Mobbing and the Maternal Imago: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Workplace Trauma

Abstract

Between 2009 and 2024, mobbing had an important place in the authors’ lives, both professionally and personally. This circumstance prompted us to reflect on the nature and mechanisms of mobbing and, more importantly, coping strategies. Mobbing causes profound suffering and destabilizes identity, requiring therapeutic and legal strategies. Since the events surrounding the stock market crash in 2008, and even more since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have noticed—probably also due to the authors’ transition from institutional work to private practice—a significant increase in consultations caused by severe difficulty in managing professional life. At the same time, the authors experienced similarly unexpected and hurtful sequences of difficult situations after a long and successful career. This experience provided them with a painful but extremely rich first-person account of the mobbing mechanisms. This chapter emerged from this “twin approach” and the exchanges with colleagues of the Charles Baudouin International Psychoanalysis Institute during analytic supervision meetings. In the discussion of the clinical cases, we have strictly respected anonymity. This paper is a blend of clinical observation, personal account, and theoretical considerations. We drafted it some time ago, but in the authors’ opinion, it is—unfortunately—increasingly relevant, which is why we decided to review it and submit it for publication.