Whatever forms of bullying you’ve experienced, the effects are lasting and can be very damaging; bullying is nearly always traumatic, often having an impact on the way you feel and behave, the way you live your life and shape your future. It can affect the opportunities you seek out – or don’t – and the beliefs you hold about yourself and your capabilities. And it has the potential to affect your life choices and career.

It can lead to a constant state of anxiety and fear and can at its worst make you physically ill.

Being shouted at in a family relationship is a common form of bullying, as is being called names and told that you are either are this or that, or that you are not this or that. I’m sure that anyone could fill in the blanks. Where it is accompanied by physical aggression or violence, it is even more psychologically – and obviously, physically, damaging.

Researchers at James Cook University found that being bullied as a child, being female, young, anxious and prone to negative emotional states, are significant predictors of whether you might be bullied in the workplace.

I have worked many times with people in my therapeutic practice to help them understand and address bullying – current and historic – in their own relationships, at work, within the family and at home. I help people to release the anger, torment, frustration, stress and ongoing misery and loss of self-esteem that are the effects of bullying.