Winner of the California Marriage and Family Education Foundation Award (2012)

The Victim, The Bully and The Bystander

Strategies for Preventing and Confronting Bullying – Effectively, Permanently

The victim/bully/bystander dynamic is a triangle destructive to everyone involved.
We will explore interactive tools that professionals and teachers can always rely on; to show school- age children how decipher, understand and demonstrate their individual strengths in a myriad of challenging and anxiety provoking situations, to ultimately empower children to move beyond intimidation, fear and anxiety, empowering all who participate.

Participants will:

•  Engage in a sociometric exploration of the victim/bully/bystander dynamic (based on the Karpman Triangle)
•  Explore personal memories in each of the three positions of the triangle
•  The empty chair technique and vignettes will be used to permit participants to confront the bully, the bystander or the victim in their own personal past
•  Assertive training will be presented in the workshop as an effective way to help school age children deal with bullying as they begin to understand their own connection to the passive, assertive and aggressive roles
•  Finally, we will discuss ways these techniques can be effectively used in the context of school and in therapy