the past was because I was unique and different from them, in a good way and often because I allowed it to happen, by not responding correctly to the bully and by not standing up for myself even when others crossed me or violated me and my personal boundaries in any fashion, including mild forms of disrespect. When I was younger I had tend to be a quite, reserved, shy person, who often kept my feelings and problems to myself and had low self esteem and lacked in confidence. I was often soft spoken and did not talk to much and often kept to myself. Today as an adult in my 40’s I tend to be more vocal, outgoing and outspoken, courgeous, bold, tougher and stronger, candid, frank and straightforward and have no problem standing up for myself and tell the truth and taking a stand, including standing up for my convictions and beliefs. I also may be perceived by bullies today as someone not to mess with. I also have learned to discern and read people better and be better at elevating others character. I have always been one not to conform to the crowd and follow the majority and tend to do what I believe is right. I am also a soft hearted, kind, caring, tender person, the exact type of people who often get mistreated the most and hurt easier and get mistreated the worst. However, I have to thank all those who have bullied me in the past, because they helped make me a much stronger person and to have a much better understanding of myself and how much power I really do have. Today I stand up to bullies, when I used to remain silent , I now speak up! I will not only speak up on my behalf I will also speak up on the behalf of those who are victims of all types of bullying, since I know first hand what it is like to be bullied. I have had the opportunity to speak to young people about bullying and have shared my own personal story with them and I will continue to do so.

• Open access
• Published: 20 August 2022

The experience of bullying among adolescents receiving mental health care: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

• Marjorie Roques 1 ,
• Solène Spiers 2 ,
• Mayssa’ El Husseini 3 ,
• Didier Drieu 4 ,
• Dimitra Laimou 3 ,
• Nathalie de Kernier 5 ,
• Anne-Valérie Mazoyer 6 &
• Fabian Guénolé 7  

Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health volume  16 , Article number:  69 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Bullying, the most prevalent form of abuse among adolescents, is associated with emotional and behavioural problems as well as psychiatric morbidity. Moreover, it has been shown that adolescents with previous mental health problems are at increased risk of being bullied and that the psychopathological repercussions of bullying are greatest among them. However, little is known about the experience of bullying in adolescents receiving treatment from mental health services. The aim of this study was to explore the subjective experience of bullying in adolescents receiving mental health care.

The study was developed in the context of a French multicentre research program and employed an exploratory phenomenological approach. A purposeful sampling strategy was used to select adolescents who had experienced bullying (according to the Olweus criteria) and who were able to relate their experiences clearly. In-depth, semistructured interviews with participants were conducted; written transcriptions of these interviews were analysed using thematic analysis.

Twenty-one adolescents (age range: 12–17 years; 13 girls) participated in the study. The analysis indicated a three-axis structure: (1) negative emotions and violent feelings, describing adolescents’ fear, sadness, aggression against themselves, and generalized mistrust; (2) isolation and loneliness, underlining the need to take refuge within oneself and the experiences of rejection, helplessness, and secret-keeping; and (3) self and identity repercussions, including experiences of shame and lowered self-esteem, identity questions, and a vision of bullying as a life experience.

Conclusions

The results of this study may have practical implications for clinicians: (1) a situation of bullying should be sought when an adolescent is seen for unexplained externalized behavioural misconduct; (2) low levels of emotional expression in a bullied adolescent may warn about associated self-harm; (3) a bullied adolescent’s tendency to hide this situation from his or her parents may reflect underlying family-related vulnerability; and (4) the phenomenological analysis showed potential particularities in the assumptive world of these adolescents and suggested that relationality may play a crucial role in their experiences. These results suggest incentives to design specific individual and group therapeutic interventions for bullied adolescents with significant levels of social withdrawal, including family support. Additional research is necessary to improve our understanding of the psychopathological and intersubjective aspects of bullying in adolescents.

Bullying is the most prevalent form of abuse among adolescents in Western countries [ 1 , 2 ], with 10–20% of youth enduring it during their teenage years [ 3 , 4 , 5 ]. The experience of being bullied is defined as suffering repeated and intentional negative actions from an individual or group of individuals over a prolonged period, with an imbalance of power making it difficult to defend oneself on one’s own [ 6 ].

Adolescent bullying victimization mostly occurs in schools in the form of both direct and indirect actions [ 7 ]. Direct bullying includes face-to-face actions, which are usually categorized as physical (such as pushing or kicking), verbal (such as threatening or taunting), or relational (such as shaming or rejection); indirect bullying includes actions that do not require the targets to be present, such as spreading rumours or covert shaming. Cyberbullying is another common form of bullying among adolescents, which usually occurs in addition to one or more of the previous forms and appears to occur in an isolated manner only in rare cases [ 8 , 9 ].

The experience of bullying can be the cause of enormous distress for adolescents [ 7 ]. Indeed, it has been shown that adolescents who have been bullied are significantly at risk of emotional problems [ 10 ] as well as both suicidal and nonsuicidal self-harm [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ]. Moreover, several population-based studies have reported significant associations between bullying and the incidence of several mental disorders in adolescents, including anxiety and mood disorders [ 7 , 16 ], posttraumatic stress disorder [ 17 , 18 , 19 ], and borderline personality disorder [ 20 ]. It has been shown that adolescents with a history of mental health problems, mainly including depression and borderline traits, are at increased risk of being bullied and that the psychopathological repercussions of bullying are the greatest among them [ 7 , 21 , 22 ]. However, very little is known regarding the experience of bullying among adolescents receiving mental health care, and there is therefore particular interest in conducting exploratory research to investigate this subject.

Among exploratory research methods, qualitative methods seem to be particularly useful in this context, as they constitute a tool of choice for understanding complex phenomena by allowing researchers to focus specifically on the views of patients, including adolescents [ 23 , 24 ]. Although several qualitative studies have focused on the experience of bullying in adolescents [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ], none have investigated this topic among adolescents receiving treatment from mental health care services. Such investigations remain-necessary to explore the emotional, cognitive, behavioural and systemic characteristics associated with bullying in clinical contexts and to contribute to the design of therapeutic interventions.

Based on a phenomenological framework, the aim of this study was to qualitatively explore the subjective experience of bullying in adolescents receiving mental health care.

The study was developed in the context of a French multicentre research program devoted to the psychopathology of adolescent bullying [ 30 ]. It was designed to employ a phenomenological approach with the aim of inductively exploring the representations and subjective experiences of participants [ 31 ]. Interpretative phenomenological analysis is recognized as a particularly appropriate framework for studying experiences of distress in mental health research and the meaning that subjects give to such experiences [ 32 ]. This study was conducted in accordance with the consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research (COREQ) [ 33 ].

The study was conducted from December 2017 to November 2019 in six French hospital departments focusing on child and adolescent psychiatry (Agen, Amiens, Caen, Crosne, Castelnaudary, Vire), three school health services (Amiens, Carcassonne, Toulouse), and one foster care service (Amiens). A clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist coordinated the study at each site in concert with the principal investigator (MR).

This study was conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki, 2008) and was approved by the local committee of ethics (Comité Local d’Ethique de la Recherche en Santé du CHU de Caen; IRB#: 122017GUE). All adolescents and their parents signed informed consent forms after being provided detailed information concerning the aims and course of the study.

We employed a purposeful sampling strategy to select adolescents who had been victims of bullying and who were motivated to relate their experiences. Clinical coordinators at each site were careful to include participants of both sexes, with various levels of education and socioeconomic status, a variety of psychiatric diagnoses and levels of symptoms, and experiences with different forms of bullying, i.e., physical, verbal, relational, or cyber bullying. The setting of the study also allowed us to select candidates from both outpatient and inpatient care units.

The inclusion criteria were as follows: age between 12 and 17, a history of bullying according to the Olweus criteria [ 34 ], ongoing psychological care at the inclusion site, fluency in spoken French, and an interest in participating in the study. To ensure that participants had a relatively stable clinical status regarding stress-related psychopathology, the bullying was required to have ceased for at least 3 months prior to inclusion in the study. Exclusion criteria were a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, or a clinical impairment that was too severe to allow for participation in the study. Mental health professionals identified potential participants in their everyday practice and, after receiving approval from the coordinators, informed the adolescents and their parents of the existence of the study and provided them with preliminary information concerning the study. If they were interested, a session was conducted with an investigator, who described the study to the adolescent and his or her parents, answered their questions, and obtained their written consent.

Data collection

During the 3 months following this preliminary session, participants attended three meetings with a psychologist, with whom they had no prior relationship; in addition, no subsequent relationship with the psychologist was expected. These meetings included two sessions devoted to psychological tests (drawings, projective assessment) and a third session consisting of an interview regarding the experience of bullying. These verbatim interviews constitute the corpus referenced by this study.

The interviews were strictly individual and semistructured, and open-ended questions were used (Table 1 ). The interviews were audio-recorded with the participants’ permission. They aimed at in-depth exploration of the participants’ experiences of bullying and the meaning that they attributed to those experience, in which context participants were encouraged to openly convey their viewpoints. The interviewers were open and attentive to any new issues that participants might introduce and tried to enter the psychological and social worlds of the interviewees as much as possible; this approach was facilitated by the fact that the interviewer became familiar the participants during previous sessions. The duration of the interviews was approximately 60 min each. Recordings were transcribed verbatim, including nonverbal expressive nuances, and anonymized.

Two researchers (SS and LL), who did not participate in data collection and had no theoretical or practical expertise in the field of bullying, independently analysed the corpus using the framework and methodology of interpretative phenomenological analysis [ 31 , 32 ] and integrating some general methodological aspects of classical exploratory thematic analysis [ 35 ].

The analysis began by reading each complete transcript several times (familiarization [ 35 ]) prior to meticulously and iteratively annotating it line-by-line, including conceptual notes in the margins, with a focus on the experiential claims, concerns, and stances expressed by the participant [ 31 , 32 ]. Initial idiographic themes were then identified, each of which categorized a number of related conceptual notes [ 31 , 32 , 35 ]; textual quotations illustrating the main ideas of each theme were labelled in the transcript [ 35 ]. These emerging themes were interpreted jointly by the researchers, including through the use of cross-transcript interpretations of recurrent and informative themes; they were then organized into several superordinate themes [ 31 , 32 , 35 ], which were extracted via associations of meanings [ 31 , 32 ]. Finally, the results were synthetized to produce an ordered table of themes, with textual quotations provided for each theme [ 31 , 32 , 35 ].

Investigator triangulation was conducted to reinforce the validity of the results [ 36 ]: the results were regularly debated during research group meetings, which were chaired by a qualitative research expert (MEH), and discrepancies were discussed with another skilled analyst (DD) until mutual agreement was reached. The analysis concluded with several new transcripts provided no further themes, indicating theoretical saturation in the exploration of data [ 37 ].

Participants

Interviews were proposed to 22 adolescents, 21 of whom were ultimately included in data collection (a 16-year-old girl wished to terminate her participation prior to the first interview without providing a reason). The basic demographic and clinical characteristics of the participants are summarized in Table 2 . All participants experienced physical, verbal and relational bullying; six participants had also been cyber-bullied. In accordance with the sampling strategy, participants were of both sexes and displayed heterogeneity regarding age (from 12 to 17 years), socioeconomic status and level of education (ranging from low to high and from 7 to 11 th grade, respectively) as well as the duration of the bullying they experienced (from 2 months to 10 years). Both outpatients and inpatients were included, with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses and levels of symptoms.

Thematic analysis

The phenomenological thematic analysis of the interviews enabled us to identify 12 themes, which were organized into 3 superordinate themes (Fig.  1 ): (1) negative emotions and violent feelings; (2) isolation and loneliness; and (3) self and identity repercussions. These themes are presented below alongside exemplary quotations; all meaningful quotations are listed in Table 3 , translated into English.

Negative emotions and violent feelings

Fear. Participants reported having felt fear in relation to bullying. This fear could become manifest in the presence of bullies:

“ Huh, I was in the stairwell and I could see, well I see, I mean I could see them... and I wasn’t okay [embarrassed laugh] … yeah … because, well I mean there’s always some stress. Yes, especially after all that, yeah. ”

It could also take the form of an anticipatory fear on a daily basis. This variety included, for example, the fear of being ambushed or, in a more diffuse way, anxious ruminations regarding possible and still ignored negative consequences of bullying:

“On my way out of school […] I was always scared that some moron would be waiting for me around the corner to kill me.” “ I didn’t necessarily have the guts to defend myself at the time, I didn’t really dare, I, I was a bit scared of the repercussions that would follow .”

Anxiety could have significant physical manifestations:

“ I would tremble, I wasn’t well, […] I would vomit .”

Sadness . Another negative emotion felt in connection with bullying was sadness, which become manifest in the form of very easy and frequent crying:

“ I would cry for nothing .” “ Yeah, you know, the urge to cry immediately .”

Tearfulness could occur preferentially at home in a lonely and concealed way:

“ At the slightest thing, you know, I can cry, but I don’t do it in front of everyone .”

A participant noted that her sadness reflected a feeling of collapse. Feelings of being depressed could be a source of difficulty with completing homework:

“ I was destroyed, well, I couldn’t stop crying, it was really... […] I couldn’t work anymore, I couldn’t concentrate on my work, I cried all the time in the evenings, I didn’t feel like doing that .”

Aggressiveness. Participants expressed that they felt hatred towards those who bullied them. As they described it, this hatred was experienced in response to the violence they suffered from their bullies, whom they felt had exhibited voluntary nastiness or even sadistic cruelty:

“ A little bit of hate I admit, they were aware of what they were doing, they were not in a trance you know, nor in an altered state. No, no, they took pleasure in hurting me, in seeing me suffer, so I feel no compassion for them or any need to forgive them .”

However, the hatred and violence participants felt could be expressed in euphemistic and rather repressed terms; they did not act on these emotions due to the inhibitions caused by fear:

“ The desire to go after those people, to answer back but I, I didn’t have the guts to do it .”

A girl described that she engaged in self-harm as a consequence of directing her hatred against herself and that she experienced more vitality from doing so:

“ All the hatred that you feel for yourself, so you feel like mutilating yourself, hurting yourself... and at the same time feeling good, to feel alive in quotes .”

Other participants reported that they had self-injured. Suicidal ideations and conduct were also reported.

Mistrust . The feeling associated with realizing the wickedness of bullies was described as uncovering something previously hidden. Participants reported impressions of having been deceived by manipulative persons. They described recurrent slanders and false rumours about them, which they viewed as secret manipulations. These situations could be experienced as a form of treason, as they had occasionally been caused by friends; the changes in attitude exhibited by these individuals may have been viewed as a sudden turnaround:

“ Yes, I was becoming almost paranoid, suspicious of everything, because of being betrayed and deceived by people who I thought were my friends .” “ Overnight she was my ex-best friend, I didn’t understand it, she turned on me and started insulting me [and] all that …”

Some participants perceived an escalation of social hostility starting from one malicious person and spreading throughout the whole group:

“ He kind of got all the boys in the class against me .” “ Everyone’s mad at me, taking turns, I don’t get it .”

This situation caused lived experiences of perplexity and could go beyond the circle of familiar individuals:

“ Even when I meet people I don’t know, they push me around and know my name .” “ When people, teenagers have decided that we are the target in quotes, well that’s it, everyone is against us, and so it’s a very difficult experience because after that it’s not just necessarily in college, it also spreads to social networks .”

This impression of latent and diffuse social hostility was described as a cause of hypervigilance. The source of mistrust, which could reach intense levels and extend to all social relationships, was also described:

“ I’d say yes and it’s normal that today I’m quite suspicious, at least more than before, always a little apprehensive about who people are, their personality, what they really think. I’m relatively good at identifying people, their profiles in quotes .” “ I don’t trust many people; I even find it difficult within my family. So um, I find it hard to trust people .”

Isolation and loneliness

Taking refuge within oneself . It was noted that fear had been a source of inhibition and introversion and caused a reaction of flight from the outside world:

“ I didn’t take this perception of others well, I would lower my head as I walked, with timid, withdrawn positions. That lasted a long time, you never forget .”

Defensive withdrawal was reported alongside thoughts and behaviours associated with diversion, which were mainly solitary.

Rejection . Painful feelings of not having been socially accepted or taken into consideration by peers were reported by participants, despite their reported attempts to integrate themselves into the social group. Additionally, participants described being repeatedly rejected because of negative rumours or even the impression that this social rejection was actually aimed at making them suffer from isolation:

“ So, I eat lunch with friends, sometimes they say, “well no, you’re not supposed to be here, we don’t want you and everything ...”. When at times I talk to people with whom I get along and there’s this person, well who bugs me, he tells me “Oh shut up, get lost”, well things like that, well, repeated, repeated, repeated, that, that, it’s hard to experience, it’s rather complicated .” “ I mostly feel that, you know, that they use that to hurt me as much as possible then exclude me from everything well as soon as, as soon as there is something with everyone, they tell me “‘get lost, you’ve got nothing to do here ”!”

Helplessness . Participants reported feeling lonely and isolated within their peer group. Loneliness has been described as the source of rumination, a feeling of powerlessness, and the inability to obtain help:

“ At times it really made me lose my self-esteem you know... eventually, every day, well a criticism now and then, so as long as it’s constructive it’s no problem, but when it’s not constructive and it’s repeated every day, well eventually you begin to have doubts [...] when you’re... well especially when you’re alone I think when you have no one around you, even if your parents are there you don’t necessarily have the guts to tell them and ... so you dwell on it, you dwell on it and ask yourself many questions and ... and you question yourself a lot .”

It seems that these negative thoughts were linked to a feeling of being misunderstood and indifference from others, including adults should have acted and may have trivialized the situation:

“ Even though I was surrounded by lots of people I felt lonely. I felt like no one understood me and no one could help me. ” “ Everyone was acting like it was normal, normal there’s a girl getting pushed around in the hallway ... nobody cares ... ”

The secret . Participants noted that they had remained silent about the bullying they suffered and did not have the ability to tell anyone about it:

“ I would say nothing, I would keep silent... without saying anything ...” “ I couldn’t talk about it .”

Some adolescents, however, described having expressed their angst indirectly:

“ I would say nothing but I would cry .” “ I had already told her about it because you know I came home crying, I was angry, I was hitting everything ... well especially the bed but... then well there was nothing. Then this year I hadn’t told her about this year, I really started talking to her about it you know... when it really started getting unbearable and she would see that I was crying but well ... ”

This reluctance to discuss bullying also pertained to parents, which may have resulted in dissimulation and lies:

“ My parents, uh, I didn’t tell them about it .” “ I didn’t really want to talk to my parents .” “ I had bruises in the eighth grade, one of the classmates I sat next to would punch me in the thigh because I supposedly took too much space at the table. When my mother would ask where all the bruises came from, I would lie and say that I had bumped into something .”

Participants said they waited a long time to tell their parents that they were being bullied, a silence which occasionally persisted until this situation could no longer be ignored:

“ It’s true that I took a long time to talk to her, not because, I don’t know, well I was withdrawn it’s true that, about everything about many other things. I used to be quite shy, and um, I would keep a lot to myself and I would say that’s what really destroyed me .” “ I waited until the ninth grade to talk about it, the day two guys, twin brothers, tried to grab me on the way out [of school] and my dad caught them. I told my parents everything after that, 6 months before the middle high school certificate and overnight, I was no longer bullied. I think it scared them; they saw the limits. But I was even more alone after that, I passed for a sucker .”

This silence towards parents was described as a way of avoiding causing difficulties for them:

“ It’s not my goal, I don’t want to get into trouble and get my mom into trouble because of kids’ reactions in quotes .”

In some cases, a trusted person outside the family successfully prompted the adolescent to reveal this secret to his or her parents:

“ It was mainly my drum teacher who advised me to talk to my mom, who told me not to stay that way .”

Some participants explained that breaking their silence about the bullying caused them to feel better:

“ I actually talked about it easily, I’d been going through that for several years... I figured it was pointless to hide, it was like carrying a weight on my own so I thought I might as well talk about it because it allows to, well, at least so people know and it’s important because it involved people from high school. ” “ I didn’t know that I could talk to people I could trust, psychologists and all that. Now it’s something I know so if one day I’m not doing too great, I think I’d make an appointment with these people. And it’s something that’s good to talk about. Something I didn’t dare do before but it’s true that talking, it does a world of good. We feel liberated actually we get all our hatred out, all our anger yeah it feels good. ”

Self and identity repercussions

Shame . Adolescents expressed having felt ashamed of themselves. This feeling of shame could come from recurrent mockery on the part of peers – regarding their physical appearance, for example, their clothes or bodily appearance, their behaviour, and more generally any characteristic that was perceived as a difference:

“ Uh. Then as soon as I had something that was not that normal, I would feel ashamed I ... I would think to myself ‘why did I do that, why did I wear this’ people would feel it, they would laugh at me .” “ I didn’t dare take my clothes off because I was ashamed of my body and the others would laugh at me .”

A girl also described being ashamed of feeling emotionally vulnerable compared to her peers:

“ I would feel ashamed... Why me, it hurts me and not the others ?”

Lowered self-esteem . Participants noted that they lost confidence in themselves. This lack of confidence has been linked with the experience of repeated mockery over time. Their self-esteem was described as having become increasingly contingent on the gazes and opinion of others, which may have led to self-doubt or even self-loathing:

“ In the end everything they would tell me, I would think “ah maybe they’re right” and suddenly I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror anymore [...] . And I don’t know I found myself disgusting, and I would think, “they’re actually right ”.” “ When I would try on a top, as soon as I would buy a top I would think, “Will people like it, will people like it?” Did I like it? No I didn’t ask myself that question .”

Self-esteem was described as having previously been fragile, and it could be restored gradually after the bullying ceased.

Identity questions . Adolescents noted that they felt different from their peers. This perceived difference could be physical, related to their bodies or clothing, or psychological or behavioural:

“ It started I don’t know, well maybe because I was weaker or more sensitive, well also I’m a little different ... well I’m sturdier, well, more sturdy in the sense of stocky, I’m more ... well, I’m not really like everyone else .” “ Well, I didn’t dress like them. […] Well, I wore... I didn’t wear leading clothing trademarks; I didn’t have any branded shoes so you have to avoid people like that ...” “ I have a slightly different way of reacting, I can... well I’m more sensitive, at the slightest thing well I can cry but I don’t do it in front of everyone, then I’m a bit violent, well not violent, I can talk back to people and they don’t like that .”

While bodily and psychological differences were described as being suffered passively, differences from peers in terms of clothing or social behaviour could be considered deliberate:

“ I’ve always wanted it, to be different, not to look like everyone else .” “ I would try to fit in, but no one accepted me. It’s hard. I wasn’t easily influenced, I didn’t try to drink or smoke to be like them, so they felt I was different. I didn’t want to follow this mould imposed by everyone there ...”

A girl felt as if she were psychologically vulnerable compared to her peers and described questioning the reasons for this supposed vulnerability; similarly, a boy described wanting to conform to the social identity assigned to him by his peers:

“ I would feel ashamed... Why me, it hurts me and not the others ?” “ I wanted to always reflect the image of what they wanted .”

All of the types of differences mentioned by participants were described as contributing to the situation of being bullied.

Bullying as a life experience . The period of bullying may have left some particularly vivid memories. A boy noted that this difficult experience improved his ability to analyse the behaviour of others:

“ I’d say yes and it’s normal that today I’m quite suspicious, at least more than before, always a little apprehensive about who people are, their personality, what they really think. I’m relatively good at identifying people, their profiles in quotes .”

A girl explained that this experience changed her relationships with her peers, which shifted from submission or the pursuit of dominance to a more symmetrical and reciprocal form:

“ What has changed today is that I understand that the person in front of me is just like me, that he is not superior, that I am not superior to her and that everything must be based on some form of dialogue, and well at the time I didn’t understand it at all .”

Another girl noted that, despite the suffering that the bullying had caused for her, this experience had a psychologically maturing effect, i.e., it had developed her thinking skills:

“ At the same time, it’s a good experience, well in quotes because it makes us grow, it makes us become aware of things and that ... in fact it’s possible that without that I would not be the person that I am today, not as mature not as um ... thoughtful. So, it made me move forward, it helped me like it destroyed me . […] The past helps us move forward, not everyone, but I know that the past helped me move forward, made me mature, made me realize things that I had not ...”

Finally, a boy felt that he had gained psychological force from the ordeal of having been bullied, which he believed he could use to cope with adversity in the future:

“ No, I would even say that it strengthened me. I built myself around that. That’s what I was telling you, it began very early and it was more or less nasty each time . […] I may have passed this test; it may help me to understand the future tests that I might encounter in my future life .”

Although the high frequency of a history of bullying among adolescents who undergo consultations regarding their mental health is well known [ 16 , 38 ], no qualitative study has explored this specific context, and to our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the experience of bullying in adolescents suffering from mental health distress using individual, in-depth interviews.

The study highlights elements that may contribute to extending our knowledge of the experiences already described in nonspecific adolescent contexts. This contribution is particularly noteworthy regarding the extent of the emotional impact of bullying [ 25 , 27 , 28 , 29 ] and its lack of disclosure by adolescents [ 26 ].

The results of this study show that, although feelings of anger and hatred towards bullies are felt intensely, they may have a mitigated expression in bullied adolescents, and this effect seems to be rendered indirect by fear. The analysed corpus also indicates the possibility of a reversal of such aggression to the point that it can be directed against oneself, thus appearing as a form of regulation of negative emotions, as has been described in a general conception of self-harm in adolescents [ 39 , 40 , 41 ]. Suicidal behaviour and self-injury, two significantly frequent clinical manifestations in adolescents who have been bullied [ 12 , 42 ], could thus be associated with adolescents’ inability to express certain negative emotions. Our analyses also showed that adolescents could express their angst indirectly, in particular via externalized behavioural misconduct, because they did not dare to reveal the situations they were facing directly. Externalized behavioural misconduct has been shown to be associated with being bullied in adolescents [ 43 ], and this connection may be explained by our qualitative results.

This latter point is connected to the fact that adolescents did not disclose the bullying they faced to their parents. A previous qualitative study of the reasons underlying adolescents’ failure to disclose such bullying suggested an association with several themes: the ubiquitous nature of bullying, a sense of helplessness, concerns regarding inappropriate adult action, self-reliance, shame, parental omniscience, and a different definition of bullying than that used by adults [ 26 ]. Our results suggest that the desire to avoid causing difficulties for parents constitutes an additional psychological factor for adolescent’s failure to disclose bullying, which could thus be more or less specific to adolescents receiving mental health care and may represent the reason why bullying can be revealed to a trusted person outside the family.

A number of the experiences described by adolescents in this study include the phenomenon of dissimulation: bullying is silenced, lies are invented to hide this situation, and the expression of personal suffering or that of emotions in general is reduced, encrypted, or solitary, as are self-harming behaviours. Dissimulation to others seems to respond to a “hermeneutics of suspicion” [ 44 ]: a perceived hostility associated with the outside world is experienced as a sudden revelation of evil [ 45 ], which was hitherto unapparent due to the duplicity of peers. Everything seems to occur as if caused by a persistence and proliferating conspiracy, leading to the resulting feelings of betrayal. These more or less persecutory feelings cause the individual to anticipate further disclosures of evil, and the individual’s social group thus becomes intensely mistrusted. The individual’s loss of the feeling of belonging to the group following rejection and/or withdrawal tends to modify the psychological balance that depends on these interactions, even in adolescents who take a peripheral position in their peer groups [ 46 ]. The social isolation that results—even if it may initially constitute a form of protection—thus seems to be a factor leading to psychological imbalance and may result in the reinforcement of the common adolescent tendency towards distrust [ 47 ]. This process could represent a vicious cycle for some adolescents, especially those who lack compensatory parental and family support [ 48 ].

Though only a minority of adolescents had a clinical diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, this ensemble evokes the phenomenology of traumatic experience, described by Stolorow as typically including an intersubjective context in which mental suffering can neither be expressed to nor understood by an alter ego [ 49 ]. According to this phenomenological approach, relational isolation following highly adverse events leads to a collapse of the world’s “public interpretedness”, that is, the phenomenon of “no-longer-being-at-home” in one’s environment, which thus loses the tranquilized familiarity that is associated with everyday social exchange. The resulting feelings of perplexity and uncanniness, which can readily be associated with traumatic anxiety, are believed to be connected to this phenomenological complex [ 50 ]. The possibility of establishing a connection with someone who shows him- or herself to be capable of understanding emotional experiences related to bullying could account for the fact that the adolescents in question, who were previously unable to tell anyone about this situation, described the act of breaking this silence as causing them to feel better [ 50 , 51 ].

A contrast emerged in the results of this study between the vividness of the negative memories associated with bullying and the rather positive experiences of the subsequent psychological consequences of this situation, which were described in terms of the maturation of social understanding and expectations as well as assertiveness. Such optimistic self-evaluations also stand in contrast with adolescents’ expressions of shame at the possibility of appearing emotionally vulnerable. We thus hypothesize that adolescents can work through painful emotions by shifting from a stance of emotional avoidance to one of positive and wishful thinking; this change would represent a transition of adolescent’s emotion-focused coping skills from maladaptive-external to suboptimal-internal [ 52 ].

Limitations

Some limitations must be taken into consideration when interpreting the results of the present study. First, this study focused only on the phenomenological perspective of adolescents and thus did not include the perspectives of other people, such as bullies, other peers, school professionals, and parents or other family members. Indeed, a multi-informant approach would have been particularly useful to explore the intersubjective context of bullying in further detail. A second limitation of our study is the fact that, methodologically speaking, it did not include a psychodynamic approach of discourse analysis [ 53 ]. Indeed, as the experience of bullying mobilizes unwanted feelings and attempts to manage those feelings, and since adolescents are frequently not fully aware of the emotional significance of aspects of their experience [ 54 ], an approach taking into account their psychological defence mechanisms may have enriched the exploration [ 53 ]. Finally, our sampling included heterogeneity in age, sex, and clinical status of adolescents, and further phenomenological studies could be conducted with greater specificity on more homogeneous samples, particularly regarding the presence of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Implications for clinicians

The results of this study have several practical implications for clinicians working with adolescents in the context of mental health services. First, it appears that a situation of bullying must be sought when an adolescent is seen for unexplained externalized behavioural misconduct. Our results also suggest that low levels of emotional expression in a bullied adolescent may serve as a warning regarding self-harm. Another valuable contribution of these results to practice is the suggestion that a bullied adolescent's tendency to hide this situation from his or her parents may reflect underlying family-related vulnerability, indicating the importance of family support in such cases [ 55 , 56 ].

The fact that adolescents seemed to benefit from exchanges with people who were capable of understanding emotional experiences related to bullying leads to the recommendation that individual psychological support should be offered to bullied adolescents. This finding may also support the use of therapeutic groups for bullied adolescents, particularly those who are socially isolated in the context of traumatized relationality [ 56 , 57 ].

Implications for mental health research

Several new hypotheses arising from the qualitative exploration conducted for this study merit further testing in terms of quantitative work. First, the hypothesis that externalizing behavioural misconduct in adolescents may be associated with covert bullying could be tested via population-based and/or clinically based epidemiological studies. Clinical studies of mental health services could also be conducted to investigate the possible links between a low level of emotional expression and self-harm in bullied adolescents and between the absence of disclosure to parents and family concerns. Finally, the implementation of therapeutic intervention should be evaluated in both contexts.

The study also raises some new questions, which could be the subject of future qualitative studies. In particular, a multi-informant perspective, including the experiences of bullies, other peers, school professionals, and parents or other family members, would be useful to explore the intersubjective context of bullying in further detail. Additionally, other qualitative studies using in-depth focused interviews may improve our understanding of the diversity of the emotional and identity-related consequences of bullying in adolescents.

This exploratory study shows that emotional suffering and its psychopathological consequences are frequently concealed by bullied adolescents receiving mental health care, and so mental health professionals should be attentive to this possibility to avoiding underestimating such consequents in clinical practice. Phenomenological analysis highlights the potential particularities of the assumptive world of these adolescents and suggests the crucial role played by relationality in their experience. The results suggest incentives to design specific individual and group therapeutic interventions, including family support, for bullied adolescents with significant social withdrawal. Additional research is needed to improve our understanding of the psychopathological and intersubjective aspects of bullying in adolescents.

Structure of the thematic analysis

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Abbreviations

Institutional review board

Consolidated criteria for reporting qualitative research.

Fondation de France

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank all the participants and their families for their contribution to this project. They also acknowledge the help of Elodie André, Véronique Ballet, Elisabeth Baranger, Violaine Chauvin, Florent Cosseron, Alice Delorme, Pierre-Jean Egler, Solène Hautot, Claudie-Corinne Senot, Lucie Tropato, Lucie Yvon, for data collection, of Lucie Leroy for data analysis, and of Jordan Sibeoni for advices in revising manuscript.

This study was supported by the Fondation de France (FdF grant No. 2018–00090960), which had no role in the study design, in data collection, analysis, and interpretation, and in the writing of the report.

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Authors and affiliations.

Université de Bourgogne, PSY-DREPI (EA-7458), Dijon, France

Marjorie Roques

Pôle de Psychiatrie de l’enfant et de L’adolescent, Centre Hospitalier Le Vinatier, Bron, France

Solène Spiers

Université de Picardie Jules Verne, CHSSC (EA-4289), Amiens, France

Mayssa’ El Husseini & Dimitra Laimou

Université de Rouen Normandie, CRFDP (EA-7475), Rouen, France

Didier Drieu

Université Paris-Nanterre, CLIPSYD (EA-4430), Nanterre, France

Nathalie de Kernier

Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, LCPI (EA-4591), Toulouse, France

Anne-Valérie Mazoyer

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Fabian Guénolé

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Contributions

MR designed the study, supervised data acquisition and analyses, and drafted the initial manuscript. SS contributed to analysis and interpretation of data, and to initial drafting. MEH contributed to data acquisition and analysis. DD contributed to data analysis. DL, AVM and NdK contributed to data acquisition. FG contributed to interpretation of data and substantially revised the initial draft. All authors substantially contributed to final drafting of the manuscript, and approved its final version. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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MR, PhD, is professor of psychology at University of Burgundy, France, and a member of the Psy-DREPI research team (EA-7458). She conducts research in clinical psychopathology; since 2018, she leads an international research network on the psychological vulnerabilities and processes involved in bullying among adolescent victims. SS, MD, is a psychiatrist at the department of child and adolescent psychiatry of the Vinatier Hospital Center in Bron, in the suburb of Lyon, France. She previously contributed to qualitative and quantitative research about self-harm and borderline psychopathology in adolescents. MEH, PhD, is assistant professor of psychology at Jules Verne Picardy University, France, where she is a member of the CHSSC (EA-4289). She is also an associate member of the CESP research unit (UMR-1018) in Villejuif, France. She conducts research in clinical psychopathology, trauma and transcultural psychiatry. DD, PhD, is professor of psychology at Normandy University of Rouen, France, and a member of the CRFDP research team (EA-7475). He conducts research in clinical psychopathology, group dynamics, and community psychiatry. DL, PhD, is assistant professor of psychology at Jules Verne Picardy University, France, and a member of the CRP-CPO research team (EA-7273). She conducts research in clinical psychopathology, suicide prevention, and psychological assessment. AVM, PhD, is professor of psychology at Jean Jaurès Toulouse University, France, and a member of the LCPI research team (EA-4591). She conducts research in clinical psychopathology, trauma, and psychological assessment. NdK, PhD, is assistant professor of psychology at Paris-Nanterre University, France, and a member of the CLIPSYD research team (EA-4430). She conducts research in clinical psychopathology, psychoanalysis, and psychodynamic psychotherapy in institutional settings. FG, MD, PhD, is professor at Caen Normandy University, France, head of the department of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University Hospital of Caen, and a member of the NIMH research unit (UMR-1077). He conducts research in child and adolescent psychopathology, affective neuroscience, and the emotional aspects of self and identity.

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Correspondence to Fabian Guénolé .

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This study was conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki, 2008) and was approved by the local committee of ethics ( Comité Local d’Ethique de la Recherche en Santé du CHU de Caen ; IRB# 122017GUE). All adolescents and their parents signed for informed consent, after detailed information on the aims and course of the study.

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Roques, M., Spiers, S., El Husseini, M. et al. The experience of bullying among adolescents receiving mental health care: an interpretative phenomenological analysis. Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 16 , 69 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13034-022-00505-7

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Need to write an expository essay about bullying?

Bullying is a problem that affects millions of people around the world, particularly in schools. It can be incredibly damaging for both victims and perpetrators, leaving lasting physical, mental and emotional scars.

Writing an expository essay about this important issue is a good way to spread awareness and cope with its effects. But what if you don't know where to start?

Don't worry! This blog will help you out!

In this blog, you’ll learn about expository essays, how to write them, and some tips for making a successful essay.

So let's get started!

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• 1. What is an Expository Essay About Bullying?
• 2. Expository Essay Examples on Bullying
• 3. Steps to Write the Best Expository Essay
• 4. Expository Essay Topics About Bullying
• 5. Tips for Writing an Expository Essay About Bullying

What is an Expository Essay About Bullying?

What is an expository essay?

An expository essay is a type of essay that explains, describes, discusses, and informs about a specific topic.

An expository essay about bullying aims to explain or inform the reader about an aspect of bullying.

It typically involves research and data as well as personal experience and opinion. It requires clear language and logical structure in order to present a comprehensive view of the topic.

The goal is to present factual information in an organized way and allow the reader to draw their own conclusions.

Expository Essay Examples on Bullying

Reading bullying essay examples can be a great way to get some ideas and inspiration for your own work.

Here are a few good example essays you should check out before writing:

Short Expository Essay About Bullying

What is Bullying in School Essay Example

Essay About Bullying 500 words

Expository Essay on Cyberbullying

Expository Essay About Bullying in School

Want to read essay samples on other topics? Check out expository essay examples .

Steps to Write the Best Expository Essay

Writing a successful expository essay about bullying requires several steps.

Step 1: Select a Topic 

First, you should select a specific and manageable topic to research. For example, you might choose to write about bullies in high school or cyber bullied teenagers.

Note that your topic must be interesting, relevant, and specific. Moreover, you need to be sure that it has enough information available for research.

Step 2: Research and Gather Evidence

Second, you need to do your research and gather facts and evidence. Consider both primary and secondary sources such as newspapers, books, magazines, websites, interviews, and surveys.

While researching, take notes on the most important points so that they are easier to reference when writing your essay.

Step 3: Write an Outline

Before you start writing, create an expository essay outline . This will help you organize all the information and keep track of your ideas as you develop them further. 

A standard 5-paragraph structure should be enough, although more depending on the complexity of the topic is acceptable.

Step 4: Write the Essay

Now it 's time to put everything together and start writing. Start with an introduction that should grab the reader's attention and explain why this topic is important. 

Next, move on to the body of your essay, which will include several paragraphs discussing different aspects of bullying in detail. 

Finally, write a conclusion that summarizes the main points of your essay and provides closure.

Step 5: Edit and Proofread

A well-written essay should also be edited and proofread for any errors in grammar, spelling, or punctuation. 

Make sure to read it over several times and make adjustments as necessary. Revising your paper will help ensure that your paper is clear and thorough.

Expository Essay Topics About Bullying

If you’re looking for a few good expository essay topics about bullying, here are some ideas to get you started:

• The Different Forms of Bullying.
• The Psychological Impact of Bullying on Victims.
• The Connection Between Bullying and Mental Health.
• The Consequences of Bullying on Academic Performance.
• The Impact of Bullying on Self-Esteem and Self-Confidence.
• Strategies for Preventing Bullying in Schools.
• The Long-Term Effects of Bullying on Adult Life.
• The Influence of Parenting in Preventing Bullying Behavior.
• Bullying in the Workplace: A Growing Concern.
• Legal and Ethical Aspects of Bullying Prevention in Schools.

You can get an idea from expository essay topics on other topics as well.

Watch this video about what is bullying:

Tips for Writing an Expository Essay About Bullying

Expository writing can be difficult, but with a few tips, it doesn’t have to be. Here are some tips that you should consider when writing an expository essay about bullying: 

• Keep it organized

Writing an expository essay can be overwhelming if you don't keep your thoughts and information organized. Having an outline is a great way to make sure everything stays on track.

• Be specific 

A successful expository essay must be specific and provide enough detail for the reader to understand the topic. Avoid vague generalizations and stick to well-defined points.

• Use clear language 

Writing an expository essay requires strong communication skills, so be sure to use concise and straightforward language when making your points.

As the goal of an expository essay is to inform rather than persuade, it's important to have a neutral stance. Don't let your personal opinions or biases affect the way you present information.

• Be sympathetic

Bullying is a sensitive topic, so it's important to be sympathetic and understanding when discussing it. 

Empathize with people who have been affected by bullying and try to portray their experience accurately.

• Provide solutions 

An expository essay should not only provide facts but also offer potential solutions to the problem. Make sure to include ways that people can prevent or stop bullying.

To conclude the blog,

Writing an expository essay about bullying can be a challenging yet rewarding task. With the right preparation and research, you can create a thoughtful, informative piece that will inform readers about this important issue.

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Paper Due? Why Suffer? That’s our Job!

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The Issue of Bullying in the Schools Essay

Personal experience, forms, effects and recommendations of bullying, works cited.

This paper attempts to look at the issue of bullying in the schools. A personal story about how I was bullied when I was young is included. The paper looks at this issue by considering aspects like causes and forms of bullying as well as examples of bullying cases.

Since the number of bullying cases has been on the increase in schools, recommendations will be offered on the best thing to do when bullying cases are reported. Main ideas on the topic will be presented so that the issue can be presented in a comprehensive way (Smith, Pepler, and Rigby 56-60).

I grew up in south Bronx until I was thirteen years old when we moved to an Irish neighborhood. My brother and sister are half Irish and half Puerto Rican, unlike me; my whole family has a very fair skin. The first time I landed on this neighborhood, I was very delighted since unlike our previous home I could play outside the house.

I still recall what befell me the first time I went out to play; all the children in the neighborhood were white and the girls started harassing me by telling me that if I was hoping to live there I had to be white, they even spread baby powder on my face. We later become friends although some of their parents resented me because I was Spanish. The situation did not get any better since some children nicknamed me Goya bean: this made to hate Goya beans

When summer ended, I joined school and it so happened that I was the only Spanish girl in the whole school. Things did not go well here either since I picked fights frequently because other children teased me. At some point, it became a routine that I had to be involved in a fight everyday. The principle took the initiative of calling my mother to discuss the matter. When my mother came, she was told that I was a problematic child since I frequently fought with other children.

The board of directors claimed that with my stubborn nature I deserved to be taken to a special school where other problematic children studied. Since then, I was regarded as a problematic child. My mother was forced to transfer me to another school since I was expelled from my former school. I developed low self-esteem and I started taking drugs, soon afterwards I dropped out of school at sixth grade.

This victimization made me to start thinking of ways that I could change my way of life to show that I was still strong hence prove to my aggressors wrong. The events acted as a motivating factor for me to make a difference. Each time I feel like giving up my efforts of trying to be what I want to be, I look back and remember all the challenges that I have overcome in my life.

This makes me to realize that I have much more challenges to face and overcome; thus I become a stronger person. Every time I look back, I do not regret what I have gone through since it is through these chain of events that I have become what I am today.

One thing that I am proud of is that I managed to turn anger into motivation. Nevertheless, I must admit that these experiences left me with a scar since when one is a victim of bullying he or she is tempted to believe that something is wrong with them one asks questions like ‘why me?’ Bullying kills one’s self esteem and also makes one to feel isolated.

The victim may fear or feel ashamed to tell anyone since he or she may think that this has never happened to anyone else. It gives me joy to know that the issue of bullying is now a pubic affair since bullying stories were unheard of when I was growing up. It is also important to note that children are no longer afraid to report bullying cases.

Slavens and Kerrigan (23) see bullying as a term used to describe a pattern of behavior that is cruel and humiliating towards another person, he further notes that it can affect people of all walks of life and age.

Bullying can occur in two forms, verbal and physical. One can be bullied verbally when the bully attempts to verbally anger the victim by mocking them on purpose. Physical bullying occurs when the bully or aggressor forces physical contact with his or her victim, this may be in form of kicking or punching to the point that the victim becomes submissive.

Physical bullying is more serious as compared to verbal bullying since it can lead to serious injuries and sometimes death of the victim (Orpinas, Horne, 12-34). Bullies enjoy intimidating others to either gain fame or to satisfy their ego. Teenagers may bully others due to peer pressure since they may want to fit in a certain click. Factors that can lead to bullying include differences in physical and cultural characteristics; in addition, showing signs of inferiority can also be a major cause of bullying.

This vice has many effects on the victim. Since the bully has control over the victim, the victim can become stressed to the extent of becoming depressed. Most victims of bullying have low self esteem since they do not feel self-sufficient. The victim can also develop negative attitude towards the environment and the people around him.

Such a person may isolate him/her self from the rest of the world because of a feeling of inadequacy. School children who have been bullied may drop out of school or start taking drugs so as to seek consolation (Field, 211-250).

Teachers should be strict when dealing with bullies. Heavy punishment should be given to the aggressors so as to prevent them from repeating the act again and to also warn others not to repeat the same mistake in future. Victims of bullying should be encouraged to report to their seniors if they are bullied.

It is important for the teacher to diagnose any physical and psychological problems affecting the students. Schools and other institutions should set up advisory centers where students can be helped to overcome the aftermath of bullying. These centers should have friendly counselors so that students can feel free to discuss their problems with them (Slavens and Kerrigan, 12). The counselors should also be well trained so that they can offer professional help to the victims.

Bullying is the act of humiliating others either verbally of physically. A bully is the aggressor who undertakes bullying. Although bullying is common in schools, it can also occur in other settings such as the workplaces. It is important for the school administration to come up with ways of dealing with bullying cases such as punishing the bully heavily. People bully others for different reasons such as the need to feel superior. The vice bears negative impacts to the victim to the extent that it can be verbal.

Field, Tim. Bully in sight: how to predict, resist, challenge and combat workplace bullying: overcoming the silence and denial by which abuse thrives . New Jersey: Success Unlimited, 2000. pp. 211-250

Orpinas, Pamela, Horne, Arthur. Bullying prevention: creating a positive school climate and developing social competence . MI: University of Michigan, 2006. pp. 12-34

Slavens, Elaine and Kerrigan, Brooke. Bullying: deal with it before push comes to shove. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 2003. pp. 12-30

Smith, Peter, Pepler, Debra, and Rigby, Ken. Bullying in schools: how successful can interventions be? Ontario : Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 56-60

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IvyPanda. (2019, October 25). The Issue of Bullying in the Schools. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bullying/

"The Issue of Bullying in the Schools." IvyPanda , 25 Oct. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/bullying/.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Issue of Bullying in the Schools." October 25, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bullying/.

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Ultimately, we will only be successful in being the expert Commission, if we commit to embedding a culture that goes beyond simply saying it is mainstreaming diversity to actually, manifestly doing that.

Dr Helen Stephenson CBE, Chief Executive Officer

The Charity Commission approach to Diversity and Inclusion reflects our ongoing commitment to mainstreaming inclusion. Building a supportive culture empowers and enables our people to reach their full potential, have the confidence to challenge and be challenged, and ensures that no individual or teams feel isolated.

Our credibility and impact is also strengthened. By reflecting and understanding diversity, the varied perspectives and experiences in the charitable sector and wider society will allow us to grow trust and confidence in the activities of the Commission and the sector.

We will continue to go further than the Equality Act provisions by adopting a broader definition of diversity, to include socio-economic and geographic backgrounds. This Diversity and Inclusion approach seeks to add value to the Charity Commission, contributing to its effectiveness as a fair, balanced and independent regulator while maximising employee well-being and engagement.

To enable the Charity Commission to:

• understand and draw people from the communities it serves – drawing from a range of backgrounds, experiences and locations
• be accessible to everyone – engaging the sector and public we serve
• be flexible – supporting innovation, performance and engagement
• welcome talent from wherever it comes – attracting the best talent from all backgrounds

Diversity and Inclusion at the Charity Commission is not an end in and of itself. It is an integral part of supporting fair, balanced and independent outcomes by ensuring that we:

Value diversity of teams

Managers are aware of their role in developing diversity of thought. Leaders understand their role in ensuring individuals feel safe to contribute, challenge others, share their knowledge, skills and innovation in the workplace. This will help us ensure we recognise and value difference. We also know that in the wider charity sector, trustee boards with the right mix of skills, experiences, backgrounds and perspectives are well placed to anticipate and manage risks, seize new opportunities, future-proof their organisations and tackle difficult but necessary decisions.

We work with partners to broaden the appeal of trusteeship to the widest range of people, aiming to bring more skills and backgrounds into the sector. Being a diverse organisation supports us to be a credible voice to encourage diversity and inclusion within charities.

Value and invest in our people

We enable career development through accessible and universal training, supporting talented people regardless of background. This begins with a comprehensive induction programme and a broad variety of accreditation opportunities available, from apprenticeships to specialised qualifications and continuous professional development. We provide a clear, precise and rigorous standard of knowledge and skills for managers and leaders to ensure a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and discrimination. Our teams and leaders use positive action where needed in relation to training, support, recruitment and promotion to ensure the broadest range of diversity is achieved and there is an equality of opportunity for all. In line with our values, our Performance Management system fairly measures the impact and the how of our people’s delivery.

Collaborate through partnerships underpinned by our values

Systems, directorates and teams work collaboratively to deliver improved inclusion. We believe that we are better when we work across teams and professions, and we support our internal diversity networks and participation in cross government networks. We recognise networks are important change agents, as we seek to increase the diversity of voices in our decisions and policy making processes, supporting us to embrace new ideas and different ways of working.

Tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination

We are committed to an inclusive culture that is intolerant of discrimination, bullying, harassment, and other negative behaviours. We ensure our employees feel included, supported, and treated fairly. We welcome respectful, constructive, and professional challenge at all levels, without boundaries across roles and pay grades. We don’t sit back if we see something we don’t think is right, we will speak up and look out for each other’s wellbeing. We are committed to creating and maintaining an open and transparent culture. There are well-communicated processes in place to support this, such as ‘Speak Up’ campaigns, to encourage reporting of issues and employee assistance routes to support victims. We will regularly review and update our policies around sexual harassment and safeguarding.

Track our progress

Our activity will be data driven, evidence led and delivery focussed. We will continue to measure diversity as an employer. We will also continue to measure inclusivity through our People Survey and inclusion metrics. Equality Impact Assessments are in place and will consider positive outcomes, in addition to potentially negative outcomes, where we will have action plans in place to mitigate them.

Understanding and drawing from the communities we serve

We will continue to focus the majority of our external recruitment outside London, and with four offices across England and Wales, we are better placed to draw on a wider range of talent and better reflect and understand communities across our nation. 50% of our Senior Civil Service roles are, for example, based in our Liverpool office rather than in London.

• enable sustainable career pathways to empower our people to that they can grow and develop and reach their full potential, whatever their location
• take steps to ensure unintended consequences do not occur, for example, a concentration of professional or managerial roles in London
• broaden our recruitment strategy to strengthen our presence in the Newport Office, in line with strengthening our Welsh Identity and strengthening our approach to the Welsh language

Accessible to Everyone

The work we do as regulator for 169,954 charities (as at 21 March 2024), affects many people’s lives on a daily basis. Yet too many people, do not know what we do and may even not be aware of us, so won’t consider us as an employer.

• continue to increase our participation in appropriate entry and progression routes that are designed to broaden representation and accessibility to people
• continue to develop a university outreach programme
• take a data-driven approach to monitoring progression and promotion to ensure that the routes to progression are transparent, accessible, and supported
• use role models from a diverse range of backgrounds to increase the visibility of range of experiences and opportunity to make a real difference at the Commission

Flexible in our working environment

We understand that flexibility is important for our people and performance, it enables us to attract and retain talented individuals and increases innovation, engagement and performance.

• continue to ensure that our hybrid working arrangements are used effectively, balancing the needs of the business and the individual, enabling colleagues to better perform their roles while also delivering value for money. We are aware that this is particularly beneficial to those with disabilities, caring responsibilities, or school aged children
• update HR policies and line manager guidance as appropriate. This will increase accessibility and ensure advantages of increased flexibility for parents and carers are fully realised. Our benefits package offers a range of support to all
• implement the Civil Service Carers’ Strategy, setting out our vision and strategic priorities for carers over the next 5 years including renewing our accreditation with Carers UK
• continue to ensure workspaces enable collaborative and flexible working, driving engagement and enhancing outcomes. This will support the attraction and retention of top talent by establishing attractive working environments and by supporting inclusivity, health and wellbeing in the way that we work. Ensure that our employees have the support and workplace adjustments they need to carry out their role

Welcoming talent from wherever it comes

A diverse workforce brings a range of experiences and perspectives, we need to draw on our skills and experiences to achieve our ambitions and fulfil our purpose, as regulator of an incredibly diverse charity sector. We must provide an equality of opportunity for all our people and embed challenge in everything we do. Our people will proactively look for the opportunity to do things differently.

• improve how we reach out and attract external talent
• build upon existing good practice, streamlining processes to improve equality in opportunity for applicants
• closely monitor recruitment data to ensure these steps are effective
• emphasise to our suppliers, the importance of inclusive workplaces - this will be regularly tested and monitored

Action Plan

As they become available and are reviewed, we will ensure we utilise the evaluation frameworks from central Civil Service to effectively evaluate our diversity and inclusion interventions and programmes.

Accessible recruitment:

• continue to ensure job adverts ensure an emphasis on skills, experience and ability, rather than qualifications, to attract the broadest talents. Complete recruitment campaign data analysis to inform how we improve diverse hiring
• build upon existing good practice streamlining processes to improve equality in opportunity for applicants from outside the Civil Service
• widen recruitment schemes we are involved in (we currently take part in Disability Confident and Veterans) and continue to strengthen our relationship with universities to attract talent
• ensure internal opportunities are being filled consistently through Expressions of Interest or a similarly fair and transparent process

Processes to support our people:

• improve employee input of data on the HR system. Use the data to monitor people processes from recruitment, onboarding, career development, performance management and at exit stage
• regularly review our practices to tackle bullying, harassment and discrimination focussing on data, reporting and processes across the entirety of bullying, harassment and discrimination incidences
• in line with the central civil service, we will refresh our policies, procedures and guidance outlining options and clarity for employees about how they can confidentially raise concerns
• maintain our membership and commitment to the Disability Confident Employer Scheme and Carer Confident accreditation and aim to build upon the level

Developing our people:

• establish a clear, precise and rigorous standard of knowledge and skills for managers and leaders to ensure an inclusive culture (avoiding group think) and a zero-tolerance approach to bullying, harassment and discrimination
• establish progression pathways and monitor our approach on equality of opportunity, to ensure that all our people have the same opportunities to progress and develop
• build upon our current apprenticeship offer to enable existing and new staff to bridge and develop their functional and professional skills through quality training

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Student loan servicer MOHELA tells advocacy group to stop ‘misleading claims’

One of the nation’s largest student loan servicers is threatening legal action against an advocacy group that wrote a blistering report on its business practices.

This week, the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority sent the Student Borrower Protection Center a cease-and-desist letter demanding the group remove from its website a report published last month about the student loan company. The company says the document, dubbed the MOHELA Papers , made sensationalized claims about how it handled the Education Department’s resumption of federal student loan payments last fall after the pandemic pause and its management of a popular loan forgiveness program for public servants.

“Intentionally spreading false and misleading claims about MOHELA’s work on behalf of Federal Student Aid does nothing to improve the experience for students and borrowers,” the company said in a statement Thursday. It said the company “suffered serious damage” from the allegations, and said the advocacy group did not “afford it the opportunity to explain the true facts and correct SBPC’s many mistakes.”

Student Borrower Protection Center and the American Federation of Teachers, which co-wrote the paper but is not named in the cease and desist letter, say they refuse to retract the report. They argue MOHELA’s 14-page letter does nothing more than confirm its improper practices. In response, the organizations on Thursday petitioned the Education Department’s Office of the Inspector General to audit the company.

“MOHELA appears to be even worse at damage control than it is at servicing student loans,” said Mike Pierce, executive director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. “Not only did MOHELA fail to offer credible evidence that we have our facts wrong, the company appears to have confessed in greater detail to many of the very abuses we allege in our report.”

Pierce argues that as a state entity, MOHELA doesn’t have the legal footing to sue members of the public for libel.

The scrutiny from the center’s report has caught the attention of lawmakers. In the wake of the report, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) invited the head of MOHELA, Scott Giles, to appear before the Senate Banking Committee on April 10. Neither Warren’s office nor MOHELA would confirm whether Giles has accepted the invitation.

In its cease-and-desist letter, MOHELA challenges the characterization of its efforts to push customers seeking the help of a call center rep to instead use self-service options. Advocates, according to the company, paint the “call deflection” practice as a nefarious internal scheme to deny borrowers help.

But the student loan servicer says the Education Department’s Federal Student Aid office directed all student loan servicers, not just MOHELA, to employ the practice in anticipation of a surge in call volume coming out of the payment pause.

A copy of the department’s July 2023 Communications Playbook that loan servicers shared with Congress last summer confirms MOHELA’s account. In the guidebook, the department said, “FSA will be providing messaging to servicers to help with coordinated call deflection efforts to promote self-service.”

At the time, the department had enacted customer service cuts — such as reducing its loan servicers’ call center hours — after Congress refused to increase the budget for the student aid office. MOHELA told senators in August that funding constraints from the aid office could affect call wait times and staffing levels, although the company had ramped up the number of customer service reps.

Pierce argues MOHELA is blaming the Education Department for its inability to adequately respond to borrowers while taking no responsibility for its role in developing and maintaining tactics that failed to meet borrowers’ needs. An audit would shed light on whether the company was driving decisions or in the passenger seat as the department ushered borrowers back into repayment, said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

“We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Weingarten said. “But the fact that [MOHELA] would have the audacity to blame someone else instead of doing their work is outrageous. This kind of corporate bullying should have no place in America.”

Another major allegation in the report claims MOHELA is responsible for a backlog of 800,000 unprocessed applications for the federal government’s Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. While the volume of applications fluctuates, the company said it has less than 15,000 new forms to process.

The company stressed that it does not have the authority to process loan forgiveness until authorization is provided by the Education Department, which it has said is routinely delayed in sending the necessary files to complete loan discharges. MOHELA is facing a class-action lawsuit from borrowers who allege the company repeatedly failed to process their PSLF applications. Come May 1, the company will no longer be the sole servicer for the loan forgiveness program as the Education Department revamps its servicing operations.

“Teachers, nurses and millions of other borrowers across the country know from firsthand lived experience that they have suffered because of MOHELA’s acts,” Weingarten said. “The truth is on our side.”

MOHELA took center stage in the legal fight that toppled President Biden’s plan to forgive up to $20,000 in federal student debt for 40 million Americans. Missouri, one of six states that sued to block the program, claimed the relief threatened the revenue of state entities that profit from federal student loans, including MOHELA. The quasi-state entity was never named in the lawsuit and said it played no role in the case .

MOHELA, which was created by the state of Missouri, has previously argued it is not an arm of the government, but has contradicted that position in recent court filings.

The Supreme Court described the organization as an instrument of the state in its ruling last summer overturning Biden’s debt relief. That designation means MOHELA cannot sue for libel, according to Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law. “It’s pretty hard for MOHELA to say ‘Well, notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s position, we’re actually not an instrumentality of Missouri, even though the governor appoints some of our board and we can be dissolved by the state,’” Volokh said.

But University of Chicago law professor William Baude said it is not clear whether the court’s ruling also means that MOHELA is the same as the state for other legal purposes."

This story has been updated to include information about MOHELA’s characterization of its relationship with the government from recent court filings.

Student loans

The impact of student loan repayments : A technical loophole is helping some parents lower their student loan payments . The ending of the student loan payment pause has left some borrowers anxious and confused .

What are my student loan repayment options? Personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary shares what to focus on as student loan payments resume and why she says President Biden’s new SAVE student loan income-driven plan is a game changer .

What’s next for student loan debt relief? Biden is forging ahead on a new path to narrower student loan relief after the Supreme Court rejected his earlier loan forgiveness plan . Meanwhile, conservative groups sued to block Biden’s effort to provide $39 billion in forgiveness to longtime borrowers.

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Guest Essay

Trump’s Third Act? American Gangster.

By Samuel Earle

Mr. Earle is the author of “Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over.”

In recent months, Donald Trump has been trying out a new routine. At rallies and town halls across the country, he compares himself to Al Capone. “He was seriously tough, right?” Mr. Trump told a rally in Iowa in October , in an early rendition of the act. But “he was only indicted one time; I’ve been indicted four times.” (Capone was, in fact, indicted at least six times.) The implication is not just that Mr. Trump is being unfairly persecuted but also that he is four times as tough as Capone. “If you looked at him in the wrong way,” Mr. Trump explained, “he blew your brains out."

Mr. Trump’s eagerness to invoke Capone reflects an important shift in the image he wants to project to the world. In 2016, Mr. Trump played the reality TV star and businessman who would shake up politics, shock and entertain. In 2020, Mr. Trump was the strongman, desperately trying to hold on to power by whatever means possible. In 2024, Mr. Trump is in his third act: the American gangster, heir to Al Capone — besieged by the authorities, charged with countless egregious felonies but surviving and thriving nonetheless, with an air of macho invincibility.

The evidence of Mr. Trump’s mobster pivot is everywhere. He rants endlessly about his legal cases in his stump speeches. On Truth Social, he boasts about having a bigger team of lawyers “than any human being in the history of our Country, including even the late great gangster, Alphonse Capone!” His team has used his mug shot — taken after he was indicted on a charge of racketeering in August — on T-shirts, mugs, Christmas wrapping, bumper stickers, beer coolers and even NFTs. They’ve sold off parts of the blue suit he was wearing in that now-infamous photo for more than $4,000 a piece (it came with a dinner with Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort).

Commentators have long pointed out that Mr. Trump behaves like a mob boss: The way he demands loyalty from his followers, lashes out at rivals, bullies authorities and flaunts his impunity are all reminiscent of the wiseguys Americans know so well from movies and television. As a real-estate mogul in New York, he seems to have relished working with mobsters and learned their vernacular before bringing their methods into the White House: telling James Comey, “I expect loyalty”; imploring Volodymyr Zelensky, “Do us a favor”; and pressuring Georgia’s secretary of state, “Fellas, I need 11,000 votes.” But before, he downplayed the mobster act in public. Now he actively courts the comparison.

Mr. Trump’s audacious embrace of a criminal persona flies in the face of conventional wisdom. When Richard Nixon told the American public, “I am not a crook,” the underlying assumption was that voters would not want a crook in the White House. Mr. Trump is testing this assumption. It’s a canny piece of marketing. A violent mobster and a self-mythologizing millionaire, Capone sanitized his crimes by cultivating an aura of celebrity and bravery, grounded in distrust of the state and a narrative of unfair persecution. The public lapped it up. “Everybody sympathizes with him,” Vanity Fair noted of Capone in 1931, as the authorities closed in on him. “Al has made murder a popular amusement.” In similar fashion, Mr. Trump tries to turn his indictments into amusement, inviting his supporters to play along. “They’re not after me, they’re after you — I’m just standing in the way!” he says, a line that greets visitors to his website, as well.

Mr. Trump clearly hopes that his Al Capone act will offer at least some cover from the four indictments he faces. And there is a twisted logic to what he is doing: By adopting the guise of the gangster, he is able to recast his lawbreaking as vigilante justice — a subversive attempt to preserve order and peace — and transform himself into a folk hero. Partly thanks to this framing, it seems unlikely that a criminal conviction will topple his candidacy: not only because Mr. Trump has already taken so many other scandals in his stride but also because, as Capone shows, the convicted criminal can be as much an American icon as the cowboy and the frontiersman. In this campaign, Mr. Trump’s mug shot is his message — and the repeated references to Al Capone are there for anyone who needs it spelled out.

In an essay from 1948, “The Gangster as Tragic Hero,” the critic Robert Warshow sought to explain the unique appeal of gangster fables in American life. He saw the gangster as a quintessentially American figure, the dark shadow of the country’s sunnier self-conception. “The gangster speaks for us,” Warshow wrote, “expressing that part of the American psyche which rejects the qualities and the demands of modern life.”

It is easy to see why gangster fables appeal to so many Republican voters today. They are stories of immigrant assimilation and success, laced with anti-immigrant sentiment and rivalry. Their heroes are creatures of the big city — those nests of Republican neuroses — who tame its excesses through force but never forget God or their family along the way. In many ways, minus the murder, they are ideal conservative citizens: enterprising, loyal, distrustful of government; prone to occasional ethical lapses, but who’s perfect?

Mr. Trump knows that in America, crooks can be the good guys. When the state is seen as corrupt, the crook becomes a kind of Everyman, bravely beating the system at its own game. This is the cynical logic that the gangster and the right-wing populist share: Everyone’s as bad as anyone else, so anything goes. “A crook is a crook,” Capone once said. “But a guy who pretends he is enforcing the law and steals on his authority is a swell snake. The worst type of these punks is the big politician, who gives about half his time to covering up so that no one will know he’s a thief.”

It’s a worldview powerful enough to convince voters that even the prized institutions of liberal democracy — a free press, open elections, the rule of law — are fronts in the biggest racket of them all. This conceit has a rich pedigree in reactionary politics. “Would-be totalitarian rulers usually start their careers by boasting of their past crimes and carefully outlining their future ones,” Hannah Arendt warned.

The gangster’s brutality also taps into what Warshow and others of his generation saw as the sadism in the American mind: the pleasure the public takes in seeing the gangster’s “unlimited possibility of aggression” inflicted upon others. The gangster is nothing without this license for violence, without the simple fact that, as Warshow put it, “he hurts people.” He intimidates his rivals and crushes his enemies. His cruelty is the point. The public can then enjoy “the double satisfaction of participating vicariously in the gangster’s sadism and then seeing it turned against the gangster himself.” “He is what we want to be and what we are afraid we may become,” Warshow wrote. Reverence and repulsion are all wrapped up.

Capone’s rise, demise and exalted afterlife don’t hold happy clues for Mr. Trump’s opponents. Dethroning a mob boss is never easy. “He was the 1920s version of the Teflon man; nothing stuck to him,” Deirdre Bair wrote in a 2016 biography of Capone. After he was arrested in 1931 for tax fraud, his mob continued to prosper for another half-century, and Capone himself, who was released after six and a half years in prison for health reasons and died from a stroke and pneumonia in 1947 at age 48, achieved a type of immortality. Mr. Trump will see in his story many reasons to be cheerful. “I often say Al Capone, he was one of the greatest of all time, if you like criminals,” Mr. Trump said in December. It was an interesting framing: “if you like criminals”? Mr. Trump has a hunch, and it’s more than just projection, that many Americans do.

Samuel Earle is the author of “Tory Nation: How One Party Took Over.”

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