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Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment. We focus so much on the victims, we also need to focus on t

Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment. We focus so much on the victims, we also need to focus on the perpetrators and see them as victims as well if not of anything else than their own psychology.

Dude2029 7y ago
No, they deserve to be punished. Is there counselling for rapists?
- CapitalistCartr 7y ago
  There should be. Society would be the better for it.
- bloak 7y ago
  Oh yes. Those clever psychologists even invented a counselling system that increased the rate of reoffending from 8% to 10%: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49973318 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49973318 Edit: Obviously I would be in favour of counselling that decreased the rate of reoffending.
luckylion 7y ago
Let's focus on the actual victims first though, and stop the bullies. There is a meta-argument with regards to free will and whether and how much choice we have in the things we do, but that's a very different discussion (albeit an interesting one) and shouldn't be confused with the one about the bully's acts and immediate (and long term) results.
- Juliate 7y ago
  Taking care of the victims today does not exclude taking care of the bullies as well. Stopping them does not mean only punishment, but counselling (and sometimes, because they were themselves victims of abuses).
  - luckylion 7y ago
    Given that resources are limited, choices have to be made regarding priority.
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      From that perspective, stopping a bully is more effective than helping a victim, because bullies often have more than one target.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        That would be the purely financial angle (provided that it's accurate), it doesn't take into account who deserves the help more (which is a moral judgement and is hard to agree on) and how much more. If somebody attacks somebody else and hurts themselves in the process and they both end up needing a new kidney and only one transplant is available, who gets it? Instead of punishing robbers, why don't we just give them enough money to live luxurious lives so they aren't tempted to rob any more people?
        bullytw2019 7y ago
        > If somebody attacks somebody else and hurts themselves in the process and they both end up needing a new kidney and only one transplant is available, who gets it? bad analogy, because in this case it's more like one person's kidney got destroyed and the other lost a lung. You want different types of specialists to deal with victims vs bullies. Assigning the wrong type will probably just make things worse. > Instead of punishing robbers, why don't we just give them enough money to live luxurious lives so they aren't tempted to rob any more people? One could argue that's part of the idea behind Universal Basic Income. That if your needs are being met by UBI, you really "shouldn't" have a reason to need to rob, so at that point they don't have any excuses. (I have skepticism about that in practice, but I get the concept at least.)
        luckylion 7y ago
codegladiator 7y ago
> Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment So, criminals also, by that logic, themselves need counseling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment ?
- devoply 7y ago
  Maybe if you counselled them and taught them how to manage their own needs and emotions many of them would not become criminals saving society many ills. You can not eliminate the personality that needs bullying to validate themselves from the population. You can however hep them channel those needs into other things like entrepreneurship and leadership. To productively shape their needs for power over people rather than harassing and harming them.
  - codegladiator 7y ago
    This suggests that the bully/criminal didn't already knew that. Most bullies i have seen didn't become bully because of some trauma.... its just fun to dominate (not even validation IMO).
    - Juliate 7y ago
      Most of the destructive/negative emotions and behaviours someone exhibits, comes from a lack of self-awareness.
    - yetihehe 7y ago
      Anegdotically, I know one bully from high school, who was trying to bully even me in college first year, but he changed, was a good friend and managed to get award for best results from education minister. So not all bullies are bulies for fun. All it took was a change of surroundings (he and two his friends were from "bad" primary school, all of them changed).
- Juliate 7y ago
  Actually, yes, they do. You want this, especially when you know they will one day get out of jail.
ryannevius 7y ago
> Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment I'd replace "rather than" with "in addition to".
- devoply 7y ago
  You really want to make a must to punish children? If you get in there early there shouldn't be an in addition to. Prison is a final measure when all other measures have failed. Even with prison, first time offenders of non-serious crimes usually do not do time or are diverted to other programs to help them avoid this fate. I just love how all the nerds here are going crazy over letting bullies off the hook initially to try to reform them -- it's as if they all want to bully the bullies.
  - audiometry 7y ago
    Yeah. The downvotes are unwarranted. Both the bullies and victims of bullying are suffering. It’s just that generally the bully is unaware he’s suffering. And yeah to be clear punitive revenge is ugly in all cases and leaves no one better off.
  - lr4444lr 7y ago
    What are you teaching a victim when both he and his bully receive only the same general kind of feel-good therapy?
traderjane 7y ago
Western bullying literature suggests that bullying is more like a position that people step in and out of, whereas victimhood is sticky to the individual. It’s easier to predict victims than bullies, and it’s difficult to predict how long someone will remain in the bully position. Bullying predicts general protective effects on the individual and social well-being. It also predicts that peers will rate the bully well, even when the victim rates the bully. This is to say that bullying has a big bystander component (the public reviews the act), and that bullies may do better than the normal population. People who are both bullies and victims experience characteristics from both populations.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Yeah in any school the anti-bullying campaigns are pathetic charades 9 out of 10 times as the amazing selective perception of teachers and faculty strikes again and again to "whatever is an annoyance to them". That is the true reason for lasting trauma and damage to victims - why they cheer at the deaths and destitution of their tormentors decades later. Because finally the assholes get what they deserve. Those who express horror get flipped the bird because they were the same sort of complicit assholes.
- bigred100 7y ago
  Frankly I think the answer is to just put children who bully in special education programs where they’re taught basic social skills. If they lack the interpersonal skills to not bully, they need remedial instruction in them.
afandian 7y ago
Your comment has obviously split opinion here, but I think it mirrors the way that society is split in the justice debate. Approach 1: "People who hurt other people should be hurt back" Approach 2: "We should try to understand why people hurt other people" I used to think these were correlated with political spectrum (approach 1 on the right, appraoch 2 on the left). But these patterns happen across the spectrum. These two aren't easily reconcilable. Approach-2-type-people, such as myself, think that this is the only real way to reduce harm and that approach 1 only makes everything worse, and continues the cycle of abuse. I think it's emcumbent on approach 2 to try and understand why people act like approach 1.
- chimprich 7y ago
  > Approach 1: "People who hurt other people should be hurt back" This seems to be the approach used by many (most?) people in online forums when discussing controversial topics. "Your opinion hurts me, so I'm going to be as offensive as possible in return". It doesn't seem to work very well. HN is maybe a bit more approach #2.
  - afandian 7y ago
    I certainly find the centre of gravity on HN interesting. As a European I wonder how much is US centric, tech or silicon valley. Everyone has unknown biases though. I'm sure that most people are a mix, with the result of cognitive dissonance.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    Basic game theory element - reciprocity. If there are no consequences there is nothing to lose from being an asshole. Hence the behaviors seen when people they have or believe they have impunity.
- luckylion 7y ago
  I'm not sure those are actually opposing positions. I believe that a stronger split is how important it is to stop the behavior. Imprisoning somebody will immediately stop their behavior and will provide safety for their victims, but we don't want to use an extreme tool like prison to solve a minor infraction (like, say, shoplifting). It seems to me that the debate is often about what is appropriate, where what you describe as "Approach 1" people prefer to err in too strong a measure that makes sure the behavior is stopped, while others prefer to err on the other side, i.e. is it more important to allow a bully to go to school (or live in freedom within society for larger issues), or is it more important to protect other students from them, and how much bad behavior do we accept, how many chances do they get to alter their behavior etc?
zozbot234 7y ago
Most of the worst/most visible bullies probably have narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies. Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. "Their own psychology" is all about thinking of the world in zero-sum terms, where they win if others lose. The only approach that can partially make up for such an attitude is cognitive-behavioral training, and then only for those who are smart enough that the lessons can sink in, overcoming their distrust of others, authority figures etc.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. I think most bullies are not psychopaths, considering that many don’t stay bullies their entire life.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    But the worst bullies probably are. Thwart the psychopaths first, and you'll probably find that others will lack any reason to bully in the first place - they will no longer be thinking of it as "normal".
  - LorenPechtel 7y ago
    Not all psychopaths are bullies. They can learn to behave even if they lack the emotions to care about others.
- andoofthewoods 7y ago
  that's a huge assumption you're making. Narcissists and Sociopaths make up 1% of the population each. To characterise most young bullies as narcissists/sociopaths when A - Their brains are still developing, and B - They're at an impressionable age where their sociability is highly moulded by their environment (e.g. parents) is disingenuous.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    I suspect we have even worse matters than the 1% - they are often contagious as you see their actions and rationalizations adopted by not technically sociopaths and narcissists because they are rewarded for it. And just like other conditioned for behavior done independently of when it would actually help them.
squarefoot 7y ago
Bullies often reflect the environment they're grown into: bad, absent, abusive or too demanding parents etc. They should be helped before resorting to punishment, but any attempt is deemed to fail if their family refuses to cooperate, which is the most likely case since it implies admitting they suck at parenting.
- LorenPechtel 7y ago
  Every bully I knew anything about their home situation the fundamental problem was parents that supported the bullying. They would punish their children for wrongdoing they observed but they categorically would not believe any wrongdoing reported by others. A prime example, the kids next door when I was growing up. They were younger than I was and never would try anything alone but two-on-one they would sometimes. (Usually when a third troublemaker was on the scene.) One time I was defending myself against an attack with a belt, I disarmed him and threw the belt into the vines growing on our house--high enough up that it would require a ladder to reach. When the belt was recovered the buckle was missing--they called the cops saying I must have stolen it. Just from talking to them the cop figured out I was acting in self defense, I had no possible way of having stolen the buckle (the instant I had control of the belt I threw it), the buckle must have come off when I threw it, bad luck for them. If the cop could figure that out so could their parents--yet they still felt I had stolen it since it couldn't be found. (Turns out there must have been a crack-the-whip effect, the buckle came off and flew completely over our house. We found it in a flower pot on the other side of the house two years later.)
maceurt 7y ago
I agree with you. If you are a child then you are almost entirely dependent on your home and school environment for cues on social development. If a child is bullying another kid then you can almost guarantee it is a problem with their home or with the school.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  Well, guess what's the biggest "problem with (the) school" - the inability to get away from a bad environment. And you can't fix that with counseling alone - you actually have to figure out who the worst offenders are, and punish them consistently. The more you can deprive those folks of the social influence among their peers that's what they crave most, the better for everyone else.
  - philpem 7y ago
    The bigger problem is what it does to the victims. If you have no possible escape from the situation, you end up falling into learned helplessness -- nothing I do can affect it, so why fight it. Maybe if I pretend to be dead, the predator will get bored with me and find some other prey...
  - maceurt 7y ago
    "The more you can punish people who are broken socially the more they learn" Punishing a kid is not going to help them get over the fact that their mom abuses them or they don't have a dad or that they are not safe in their neighborhood, etc. Punishment is good, but it can further traumatize or ingrain a kid into their bad behavior. Speaking from personal experience, I remember in elementary school I got very harshly punished and shamed for bullying a kid in my class. After that year I lost almost all my friends, and I was honestly traumatized. I still don't have many or any friends if I am being honest, and I think the situation would have been a lot different if they sat me down and talked to me instead of making me feel like a criminal. Punishment does not really work to curb bullying, and often does more harm than good. Like your not going to have violent bullying for the most part, but you can't stop other types of bullying with punishment.
LorenPechtel 7y ago
We don't have meaningful treatment.

Dude2029 7y ago

No, they deserve to be punished. Is there counselling for rapists?

CapitalistCartr 7y ago
There should be. Society would be the better for it.
bloak 7y ago
Oh yes. Those clever psychologists even invented a counselling system that increased the rate of reoffending from 8% to 10%: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49973318 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49973318 Edit: Obviously I would be in favour of counselling that decreased the rate of reoffending.

luckylion 7y ago

Let's focus on the actual victims first though, and stop the bullies. There is a meta-argument with regards to free will and whether and how much choice we have in the things we do, but that's a very different discussion (albeit an interesting one) and shouldn't be confused with the one about the bully's acts and immediate (and long term) results.

Juliate 7y ago
Taking care of the victims today does not exclude taking care of the bullies as well. Stopping them does not mean only punishment, but counselling (and sometimes, because they were themselves victims of abuses).
- luckylion 7y ago
  Given that resources are limited, choices have to be made regarding priority.
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    From that perspective, stopping a bully is more effective than helping a victim, because bullies often have more than one target.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      That would be the purely financial angle (provided that it's accurate), it doesn't take into account who deserves the help more (which is a moral judgement and is hard to agree on) and how much more. If somebody attacks somebody else and hurts themselves in the process and they both end up needing a new kidney and only one transplant is available, who gets it? Instead of punishing robbers, why don't we just give them enough money to live luxurious lives so they aren't tempted to rob any more people?
      - bullytw2019 7y ago
        > If somebody attacks somebody else and hurts themselves in the process and they both end up needing a new kidney and only one transplant is available, who gets it? bad analogy, because in this case it's more like one person's kidney got destroyed and the other lost a lung. You want different types of specialists to deal with victims vs bullies. Assigning the wrong type will probably just make things worse. > Instead of punishing robbers, why don't we just give them enough money to live luxurious lives so they aren't tempted to rob any more people? One could argue that's part of the idea behind Universal Basic Income. That if your needs are being met by UBI, you really "shouldn't" have a reason to need to rob, so at that point they don't have any excuses. (I have skepticism about that in practice, but I get the concept at least.)
        luckylion 7y ago

codegladiator 7y ago

> Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment So, criminals also, by that logic, themselves need counseling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment ?

devoply 7y ago
Maybe if you counselled them and taught them how to manage their own needs and emotions many of them would not become criminals saving society many ills. You can not eliminate the personality that needs bullying to validate themselves from the population. You can however hep them channel those needs into other things like entrepreneurship and leadership. To productively shape their needs for power over people rather than harassing and harming them.
- codegladiator 7y ago
  This suggests that the bully/criminal didn't already knew that. Most bullies i have seen didn't become bully because of some trauma.... its just fun to dominate (not even validation IMO).
  - Juliate 7y ago
    Most of the destructive/negative emotions and behaviours someone exhibits, comes from a lack of self-awareness.
  - yetihehe 7y ago
    Anegdotically, I know one bully from high school, who was trying to bully even me in college first year, but he changed, was a good friend and managed to get award for best results from education minister. So not all bullies are bulies for fun. All it took was a change of surroundings (he and two his friends were from "bad" primary school, all of them changed).
Juliate 7y ago
Actually, yes, they do. You want this, especially when you know they will one day get out of jail.

ryannevius 7y ago

> Bullies themselves need counselling on managing their own needs and emotions rather than punishment I'd replace "rather than" with "in addition to".

devoply 7y ago
You really want to make a must to punish children? If you get in there early there shouldn't be an in addition to. Prison is a final measure when all other measures have failed. Even with prison, first time offenders of non-serious crimes usually do not do time or are diverted to other programs to help them avoid this fate. I just love how all the nerds here are going crazy over letting bullies off the hook initially to try to reform them -- it's as if they all want to bully the bullies.
- audiometry 7y ago
  Yeah. The downvotes are unwarranted. Both the bullies and victims of bullying are suffering. It’s just that generally the bully is unaware he’s suffering. And yeah to be clear punitive revenge is ugly in all cases and leaves no one better off.
- lr4444lr 7y ago
  What are you teaching a victim when both he and his bully receive only the same general kind of feel-good therapy?

traderjane 7y ago

Western bullying literature suggests that bullying is more like a position that people step in and out of, whereas victimhood is sticky to the individual. It’s easier to predict victims than bullies, and it’s difficult to predict how long someone will remain in the bully position. Bullying predicts general protective effects on the individual and social well-being. It also predicts that peers will rate the bully well, even when the victim rates the bully. This is to say that bullying has a big bystander component (the public reviews the act), and that bullies may do better than the normal population. People who are both bullies and victims experience characteristics from both populations.

Nasrudith 7y ago
Yeah in any school the anti-bullying campaigns are pathetic charades 9 out of 10 times as the amazing selective perception of teachers and faculty strikes again and again to "whatever is an annoyance to them". That is the true reason for lasting trauma and damage to victims - why they cheer at the deaths and destitution of their tormentors decades later. Because finally the assholes get what they deserve. Those who express horror get flipped the bird because they were the same sort of complicit assholes.
bigred100 7y ago
Frankly I think the answer is to just put children who bully in special education programs where they’re taught basic social skills. If they lack the interpersonal skills to not bully, they need remedial instruction in them.

afandian 7y ago

Your comment has obviously split opinion here, but I think it mirrors the way that society is split in the justice debate. Approach 1: "People who hurt other people should be hurt back" Approach 2: "We should try to understand why people hurt other people" I used to think these were correlated with political spectrum (approach 1 on the right, appraoch 2 on the left). But these patterns happen across the spectrum. These two aren't easily reconcilable. Approach-2-type-people, such as myself, think that this is the only real way to reduce harm and that approach 1 only makes everything worse, and continues the cycle of abuse. I think it's emcumbent on approach 2 to try and understand why people act like approach 1.

chimprich 7y ago
> Approach 1: "People who hurt other people should be hurt back" This seems to be the approach used by many (most?) people in online forums when discussing controversial topics. "Your opinion hurts me, so I'm going to be as offensive as possible in return". It doesn't seem to work very well. HN is maybe a bit more approach #2.
- afandian 7y ago
  I certainly find the centre of gravity on HN interesting. As a European I wonder how much is US centric, tech or silicon valley. Everyone has unknown biases though. I'm sure that most people are a mix, with the result of cognitive dissonance.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  Basic game theory element - reciprocity. If there are no consequences there is nothing to lose from being an asshole. Hence the behaviors seen when people they have or believe they have impunity.
luckylion 7y ago
I'm not sure those are actually opposing positions. I believe that a stronger split is how important it is to stop the behavior. Imprisoning somebody will immediately stop their behavior and will provide safety for their victims, but we don't want to use an extreme tool like prison to solve a minor infraction (like, say, shoplifting). It seems to me that the debate is often about what is appropriate, where what you describe as "Approach 1" people prefer to err in too strong a measure that makes sure the behavior is stopped, while others prefer to err on the other side, i.e. is it more important to allow a bully to go to school (or live in freedom within society for larger issues), or is it more important to protect other students from them, and how much bad behavior do we accept, how many chances do they get to alter their behavior etc?

zozbot234 7y ago

Most of the worst/most visible bullies probably have narcissistic or sociopathic tendencies. Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. "Their own psychology" is all about thinking of the world in zero-sum terms, where they win if others lose. The only approach that can partially make up for such an attitude is cognitive-behavioral training, and then only for those who are smart enough that the lessons can sink in, overcoming their distrust of others, authority figures etc.

saagarjha 7y ago
> Counseling is totally useless on those folks because they don't really have normal emotions in the first place. I think most bullies are not psychopaths, considering that many don’t stay bullies their entire life.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  But the worst bullies probably are. Thwart the psychopaths first, and you'll probably find that others will lack any reason to bully in the first place - they will no longer be thinking of it as "normal".
- LorenPechtel 7y ago
  Not all psychopaths are bullies. They can learn to behave even if they lack the emotions to care about others.
andoofthewoods 7y ago
that's a huge assumption you're making. Narcissists and Sociopaths make up 1% of the population each. To characterise most young bullies as narcissists/sociopaths when A - Their brains are still developing, and B - They're at an impressionable age where their sociability is highly moulded by their environment (e.g. parents) is disingenuous.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  I suspect we have even worse matters than the 1% - they are often contagious as you see their actions and rationalizations adopted by not technically sociopaths and narcissists because they are rewarded for it. And just like other conditioned for behavior done independently of when it would actually help them.

squarefoot 7y ago

Bullies often reflect the environment they're grown into: bad, absent, abusive or too demanding parents etc. They should be helped before resorting to punishment, but any attempt is deemed to fail if their family refuses to cooperate, which is the most likely case since it implies admitting they suck at parenting.

LorenPechtel 7y ago
Every bully I knew anything about their home situation the fundamental problem was parents that supported the bullying. They would punish their children for wrongdoing they observed but they categorically would not believe any wrongdoing reported by others. A prime example, the kids next door when I was growing up. They were younger than I was and never would try anything alone but two-on-one they would sometimes. (Usually when a third troublemaker was on the scene.) One time I was defending myself against an attack with a belt, I disarmed him and threw the belt into the vines growing on our house--high enough up that it would require a ladder to reach. When the belt was recovered the buckle was missing--they called the cops saying I must have stolen it. Just from talking to them the cop figured out I was acting in self defense, I had no possible way of having stolen the buckle (the instant I had control of the belt I threw it), the buckle must have come off when I threw it, bad luck for them. If the cop could figure that out so could their parents--yet they still felt I had stolen it since it couldn't be found. (Turns out there must have been a crack-the-whip effect, the buckle came off and flew completely over our house. We found it in a flower pot on the other side of the house two years later.)

maceurt 7y ago

I agree with you. If you are a child then you are almost entirely dependent on your home and school environment for cues on social development. If a child is bullying another kid then you can almost guarantee it is a problem with their home or with the school.

zozbot234 7y ago
Well, guess what's the biggest "problem with (the) school" - the inability to get away from a bad environment. And you can't fix that with counseling alone - you actually have to figure out who the worst offenders are, and punish them consistently. The more you can deprive those folks of the social influence among their peers that's what they crave most, the better for everyone else.
- philpem 7y ago
  The bigger problem is what it does to the victims. If you have no possible escape from the situation, you end up falling into learned helplessness -- nothing I do can affect it, so why fight it. Maybe if I pretend to be dead, the predator will get bored with me and find some other prey...
- maceurt 7y ago
  "The more you can punish people who are broken socially the more they learn" Punishing a kid is not going to help them get over the fact that their mom abuses them or they don't have a dad or that they are not safe in their neighborhood, etc. Punishment is good, but it can further traumatize or ingrain a kid into their bad behavior. Speaking from personal experience, I remember in elementary school I got very harshly punished and shamed for bullying a kid in my class. After that year I lost almost all my friends, and I was honestly traumatized. I still don't have many or any friends if I am being honest, and I think the situation would have been a lot different if they sat me down and talked to me instead of making me feel like a criminal. Punishment does not really work to curb bullying, and often does more harm than good. Like your not going to have violent bullying for the most part, but you can't stop other types of bullying with punishment.

LorenPechtel 7y ago

We don't have meaningful treatment.