Individuation and Workplace Bullying: Descent and the Heroine’s Journey
When someone is systematically targeted or undermined in a toxic workplace, it can feel as if their sense of direction and purpose has collapsed. The ability to see one’s life as a coherent story, where past, present, and future are meaningfully connected, can break down in the aftermath of bullying. Workplace bullying often results in a profound destabilization of the individual’s sense of orientation, purpose, and identity within both professional and personal spheres (Einarsen et al., 2011). The experience is not merely disorienting; it can precipitate a crisis of meaning and belonging. Instead of a clear narrative, the individual may experience a series of confusing events: increasing hostility, subtle exclusion, overt attacks, and a gradual loss of reputation and belonging (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2018). Years of commitment to a profession or organization can suddenly seem meaningless. From inside this experience, it may feel as though life has gone irreversibly “off track.” However, from a depth-psychological perspective, this crisis can be viewed as a turning point in the individuation process, a moment where an old, restrictive way of organizing one’s identity becomes unworkable, making space for a more authentic sense of self to emerge (Jung, 1951/1969; Hollis, 2005).
Individuation as Lifelong Process
In Jungian psychology, individuation is the ongoing process by which a person becomes the unique individual they are inherently meant to be, guided by the Self as the psyche’s inner organizing center (Jung, 1951/1969). This process is not simply “self-actualization” as defined by humanistic psychology, nor is it limited to career advancement or accumulating experiences. Individuation involves a deepening exchange between conscious and unconscious aspects of the personality, including shadow elements, psychological complexes, unrealized potentials, and archetypal patterns. Over time, the rigid identification with the persona, the social mask that mediates between the individual and the outside world, must soften. The goal is for a person not to be entirely defined by external expectations or social roles.
From an existential viewpoint, James F. T. Bugental offers a similar perspective: “Our true identity is a process, not a substantive thing. Thus we are continually changing” (Bugental, 1990, p. 326). This view of identity as a continuous process aligns with Jung’s concept of individuation (Jung, 1951/1969). It highlights that what is disrupted by bullying is not a finished self, but a particular stage of an ongoing developmental journey. Even when the old narrative collapses, the deeper movement of becoming continues, although it may take a more difficult and painful course (Hollis, 2005).
Individuation as Dialogue Between Conscious and Unconscious
Jung emphasized that individuation is not simply a project of the ego, but a dialogue between conscious and unconscious processes (Jung, 1951/1969). Marie-Louise von Franz described individuation as the gradual development of mutual recognition between these two “partners” in the psyche (von Franz, 1964). Consciousness must give up the illusion of total control, while the unconscious finds symbolic ways to communicate, especially through dreams, spontaneous images, and bodily sensations. Jung summarized this process as the movement toward wholeness: a person becomes “integrated, calm, fertile, and happy when (and only when) the process of individuation is complete, when the conscious and the unconscious have learned to live at peace and to complement one another” (Jung, 1964, p. 14).
In the context of workplace bullying, it becomes clear how distant this ideal can feel. Organizations often require people to suppress precisely those signals through which the unconscious communicates: troubling dreams that contradict official narratives, bodily symptoms that signal excessive demands, or ethical intuitions that something is wrong. In this way, bullying is not only an interpersonal attack but also a systematic assault on the individuation process itself. The target is pressured to dismiss their own inner experience, doubt their perceptions, and maintain an alignment between ego and persona that silences the unconscious. The result is not inner harmony, but internal conflict: the adaptive ego tries to maintain functionality, while the psyche signals, through symptoms and recurring dreams, that the current arrangement is no longer sustainable (von Franz, 1964).
These disruptions often show up as anxiety, trouble concentrating, disturbed sleep, or feeling stuck in the same negative patterns (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2018; Reknes et al., 2023). Many people describe feeling unable to move forward, caught between a lost professional identity and uncertainty about the future (Hollis, 2005). This kind of standstill can repeat itself in new jobs or relationships, suggesting that the psyche is demanding a deeper change (Hollis, 2005).
Bullying as Blocked Individuation
Viewed from a depth-psychological perspective, workplace bullying represents a situation in which the process of individuation is aggressively interrupted and, paradoxically, pushed into a new stage. Bullying undermines the essential conditions needed for individuation: the ability to trust one’s perceptions, to experiment with new ways of being without fear of severe retaliation, and to participate in relationships that support differentiation instead of demanding conformity or submission (Einarsen et al., 2011; Nielsen & Einarsen, 2018). Numerous empirical studies have documented a wide range of effects from bullying, such as anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms, physical complaints, and lasting changes in personality traits. These outcomes can be interpreted as signs that the psyche is struggling to maintain coherence when its integrity is persistently attacked (Nielsen & Einarsen, 2018; Reknes et al., 2023).
When a group or organization consistently tells someone that their perceptions are invalid, their boundaries do not matter, or their presence is unwelcome, the ego loses its ability to balance inner and outer reality (Hutchinson et al., 2010). The person may swing between intense self-doubt and rigid defensiveness, both of which can stall the individuation process (Jung, 1951/1969). Recurring symptoms and familiar negative patterns, such as “the same story with a different boss”—are not only sources of distress but also signals of blocked psychological movement. From a depth-psychological view, these patterns may be understood as the Self’s way of demanding that something be acknowledged, even if the conscious mind cannot yet grasp what that is (Hollis, 2005).
Organizational Shadow and the Burdened Carrier
A deeper psychological perspective emerges when bullying is viewed as a manifestation of an organization’s shadow. Jung expanded the idea of the shadow, the disowned, morally inferior, or unconscious aspects of the personality, to collectives as well (Jung, 1938/1969). Groups and institutions often project traits and tendencies that do not fit their ideal self-image, relegating them to the organizational shadow. In this environment, bullying can be seen as a system’s method of transferring its shadow onto specific individuals (Georgiou, 2023). These individuals then carry the characteristics the group refuses to acknowledge in itself: vulnerability, dissent, limits to growth, and ethical discomfort. Once this projection is complete, the group may attack or expel the person carrying its shadow, maintaining its positive self-image by sacrificing a scapegoat (Kets de Vries, 2006).
For the person who takes on this role, the consequences are serious. They must cope not only with their own psychological struggles, but also with the unresolved issues of the entire group. Therapy in these cases often involves a careful process of separating what truly belongs to the individual from what has been projected onto them, and, at least symbolically, returning responsibility for the shadow to the organization (Georgiou, 2023).
Descent into the Psyche: Growing Down as Well as Up
When bullying results in collapse, burnout, dismissal, or being forced to leave, a kind of involuntary psychological descent begins. The old identity, built around professional skill and belonging, breaks down. The body cannot keep up its former pace. Core beliefs about oneself and the world are shattered. This is what Jung described as a descent into the underworld, a phase when familiar markers disappear and one confronts previously hidden or neglected parts of the psyche (Jung, 1951/1969). Both personal unconscious material (such as early attachment wounds or past traumas) and collective unconscious patterns (like persecution, exile, or sacrifice) may emerge (Jung, 1951/1969). From the perspective of individuation, this descent is not a detour but an essential part of psychological growth, a necessary “growing down” that must accompany true maturity (Hollis, 2005).
The bully can show up in dreams as a persecutor. One target of workplace bullying described dreaming that her bully invaded her house and was present in every room. In the dream, she pointed at the intruder and said, “She is in my house, my inner house, and I need to get her out.” In every room was the bully, illustrating how the experience of bullying can infest the psyche and undermine one’s sense of safety (Hecker, 2024). The organization may also appear as a maze or a barren landscape, and the self may be depicted as prey or a lost traveler (von Franz, 1964). These dream images show that the psyche works on many levels, placing personal experiences within larger universal patterns. The descent allows access to deeper layers of the psyche that were previously hidden or denied, such as instinctual wisdom, grief, anger, an understanding of limits, and a more profound relationship to suffering, both one’s own and others’ (Jung, 1951/1969; Hollis, 2005).
Myth, Meaning, and Life Narratives
If individuation is a continuous process, it must be given narrative form to become psychologically and existentially bearable (Jung, 1951/1969; Hollis, 2005). As Rollo May observed, “A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence” (May, 1991, p. 15). Myths are not mere fictions or childish fantasies, they are symbolic frameworks that organize experience, offering shape to suffering and possibility for renewed meaning (Campbell, 1949; Murdock, 1990). In the aftermath of workplace bullying, the individual’s life story may fragment into a series of senseless injuries or inexplicable losses. Without a narrative pattern that can contain the experience, it becomes nearly impossible to integrate trauma into a coherent sense of self or future (Frankl, 2000).
For people who have been bullied, finding a meaningful mythic framework is essential, not optional. When bullying is seen only as random cruelty or personal failure, the events remain a series of meaningless wounds. But when these experiences are placed within a larger mythic process, such as a forced descent in a heroine’s journey, they can acquire a new structural meaning within the individuation process. Viktor Frankl’s insight that “despair is suffering without meaning” (Frankl, 2000, p. 133) highlights the affective impact of blocked individuation and the urgent need for narrative frameworks that can organize suffering.
Archetypal narrative frameworks such as the Hero’s Journey (Campbell, 1949) and the Heroine’s Journey (Murdock, 1990) offer powerful tools for contextualizing the psychological upheaval caused by workplace bullying. These models do not prescribe a fixed path; rather, they provide containers within which suffering, loss, and transformation can be recognized as stages in a larger process of psychological growth, rather than as evidence of personal inadequacy or defeat. Integrating these frameworks allows clinicians and clients to recognize the archetypal dimensions of experience and to reframe individual pain as part of a universal quest for wholeness.
Hero’s Journey: Limits of a Heroic Frame
Joseph Campbell’s formulation of the Hero’s Journey describes a universal narrative structure of separation, initiation, and return: the hero is called to adventure, initially resists, crosses a threshold, faces trials, gains wisdom, and returns to the community transformed (Campbell, 1949/2004). From a Jungian perspective, this arc resembles an outwardly oriented individuation process in which the ego separates from collective expectations, confronts shadow material, and returns with expanded agency and meaning (Stein, 1983).
The Hero’s Journey has profound resonance in cultures that prize autonomy, mastery, and achievement. It offers an archetypal map for moments of courageous action, risk-taking, and conscious separation from the collective. However, for those harmed by workplace bullying or systemic injustice, the heroic model can reveal sharp limits. The narrative is geared toward visible victory, conquest, and return; it culminates with the hero’s triumphant recognition by the community. When real-life outcomes involve collapse, expulsion, or unrecognized suffering, measuring oneself against the heroic ideal can reinforce shame and a sense of failure.
If heroic ascent or obvious victory are taken as the paradigm of “being on one’s path,” then leaving, breaking down, or refusing to continue the struggle may appear as definitive failure. From an existential and transpersonal perspective, this is a misreading of individuation. True psychological growth is not always upward or outward; it may require surrender, descent, or acceptance of limits (Hollis, 2005).
Heroine’s Journey: Spiral Descent and Reclamation
Maureen Murdock’s (1990) Heroine’s Journey offers a different archetypal structure, one that resonates deeply with the lived reality of those who have survived mobbing or relational trauma. Her model begins with separation from the feminine and identification with patriarchal values such as rationality, mastery, and external achievement. This phase is often followed by an “illusory boon of success,” masking depletion and inner emptiness. A crisis of spiritual aridity then precipitates a descent to the underworld, where the heroine encounters wounded aspects of the feminine, the denied body, and neglected soul. Through spiral descent and gradual integration, she reclaims devalued aspects of self and returns not as a conqueror, but as one who embodies a more integrated, relational, and grounded power. Blackie reframes this as a lifelong pattern of “falling into the land and into our own bodies,” emphasizing cyclical descent and return rather than linear ascent (Blackie, 2018).
The heroine’s journey can thus be understood as an individuation quest: a path along which a woman discovers, loses, and reclaims what is most meaningful to her, until she can hold these values even under conditions that threaten or test her. The central danger is not an external adversary, but the risk of losing one’s own selfhood. The work of the journey is to reach a point where this danger has been faced and outgrown.
A helpful image here is the spiral of a nautilus shell, which evokes the fact that psychological development is rarely linear (Blackie, 2018; Hollis, 2005). We move along a spiral path, circling back to the same psychological “hot spots” or nemesis themes we thought we had already transcended. Each new turn of the spiral brings us into the vicinity of familiar difficulties: depression, collapse, jealousy, compromise of integrity, or the misuse of power. Archetypally, these repetitions are encounters with shadow aspects of the inner figures (e.g., Demeter, Persephone, Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Artemis) that shape the psyche’s landscape (Murdock, 1990; von Franz, 1964).
From this perspective, life offers repeated opportunities to encounter what we fear, to become more conscious of what tends to take us over, and to develop greater mastery. Each traversal of the spiral allows for a more conscious response, with increased fidelity to one’s deepest values. Over time, the intensity of these encounters lessens, and what once overwhelmed can be met with greater inner freedom. For women recovering from workplace bullying, recognizing their experience as part of a heroine’s spiral can be especially relieving and restorative.
Gaslighting, DARVO, and Betrayal Blindness
Gaslighting is fundamentally a strategy of control. In workplace bullying, it frequently appears as a pattern of strategic lying, distortion of facts, and pathologizing of the target’s emotional responses, such as labeling the individual “too sensitive” or “overreacting.” These tactics gradually erode the target’s confidence in their own perceptions and can lead to a profound sense of disorientation or even self-doubt regarding their mental stability. This manipulation is particularly damaging in hierarchical settings, where authority dynamics intensify its effects (Einarsen et al., 2011).
Such manipulation often matches the DARVO sequence (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), described by Freyd (1997, 2008). Perpetrators first deny events (“That never happened”), then attack the target’s credibility (“You’re imagining things”), and finally reverse roles (“Now you are harassing me”), presenting themselves as the true victim. DARVO exploits what Freyd calls betrayal blindness: an adaptive tendency to “not know” about relational harm when seeing it clearly would threaten a necessary attachment (Freyd, 1997, 2008). This mechanism, rooted in childhood survival strategies, persists into adulthood; fully seeing employer mistreatment risks economic and social loss, so partial blindness preserves a fragile sense of security (Smith & Freyd, 2014; Harsey & Freyd, 2022). In this way, DARVO gains power from an essentially human vulnerability, silencing truth in asymmetric relationships and deepening the blockage of individuation.
Photo by Tim Swaan @timswaanphotography via Unsplash.
Sarah’s Story: How a Junior Executive Was Gaslit
Consider the case of Sarah, a bright and ambitious junior marketing executive eager to contribute to her reputable company. Her direct supervisor, Laura, was known for her efficacy and sharp acumen. However, as Sarah began to present innovative ideas during team meetings, Laura’s demeanor shifted from supportive to critical.
At first, Laura would dismiss Sarah’s suggestions with remarks like, “That’s interesting, but our focus should be on proven strategies.” While these dismissals may have seemed harmless at first, Laura’s tactics progressively intensified. After one presentation, Sarah was blindsided when Laura called her into her office. “You’ve got to be more careful with your presentations. You keep repeating the same old ideas,” Laura claimed, displaying a series of notes that Sarah had never seen before.
Confused and disheartened, Sarah began to question her abilities. “I thought I brought fresh solutions to the table,” she thought to herself. However, as weeks passed, every time Sarah presented an idea, Laura would twist the narrative. “You need to pay more attention to feedback,” Laura insisted in meetings, even citing examples that never happened, leading Sarah to believe she was misremembering past discussions.
Laura also publicly undermined Sarah’s confidence by stating, “You have to improve if you want to succeed here,” while embellishing her own successes. Sarah’s colleagues noticed the tension but were unaware of the subtle manipulation or too fearful to intervene. As Sarah’s feelings of inadequacy grew, she became increasingly withdrawn, doubting her competence and fearing that she was incompetent. The tactics used by Laura reached a fever pitch when she claimed, “If only you were capable of understanding our vision,” implying that Sarah’s confusion stemmed from her shortcomings rather than Laura’s murky explanations. This statement stung deeply for Sarah, who had always been a high performer.
In her struggle to grasp the reality of her performance reviews, riddled with vague criticisms and unsubstantiated concerns, Sarah found it nearly impossible to discern what was genuinely expected of her. The crippling self-doubt festered, and fear of reprisal from Laura kept her from seeking help or validation from her peers.
A brief vignette may illustrate this. Sarah, a bright and ambitious junior marketing executive, enters a respected company eager to contribute. Her supervisor, initially supportive, gradually shifts into a pattern of subtle undermining: dismissing Sarah’s ideas in meetings, inventing “feedback” that Sarah does not recognize, and publicly questioning her competence. Over time, facts are twisted, past conversations are misrepresented, and Sarah’s attempts to clarify are turned against her. Each time she raises a concern, she is told she is misremembering or “too emotional.” Colleagues sense tension but, afraid of repercussions or caught in their own betrayal blindness, do not intervene. Clinically, Sarah begins to withdraw, doubt her own memory, and internalize the belief that she is inadequate. Her dreams and body begin to protest; anxiety and somatic symptoms appear. From a depth-psychological perspective, this is precisely the point at which the individuating Self is attempting to reassert itself, while the bullying dynamic and Sarah’s own betrayal blindness conspire to keep her bound to a destructive environment.
Individuation and the Descent of the Heroine
From a depth-psychological perspective, Sarah’s experience is not only a case of workplace gaslighting, but also a profound disruption of her individuation process. The breakdown of her professional identity, escalating self-doubt, and the emergence of anxiety and somatic symptoms signal an involuntary descent—akin to the underworld phase of the Heroine’s Journey. Her initial efforts to regain control by working harder and suppressing feelings mirror the early stages of the journey: separation from the feminine and over-identification with external achievement. However, the crisis ultimately forces Sarah into a period of psychological descent, where she is confronted with overwhelming grief, anger, and the need to reclaim neglected aspects of self, such as intuition and embodied knowing.
In clinical work, reframing Sarah’s symptoms and dreams as signals from the Self allows the experience to be understood not as personal weakness, but as a necessary phase in individuation. The spiral descent of the Heroine’s Journey offers a map for grieving, reclaiming, and integrating lost parts of identity. Over time, Sarah can learn to recognize her worth beyond external validation and to set boundaries aligned with her own values. Her journey is not linear but spiral—returning again and again to old wounds, with the potential to deepen self-awareness and wholeness at each turn.
Clinical and Existential Implications
Determining whether someone is living a story of heroic ascent or heroine-style descent has important clinical and existential effects (Stein, 1983; Hollis, 2005). If a client measures herself by a heroic standard, not being able to “win” against a toxic workplace may confirm her sense of failure. When her experience is instead framed as a heroine’s journey—one of descent, reclamation, and integration—new meanings can emerge (Murdock, 1990). Leaving a destructive environment, listening to bodily needs, and feeling long-suppressed grief and anger can be seen as steps in individuation rather than surrender (Murdock, 1990; Hollis, 2005). In this way, individuation after workplace bullying involves both “growing up” into new outer forms and “growing down” into depth, body, and shadow (Jung, 1951/1969). What once felt like a broken life path can gradually be reimagined as a non-linear journey, where both ascent and descent, shadow and potential, have a place (Hollis, 2005).
As Frankl suggests, the goal is not to remove suffering altogether, but to prevent it from becoming “suffering without meaning” (Frankl, 2000, p. 133). Depth psychology, existential philosophy, and mythic imagination can together provide the frameworks for finding meaning, even when the process is slow and difficult (May, 1991; Campbell, 1949; Jung, 1951/1969). For clinicians and survivors alike, recognizing the spiral nature of individuation, where descent is not failure but necessary transformation, offers hope that a new, more integrated self can emerge from even the most devastating workplace experiences (Hollis, 2005; Murdock, 1990).
© 2026 Dr. Kerstin Hecker. All rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced, distributed, or used in any form without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations with proper citation.
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