Bullies Equal Scared Kids

The thing that makes bullying so chronic is that the Bully never faces his or her own fears.

In recent decades, bullying has become a more serious problem in our schools and neighborhoods. I would like to talk to you about the psychodynamics of bullying. First I must say that I have been in mental health for more than 40 years. I have had many opportunities to both observe and study human behavior, including bullying. The following are my opinions and observations gathered over the years and are not intended as recommendations for any treatment pathways.

I can tell you beyond a doubt that fear is the most powerful and most dominant of all human
emotions. This is true across countries, cultures and societies around the globe. The healthiest people in any society are the least frightened and most able to act on their own behalf in all life situations, whether people around them approve of them or not. On the opposite end of that spectrum are the people who are most frightened and, in the extreme, suffer from the most serious forms of mental illness. Their lives are set up around managing fear and at the expense of people around them, in extreme cases.

The people with the least amounts of fear come from a place described by Thomas A. Harris
MD, author of I’M OK-YOU’RE OK, as living in just that place, the place where I am okay
with myself and other people are okay as they are with me. The next level down on the Fear
Spectrum is the I AM NOT OKAY but YOU ARE OKAY place. The third level down is
where bullies live. They live in the I’M OKAY and YOU ARE NOT OKAY place. This is a
difficult world to live in, because in order to manage one’s own fear at this level, you must
work at keeping other people feeling afraid. So, instead of living a natural, healthy life, you
must find people to bully and intimidate so that you can feel okay about yourself inside.
Bullying is a form of Fear Management.


On the surface, one might easily conclude that the
person being bullied is clearly the frightened individual. However, at a closer glance, the psychodynamics of bullying become more evident. The person being bullied is afraid or shy, or a bit unusual, and therefore an obvious target. But the Bully is in the business of
chronically seeking people to bully and chronically expending resources to pass off his or her own fears on to someone else. The thing that makes bullying so chronic is that the Bully never faces his or her own fears. Rather, the bully devotes his or her life to getting someone else to feel those fears. Bullying is like a game of “hot potato.” You feel afraid and go out and find someone to scare. Thus the other person feels the fear and you present yourself as being tough and strong. Bullies are very frightened people, whether they live in grown-up bodies or children’s bodies.


The world of the Bully is a very sad world indeed. It is sad because the Bully is not only
chronically managing his or her fear, but also because they are so difficult to treat
therapeutically. They never present themselves as scared. They live in the I’M OKAY and
YOU’RE NOT OKAY place. So, for all practical purposes there is nothing wrong with
them. Parents have some ability to stop their children from bullying. But, doing so requires an
extraordinary parent who is willing to absolutely not allow his or her child to be a Bully.
The dynamics of the families of most Bullies often support the Bully tactics, so there is very
little commitment on the part of the parents to stop the Bully behavior. In fact, in some
families the children are carrying the fear of their parents and passing that fear off as Bullies
on behalf of their parents. Complex, but quite obvious, when you watch human behavior
long enough.

Children being bullied are very treatable. If they are young, they need their parents to stand up for them and behind them one hundred per cent, in my opinion. Never, ever let your child
be bullied. Stop it if you have to sit in school all day long with your child. Give the Bullies the message that no child of yours will be the target of anyone’s fear. In other words, be more frightening than the Bullies and they will leave your children alone. As for the Bullies, if you are one and want help to stop, there are many people who can support you. I am happy to give references.

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