Understanding Harassment-Related Emotional Distress

by Joni Johnston, Psy.D.
lexis ONE
December 2003

This holiday season, count how many pleasantries you exchange with another partygoer before the topic of work arises. I'd lay some pretty good odds that "what do you do" is a heavy favorite as the question most likely to follow the initial glad-handing and introductions. In a nation where 44 percent of Americans call themselves "workaholics," work is much more than a venue through which we pay our bills; it is a fundamental determinant of how many of us feel about the quality of our lives.

As a result, when the dignity of work is shattered by exploitation or mistreatment, the impact can be psychologically damaging. At the same time, because work occupies nearly half of our waking lives, it is possible for someone to be simultaneously distressed and employed (with no link between the two) or distressed because they have to work (and looking for a way to get out of it). In this article, let's take a look at the psychological dynamics of work, the emotional consequences of work-related psychological injury, and what this means for employment-related emotional distress claims.

We Are Family
For some employees, the assumption that a person can simply waltz away from a troublesome work situation is somewhat naÃÃ ¯ve; in addition to the fact that his or her job mobility may be limited, work relationships carry much more psychological significance than a paycheck. In fact, outside of our personal relationships, work provides the major area for employees to feel productive, worthwhile and competent. Ask someone who or what she is and the answer is much more likely to be "I'm a doctor" than 'I'm a mother" or "I'm a Christian."

To complicate matters further, the very structure of the work relationship - boss, coworkers, team - can replicate early childhood experiences with parents and siblings. Conflicts and tension are inevitable, and strong bonds of loyalty and camaraderie can be formed with coworkers with whom an employee works closely. This is particularly true in some occupations; consider, for instance, the strong affinity that police partners often develop or the grief firefighters share when a colleague dies in the line of duty.

Even for workers who don't routinely share life-and-death experiences, feelings about work are intense - and often negative. Results of a 2002 Towers Perrin survey found that more than 55 percent of the 1,000 workers surveyed expressed overall negative feelings about their work. The complaints? An excessive workload, lack of recognition, concerns about leadership, a lack of challenge, and anxiety about job security. In effect, much of the discontent is about how the employee feels s/he is being treated, not by the official terms and conditions of his or her employment. In my experience, it is interpersonal mistreatment that is most often the culprit in work-related emotional distress claims.

Recognizing Harassment-Related Emotional Distress
The most typical psychological illnesses suffered by emotionally injured workers are various forms of either depressive or anxiety reactions. In general, anxiety symptoms are more likely when the employee is experiencing the harassment. Ongoing research has disclosed that victims of sexual harassment subsequently endure a series of negative events, such as health-related complaints, increased levels of anxiety, irritability, anger, work dread, decreased satisfaction with life in general, and a desire to quit their jobs. This is particularly true when the harassment is frequent and intense.

Anxiety is more prevalent during the experience of harassment because the person is still engaged in the struggle to remedy the situation, is still suffering from the anticipation of further incidents, and is still in a state of alarm and vigilance. If they feel they have had to quit work because of the abuse, were wrongfully terminated, or were retaliated against for filing a complaint, a more insidious process ensues involving feelings of inadequacy, helplessness, and other symptoms of depression. Naturally, these two periods are not distinct and there can be significant overlap of symptomotology.

In contrast, the development of either a psychotic episode or post-traumatic stress disorder is not a common reaction to employment situations. The former is likely to be an exacerbation of a preexisting condition, while the latter is generally reserved for an extremely traumatic situation involving physical assault or rape. Although you may encounter forensic experts who make give a PTSD diagnosis because a plaintiff's livelihood was threatened, the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder is reserved for reactions to specific threats to a person's life or physical safety.

It is important to note that a person who is emotionally distressed need not have a diagnosable mental disorder. An employee who is shunned and ridiculed for having complained about her manager's offensive behavior, or an employee who is publicly humiliated during a termination, may very well suffer a level of shame and distress that is actionable and compensable. It will be up to the jury to determine whether the defendant's conduct was malicious enough, and the plaintiff's emotional distress severe enough, to deserve monetary compensation. In my experience, jurors in employment litigation are far more likely to focus on the nature of the misconduct, and the company's response, in determining emotional distress than they are to dwell upon the psychological injury of the plaintiff.

Why Didn't You Leave?
Another psychological issue in work-related distress is the sense of financial and emotional captivity many employees feel with regards to their job. Granted, work is not prison. And yet, many sexual harassment victims continue to stay in an abusive or exploitive work situation. Why? This is often the primary question jurors have about a plaintiff who either put up with mistreatment over an extended period of time or remained silent under duress. Did she confront the alleged harasser? Did she complain to human resources? If yes, how soon? If not, why not?

In fact, one of the biggest psychological hurdles facing a plaintiff's attorney is debunking the commonly held juror belief that, were they in the victim's shoes, they would report or confront someone who was sexually harassing them. Existing research shows that people in general, both men and women, are notoriously bad at predicting what they would do and how they would feel. Women imagine they would be confrontational, but studies show most women are passive when faced with sexual harassment. In fact, when faced with an actual situation, out of fear they rarely voice objections. Researchers find that women who are actually harassed react very differently than those who only imagine their responses. For example, imagined victims anticipate feeling angry, but actual targets report being afraid.

A study published in the Journal of Social Issues evaluated the reactions of 50 women of ages 18 to 39 who took part in what they believed was a real job interview in which they were asked three sexually harassing questions: "Do you have a boyfriend?" "Do people find you desirable?" and "Do you think it is important for women to wear bras to work?" Each of the women answered all of the questions. It was only following the interview that 36% politely asked why the interviewer had posed the offensive questions.

Other research suggests that most women avoid disclosing harassment for fear of losing their jobs and sabotaging their careers. Although the number appears to be rising, historically less than 5 percent of women have dared to reveal their experiences of it. Those with a lot to lose-single mothers, for example-are especially leery of blowing the whistle. Last June, a paper presented at the American Psychological Society in Toronto identified a "Catch-22" for victims of sexual harassment in the workplace. The paper concluded that in speaking out about mistreatment, employees may trigger social isolation, professional devaluation and job loss. On the other hand, if they suffer in silence, their physical and mental health may suffer.

The Vulnerable Employee
A well-respected colleague of mine once got involved in a very complicated love triangle involving a younger woman who was already involved with an abusive married man. He became completely enmeshed in this situation, and, despite numerous friends advising him to "cut and run," he spent countless hours trying to rescue this young woman from her abusive relationship. When he failed, he suffered a serious depression that seemed far out of proportion to the length of the entanglement or his intellectual understanding of the dynamics of abusive relationships.

I don't know for sure why this colleague was so devastated by this event. I do know that, as a child, he often witnessed his father physically abuse his mother and, as the oldest, he often found himself in the unenviable position of trying to defend her from the mistreatment. My hunch is that his failure to extricate his recent love interest from the throes of her abuser triggered his childhood sense of helpless and despair. In other words, while most of us would be saddened to see a young woman stay in an abusive relationship, this particular situation had specific emotional significance to my colleague. As a result, he was psychologically vulnerable to an extreme reaction to the current situation.

Under the law in California, a defendant takes a victim "as he or she finds him." This means that a vulnerable plaintiff may be suffering from a preexisting mental disorder and still recover damages for any "aggravation" or "exacerbation" of the symptoms of that disorder. It also means that, for those employees who have deep seeded vulnerabilities due to their childhood, a relatively minor trauma can evoke significant distress. In sexual harassment situations where the harasser is in a position of power, the perpetrator may either knowingly or intuitively prey upon the very preexisting vulnerability that the defense will claim should lessen the plaintiff's recovery of damages. It is, of course, up to the jury to decide how responsible the defendant is and how reasonable it is for the employer to compensate the plaintiff for the damage.

A Defense Perspective
Of course, there are lots of relationships between employees and their work, including parasitic ones. Every company has its share of slackers, and a desire to continue freeloading can be an attractive incentive to malinger. The poor performer who can point an accusing finger at a supervisor or coworker can sometimes muddy the waters of personal responsibility. An employee who is sick of work is vastly different than an employee who is sick because of work, and a forensic psychologist is sometimes the defendant's best partner in figuring out who is what.

Similarly, a psychologically impaired employee isn't necessarily impaired because of work. Plaintiff X was a productive salesman for a pharmaceutical company. Over the course of several months, he suffered a series of life stressors; his mother was killed in an automobile accident during which he was the driver, his youngest son was diagnosed with leukemia, and his marriage deteriorated. Simultaneously, his behavior at work became increasingly erratic. His physical appearance became increasingly disheveled and unkempt, he made extremely unrealistic and paranoid statements to some of his customers, and he brought his pet to a senior sales meeting.

The plaintiff's sales manager, aware of his employee's personal situation, initially attempted to ignore the plaintiff's strange behavior. When customer complaints forced him to address the situation, Plaintiff X was repeatedly urged to seek help and was offered a paid medical leave. Plaintiff X consistently denied that he had any kind of problems and, in fact, threatened to sue the company for defamation and emotional distress. Plaintiff X continued to minimize any part his home life played in his disruptive behavior and was eventually terminated by his employer.

In the above scenario, the employee's deteriorating mental health significantly impacted his ability to successfully do his job although the precipitating stressors clearly had nothing to do with his work situation. Unfortunately, his state of mind prevented him from getting the help he needed and he incorporated genuine attempts to salvage his career as part of his increasingly disturbed thinking.

The Bottom Line
Harassment-related emotional distress claims are often a complicated puzzle involving an employee's mental health, work performance, and coexisting or prÃé©cising life stressors. To be successful, attorneys for both the plaintiff and the defense must have a two-pronged strategy; untangle and explain the plaintiff's motives and actions while simultaneously addressing the jury's own values and beliefs regarding the psychological significance of the workplace. A forensic psychologist can often be an invaluable asset in determining whether a plaintiff is sick at work, sick because of work, or sick of work. And, as far as the jury is concerned, a key to success is likely to be portraying a work "family" that either cares about and protects it's "children' (defense) or, from a plaintiff's perspective, epitomizes the definition of "dysfunctional."