Bullying

Bullying involves three key components:

1. A power imbalance between the bully and the victim. This imbalance may be real or only perceived by the victim.
2. he aggression is carried out by a bully or a group of bullies who intend to harm the victim in an intentional way.
3. There is aggressive behaviour towards the same victim, which occurs repeatedly.

Often several types of bullying can occur simultaneously:

Physical: Direct aggression based on kicking, pushing, hitting with objects. It can also be indirect when there is material damage to the victim’s personal belongings or theft.
Verbal: This is the most common form. Words undermine the victim’s self-esteem through humiliation, insults, name-calling, public belittling, spreading false rumours, offensive phone messages or calls, indecent sexual language, etc.
Psychological: It is carried out through threats to provoke fear, to obtain some object or money or simply to force the victim to do things that he/she does not want to do or should not do.
Social: It consists of the exclusion and progressive isolation of the victim. In practice, bullies prevent the victim from participating, either by ignoring his/her presence or by not involving him/her in normal activities among friends or classmates.

According to DSM-5 (2014) bullying is classified as “destructive, impulse control, conduct, and substance-associated and addictive disorders”. Also on this list are oppositional defiant disorder, dissocial disorders, conduct disorders, pyromania, kleptomania, alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, etc.

> American Psychiatric Association (2014). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), 5th Ed. Barcelona: Masson.