The Neuroscience of Harassment: Understanding the Brain's Response to Workplace Bullying

Mental health isn't a side issue. It's what holds everything together or make it fall apart.

Hello dear listeners and welcome back to Narratives of Purpose, a place for conversations with inspiring leaders that is all about amplifying social impact. I am your host, Claire Murigande.This episode is the first of three discussions that I moderated for the 2025 International Day against Harassment and for Inclusion in the World of Work, an event that took place on 23 May in Geneva, Switzerland and co organized by Narratives of Purpose. The title of this conversation is the Devastating Impact of Workplace Harassment on the Brain and.Hello, good morning, good afternoon or good evening wherever you are in the world.Thank you everyone for joining us today and a very warm welcome to this first webinar sessions of the 2025 International Day against Harassment and for Inclusion in the World of Work. My name is Claire Murigande.I am the founder and the host of Narratives of Purpose podcast, a co organizer of this third edition of the International Day Against Harassment and for Inclusion in the World of Work and I am super excited, delighted to welcome our speakers for this first session. And our session will focus on the impact of workplace harassment on the brain and health. We have two speakers today.The first one is joining us from Japan. Her name is Dr. Makiko Kuramoto. She specializes in organizational psychology, developmental psychology and cultural psychology.She is the founder and Managing Director of Fumi Consulting and she combines extensive product management experience in Japanese and international companies with a strong academic background and she provides coaching, training, consulting services. She also teaches at Keio University and Aoyama Geiko University. I'm so sorry, I guess I mispronounced that so probably you have to repeat it for us.And you also have a book. She also has a book, Feedback Mastery. So welcome Makiko.

It's my pleasure to be part of this great initiative, so thank you so much.

You're welcome. Really looking forward to have your insight and especially from Japan. Our second speaker is Dr.Jennifer Fraser and she is based in Canada in the west coast. Jennifer, good morning. So you are an award winning educator of 20 years.You have a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto and you are the author of the book the Bullied Brain where you lay out the significant physical harm to the brain from normalized bullying practices. Welcome Jennifer.

Thank you so much for having me.

Pleasure. So let me start with the first question.We're going to focus obviously on the brain and health, but I want to start with you Makiko and ask your perspective from Japan. I Also mentioned earlier that you specialize in organizational, developmental and cultural psychology.And one of the aspects you focus on with your consulting company is mental health.So could you tell us why this aspect is as important as, for example, solving problems on a systemic level or even training people in leadership, which is also what you do?

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Claire. Sure.When we talk about organization, additional health, whether it's leadership development or problem solving or culture building, mental health isn't something separate. It's a foundation everything else rests on.And without emotional safety and psychological well being, even the best business strategies just don't stick. And I've seen it myself again and again everywhere.And when people are stressed or emotionally drained, they stop thinking clearly, they lose creativity, and they pull back from collaboration. And even small changes can feel overwhelming for people.And I remember one time working with these senior managers once, and he wasn't disruptive, but you could feel there was this wall, you know, you could tell something was off. Then later we learned that he'd been dealing alone with serious burnout for a long period of time, like months or years.And when we finally had space to talk about it, with support from his own manager, yeah, it wasn't a quick fix, but it did open the door. Then gradually he became more and more open and grounded and over time his team as well began to feel the difference.So yeah, our mental health isn't a side issue. It's what holds everything together or make it fall apart.

I think that's an important point because we often forget that actually mental health holds everything together, just like you said. Whereas now it took so many years and decades to actually address it and we're just focusing on the physical part.So tell me about so long term effects of consequences this can have in the workplace. When we talk about workplace harassment, such as stress and well being and on cognition. Sorry.So can you tell me a bit more about the long term effects? What have you observed so far?

Yeah, of course. Yeah, that's really critical question. Thank you. So workplace harassment isn't just a short term stressor.When someone is exposed to harassment over time, it causes a chronic stress. And that chronic stress can actually start changing how the brain works. So basically there are three main areas we see the biggest impact.First is amygdala, which detects danger and becomes overactive. That puts people in a constant state of alert. So we become more anxious, more reactive and more emotionally sensitive. Second is the hippocampus.That part, the part that supports memory and learning, can actually shrink under long term stress. So it gets harder to take in new information or even remember things clearly.And third, the prefrontal cortex, that's here, the part we need for decision making and self regulation, that starts to lose its effectiveness. So that's why people under harassment related stress often find themselves mentally scattered, distracted, unable to focus.And the damage doesn't stop at brain function. Harassment often takes away people's sleep.It isolates them and slowly wears down the people's confidence and motivation and sense of safety and not just at work, but in their life as a whole.So when we talk about the consequences of harassment, again, it's not just about short term discomfort, it's about long term harm to how people think, how they work and how they connect with others. So that's why prevention and support aren't just operational, but they are essential.

Yeah, it's really important because sometimes people, as you were saying, feel alone and isolated. And I think this is only happening to me. But these are actually things you can quantify and see. And it's almost.You mentioned something very important I find is chronic. Right. It's like a condition. If you have a chronic condition, say diabetes. Right. This is something that's happening for long term, period. Right.And you can just ignore it. So I think it's really important to stress that.I guess this is where I can make the bridge with you, Jennifer, because Makiko mentioned a few areas of the brain and you are our brain specialist today.So if we dig a bit deeper into these long term effects and we connect to neuroscience, which is really your specialty, can you tell us what type of harm the brain can endure when we see these normalized bullying practices? And this is something you've already described in your book as well.

Yeah.I'll just add to what Mikiko was saying to get people to really understand that what happens is when you're being harassed at work, when or you're being excluded, you're being ignored, you don't feel like you're part of the team and you start to create, start to feel stress. What happens in the brain and body at that moment is you start to activate cortisol on a regular level.Not just a, oh, I need to escape from a predator. Cortisol and adrenaline are going to help me. Which is how the whole system was designed, the sympathetic stress system.What's happening is, as Makiko was saying, day in, day out, you get this chronic release of the cortisol. And this is exactly, it's a stress hormone that when it's released repeatedly it's causing damage, physical damage in the brain.It's visible on a brain scan. Most people have no concept that's what's happening.I think, I think if you sat someone down and said to them, the way you're behaving, you know, this aggression that you're showing, this harassment, this anxiety that you have is actually contagious. You're hurting your team. Your team is starting to become very unwell and non productive.We won't be profitable because they're putting their brain energy and their physical energy into surviving this headache, heavy duty stress that you're exuding. And as Mackie Ko was talking about, there was a manager because he was so unwell he didn't even know, he was just trying to survive.And that I think is one of the key points in all of this is that the brain's doing its very best job to survive.And so it's releasing cortisol and adrenaline because it thinks you're face to face with a danger from which you must fight it, run away from it, your flight or you need to freeze like a creature does. So you're not seen. The manager sounded like he was in freeze, just absolutely in this kind of walled blocked area. It's all about safety.So when we have workplaces where we create safety, then we start to create health, we start to create mental health, the body starts to flourish, the brain starts to flourish and we can put our energy not into survival, we can put our energy into connection. As Mackie Ko was saying, connect, connection and high productivity, problem solving, creativity. Isn't this what we want in all of our workplaces?Of course we do, but we're trapped in this outdated model where people's brains have been wired to believe in the system of command and control and they think that's the only way to do well. And it's a myth.And what's exciting to me is neuroscience is starting to debunk that myth in a big way and hence why you're having this incredibly important conference internationally.

If we take a step back and try to understand how is it that we have this environment of harassment, of bullying and so on, what is it?From your experience or maybe from your research, what do you think causes companies to easily slide into that complicity, if you will, or even negligence around all these behaviors, whether it's bullying, mobbing, harassment, what do you think we can say is the cause of all of that?

That is the subject of my new book which is coming out in November. So it's called the Gaslit Brain. And it's a prevention book. It's not a how do you heal from trauma? It's a let's prevent the trauma.So the subtitle is protect your brain from the lies of bullying, gaslighting and institutional complicity. So I took a look at organizational culture, like, how does it happen? Why does it happen? Why do we see this complicity? And it took me a long time.I've been working on that book for years.And what I found was if you are the leader of a company, it's most important to you on a cellular level to leave a good legacy and not to face the fact that harm happened on your watch. And you want that so badly.You so badly want to be the decent hero of, of your own narrative that you dismiss and deny reports of abuse and harassment and exclusion and all of these mobbing, these things that we see in the workplace. That's where the gaslighting comes in.The gaslighting is designed to make you not see what's happening and to adhere to the leader's version of events. The independent investigation that found that nothing happened, it's really. That's just. That's not believable.But when the person has power over you, you will become blind to betrayal. And that's Jennifer Frade's work. She's an expert in the fact that we put on blinders. We all know this. Mackie Ko.You would have seen it many times at work where when abuse is reported, all of a sudden your colleagues disappear. They all look the other way. They don't. They will not stand with you.You believe they will, but they won't because they're not going to put their head on the chopping block. They're not going to lose their opportunities for promotion. They're not going to lose their livelihood. They can't feed their family.It's high stakes at work. And so when people get pushed positions, when the person who has power says, this is reality.We see this right now happening internationally in the political sphere. This is reality. You must adhere to my version of events. If not, I'm threatening you and you're going to lose your job.It takes an unbelievable intestinal fortitude is what one of the whistleblower lawyers described it as that I interviewed for my book.

And what's your perspective on that, people? Because you also specialize in organizational psychology and culture. And what is your perspective on how this comes?

Yeah, Clea, thank you. And thank you, Jennifer. Yeah. Harassment doesn't happen randomly. It's shaped by the organizational culture.And there are a few common patterns I often observe. First is excessively rigid hierarchy.Especially in Japan with low psychological safety, when people feel they can't speak up, even when something feels absolutely wrong, Polands get buried. In some Japanese companies I have worked with, there's a strong pressure to read the air and avoid making mistakes, avoid making waves.That often means harmful behaviors are ignored just to keep the surface calm. So like Jennifer mentioned, turning a blind eye, even if you know that's wrong to just to protect yourself.And second, it's a culture that overvalues endurance and loyalty. Especially in Japanese culture. In some places, the more you tolerate, the more you're seen as dedicated. Can you imagine? That's crazy, right?I remember a case where a young Japanese manager is a woman endured repeated sexiest comments when then when she got fed up. When she finally spoke up, she was criticized not for what happened to her, but for being too sensitive.And this is really tragic and she she need to leave the company and then nobody stopped her. And third, a culture of punishment and fear. Actually, I give you an example.In 2005 there was a major train accident in Japan where over 100 people died. And it happened at JR west, one of the major railway companies in Japan at that time.There was a culture where even small mistakes were punished harshly. It was a para harassment, like you have to do weeding, you have to do toilet cleaning for 12 days and so on.And you are yelled and you are threatened to terminate contract. So in that kind of environment, the driver had slightly overrun a stop and caused a delay and he panicked and tried to catch up.Then the train derailed. So in that moment the fear completely overpowered the sense of safety. And finally a lack of accountability.When there are no clear system to address harassment, or when high performers are protected despite the bad behaviors, harassment quietly continues. So put this all together. Very rigid hierarchy, silence, endurance, fear, lack of accountability.You create a culture where harassment becomes invisible but very real. Not because people are nasty or inherently bad, but more because the system rewards silence and punishes honesty. That's my view.

Thanks. And thanks for sharing those specific examples from Japan.And I think because in the second part of this conversation, I want to also look at practical solutions of what we can do to prevent. Because Jennifer mentioned before, her upcoming book is about also prevention.And for our audience and everyone attending this day, we also want to give them practical insights from your personal expertise. Makiko, what would be maybe a couple of effective tools that you can share with us?

So there are two tools I rely on in my work. So one is EQ emotional intelligence training and leadership self awareness.So first, emotional intelligence or eq, people sometimes think it just means being nice or calm, but that's a misunderstanding. Emotional intelligence is really about being aware of what's happening inside you and around you, especially in moments of tension or stress.And it means catching your own emotional reactions before they take over and noticing subtle cues in others as well, like tone of voice, body language, gestures, silence. And it's about sensing what might be going on beneath the surface. But it's not just about reading emotions.I think it's about how you respond to the situation. So emotional intelligence is a really a skill you can enhance.It helps you slow down and choose your next move smartly instead of reacting on autopilot. And empathy is a big part of that I think. And it doesn't mean fixing people or always agreeing.It means being present enough to really listen, to care enough to ask what might be going on for them right now. So when we approach others that way, people around us that way, we can reduce the chance of causing harm. We create space for real connection.And second is leadership self awareness. So leaders really set the emotional tone for the team. Right?So without self awareness from leadership, the leaders can create fear without knowing it. I work with some managers who were shocked to hear delete feedback. So they realized that teams were extremely intimidated by the managers.So they were like no, I was nice. So you see they really lack the self awareness. Then they receive a training and they took their fact seriously.And even small shifts in their behaviors made a big difference in trust and openness.For example, they started to take time to really listen to people without interrupting, taking out, taking people out for coffee, lunch, sharing information, timely manner more clearly, carefully and expressing gratitude right away, which is really important I think. And making time for team connection. So these small actions in daily basis help their team feel safer, more respected, more willing to speak up.So when we build, in conclusion, emotional intelligence and help leaders grow their self awareness, we are not just preventing harassment, we are but we are creating workplaces where people don't have to hide who we are. They are where they feel safe and respected and truly feel part of the team.

Emotional intelligence and leadership training. What would you add to that Jennifer?

So my big what do we need to do to make change? My first thing would be everybody needs to be a lot more educated on the dark triad, how it works, why it works.They need to know the dark triad playbook, how they pit people against each other, how they use threat and power. They will use their position to cover up Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde type behaviors where they come across as this person with great credibility.So you believe what they say and do because of their position, and you stop seeing their behavior for what it really is. And this is where the gaslighting comes in. I love Mackie Co's description of you're being abused.You, you report you're being abused and you're told that you're too sensitive. That is classic gaslighting. You're being told that your perceptions of the abuse you're suffering are inaccurate. The team doesn't think it's true.Your reality is skewed. The problem lies with you. And in that moment, you get reversal from perpetrators and victims. And that's classic. It's textbook, it's well documented.People at work don't know this. And so I'm a big believer in knowledge is power.It's why I write the books that I do, because I think that the more we know, the more equipped we are to identify quickly the negative destructive behaviors, the safer we will all be and the more committed we will all be to changing workplace dynamics. Mac Eco just gave us a brilliant description of the five factors that create things like the train crash. It creates the Boeing.We all have been following the case at the organizational crisis at Boeing where you weren't allowed to say that there were safety issues. Next thing, a plane's gone down from the sky. What? How is that possible? And the tragedy is one of the Boeing whistleblowers just took his own life.Seven years of a system that doesn't allow you to actually address the heart of the matter. There's so much lying, so much bullying, so much gaslighting.That's why we're putting in our energy and it's not sustainable for a healthy workplace in the future.

And I think you, you both showed like very good examples that make it really tangible. Because one could think, okay, my, my company or in the corporate world is different and this type of world is different.But when you look at this train and airplanes, these are things everybody is used to and knows we've always all been on a plane at least once, right?And you understand that even in a company like that, that this type of culture can lead to really fatal accidents and cases or really things that you probably didn't think of, but all stems from harassment, which is absolutely mind blowing, I find. So thank you for sharing those two examples, which are really tangible.I'd like to conclude and ask you both if there's one thing you want to share with our audience, what would you like them to take away from this conversation?

I would like to have people get really excited about learning more about their brains. We're in a society right now that ignores our brains for the most part. That's why I use that idea of bullied brain. We're trained in our societies.And I was, I'm amazed, Mackie Ko. Just to hear how similar in many ways Japanese culture in the workplace is to North America. Literally down to the phrase too sensitive.That when I began doing this kind of research 12 years ago, that was the trigger for me where I was like. And it wasn't. I wasn't the person suffering the harassment. It was very vulnerable people suffering the harassment. I reported it.So I took the whistleblower rule. But that is exactly what they said. The people that are being abused are too sensitive. What? And that was my first introduction to gaslighting.I was like, okay, that doesn't make any sense to me. What does the research say? And when I hit the brain science, I was like, everybody needs to know this.Everybody needs to know, just as Makiko described, three parts of the brain that are being damaged in these things, in these kind of scenarios that are abusive. You can see it on a brain scan. We need to start learning about that and what the parallel is and why I believe that change is possible.And in my lifetime we learned that smoking, we were told it made us tough, it made us glamorous, it made us independent, was good for our health. That was hammered into us and we grew up with it. Everybody smoked in the workplace. Everybody breathed in secondhand smoke. Non invasive technology.That X ray showed us smoking was correlated with cancer. All the laws changed. You're not allowed to smoke at work. Simple. That needs to happen.With exclusion and harassment and bullying, you're not allowed to do it. Why? Non invasive technology, the eeg, the mri, the fmri, it shows us damage to the brain. Therefore, you cannot do it, plain and simple.And once those laws come into place, like they did with smoking, everybody gets informed, educated leadership starts to pour all kinds of energy and knowledge and workshops and trainings into it. Everything changes. And I just, I'm surprised that hasn't happened.So my, my one big takeaway for people would be really, the more you learn about your brain, the more empowering it is. The brain levels the playing fields. We all have these incredible brains and we should all be capitalizing on how fabulous they are.

Thank you. And perfect analogy with the smoking I Love it. Makiko, how about you? What's your concluding note for our audience?

Right. I fully agree with Jennifer. I think we need to increase more education to people.Like how big the impact on our our physical health as well as mental health. And we have to show evidence. Then they have to convince people it's really hurting us because we are social animals.Human beings are being excluded and being bullied is fatal to us. It's a big pain for us. So we have to understand the impact.And also for in a workplace, the leadership has to realize that they have to lead by example. So they have to show how they should treat, how we should treat people. So we have to communicate better so we can learn authority, communication.And also we can also enhance active listening, how to really listen to people and show gratitude.And I think we have to increase the quantity and quality of communication with each other and create a space where people can open up and say things without fear of speaking up, without fear of being humiliated.

Thank you. Makiko Kuramoto joining us from Japan. You are founder and managing director of Fumi Consulting. And Jennifer Fraser joining from Canada.And you are the author of the Bullied Brain and you have a next book coming soon, the Gaslit Brain. Thank you all.Thank you for tuning in today. If you wish to connect with our guests and follow their work, visit the following websites. For Dr. Makiko Kuramoto, fumiconsulting.co.jp and for Dr.Jennifer Fraser, bulliedbrain.com Both links are available in the Show Notes.Stay tuned for the next conversation of our webinar series marking the 2025 International Day against Harassment and for inclusion in the World of Work.This episode was created in collaboration with Rezalliance, an organization dedicated to raising awareness about harassment and discrimination in all its forms.