There’s often a moment, early on, when you tell yourself your boss is “just difficult” or a colleague is “just like that.” Then the sideways glances, the sharp remarks, tasks taken away without explanation, meetings you’re quietly excluded from become the norm. Workplace mobbing rarely explodes overnight — it creeps in slowly, day after day, becoming a constant wearing-down that’s hard to name, which is exactly what makes it hard to stop. Recognizing it early is the first step toward protecting both your health and your career.

What Mobbing Is: The WHO and INAIL Definitions

The World Health Organization frames mobbing within the broader category of workplace violence: incidents in which a person is abused, threatened or psychologically attacked in a work-related context, with direct consequences for health, safety and wellbeing.

In Italy, INAIL (the national institute for insurance against workplace accidents) recognizes mobbing-related conditions as eligible for biological damage compensation, drawing largely on the work of occupational psychologist Harald Ege, who adapted the model originally developed by Heinz Leymann to the Italian context. Under this definition, mobbing is “a work situation of systematic, persistent and steadily escalating conflict, in which one or more people are subjected to persecutory actions by one or more aggressors, aimed at causing the victim harm of varying type and severity.”

For a situation to be considered mobbing in the technical sense, experts point to several recurring criteria: frequency (hostile actions repeating at least weekly), duration (over a period of at least six months), persecutory intent, and a power imbalance between the person acting and the person targeted. It’s called vertical mobbing (or bossing) when it comes from a superior, and horizontal mobbing when it comes from colleagues.

The Typical Phases of Mobbing

According to the model developed by Ege, mobbing in the Italian context typically moves through a series of phases, often preceded by a “zero condition”: the ordinary, physiological conflict present in any workplace, which on its own is not yet mobbing.

1. Targeted conflict — out of a climate of general tension, one person is singled out and becomes the “scapegoat” absorbing the hostility.
2. The onset of actual mobbing — hostile actions become systematic: isolation, exclusion from information and meetings, constant criticism, demeaning tasks or impossible workloads.
3. First psychosomatic symptoms — insomnia, anxiety, difficulty concentrating, headaches, muscle tension: the body starts signaling something is wrong.
4. Mismanagement and abuse by HR — instead of intervening, the organization often makes things worse: unjustified disciplinary measures, demotions, punitive transfers.
5. Deteriorating health — chronic anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms: the person may reach a genuine psychological and physical breakdown.
6. Exclusion from the workplace — forced resignation, dismissal or permanent removal, often experienced as the only possible way out.

Not every situation follows this path in a linear way, but recognizing even the earliest phases can make the difference between acting right away and letting things worsen.

How to Document the Episodes

People experiencing mobbing are often told “you have no proof.” Building solid documentation, starting from the very first episodes, is both possible and essential.

• Keep a detailed log: for each episode, note the date, time, location, people involved, exactly what happened (the words used, if possible) and how it made you feel.
• Save every written trace: emails, messages, internal chats, official communications, suspicious or unjustified performance reviews.
• Identify potential witnesses and, if possible, ask them for a written statement or their willingness to confirm the facts if needed.
• Keep medical records: certificates, reports, prescriptions related to stress, anxiety or sleep issues that can be linked in time to the episodes.
• Avoid editing or “cleaning up” your notes in hindsight: chronological consistency is what gives the documentation credibility.

Reporting Channels

You don’t have to face this alone. Several channels can be pursued, often in parallel:

• The Workers’ Safety Representative (or equivalent health and safety officer) within the company.
• The company’s occupational health physician, who can assess the impact on health and initiate protective measures.
• HR, if genuinely perceived as an impartial party — this isn’t always the case, and it’s worth assessing on a case-by-case basis.
• The relevant labor union, which can offer informational, legal and mediation support.
• A designated Trust Counselor (a role present in many organizations for handling mobbing and harassment cases), where available.
• The national labor inspectorate, for more formal reports.
• Anti-mobbing help desks run by some local health authorities, regional bodies or advocacy organizations, often free of charge.

When to Seek Legal and Psychological Support

If the episodes keep repeating, if your health starts to suffer, or if internal channels lead nowhere, it’s time to seek specialized outside support.

An employment lawyer can help assess whether legal action is warranted: documented mobbing can entitle a person to compensation for biological, moral and existential damage, under laws requiring employers to protect the physical integrity and moral dignity of workers (in Italy, Article 2087 of the Civil Code; equivalent duty-of-care obligations exist in most jurisdictions).

At the same time, psychological support isn’t a sign of weakness — it’s a concrete tool for processing accumulated stress, regaining clarity for the decisions ahead, and protecting your mental health over the long term. Many professionals specialized in occupational psychology understand the dynamics of mobbing well and can, if needed, provide a report useful in legal proceedings.

No one should get used to feeling wrong or inadequate in their own workplace. If you recognize even part of this pattern in your own experience, the first step is naming what’s happening — and knowing that real tools, real channels and people ready to help exist. You don’t have to face it alone.