Bullying victimization CBT: a proposed psychological intervention for adolescent bullying victims

Bullying is a prevalent societal concern with one in three children being victims of bullying globally (UNESCO, 2019). Bullying during adolescence is associated with a comprehensive cluster of symptoms including loneliness, suicide ideation and intent (Moore et al., 2017), depressive symptomology (Ferraz de Camargo and Rice, 2020), generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and more recently separation anxiety, panic disorder, and obsessive-compulsive disorder symptomology (Ferraz de Camargo et al., 2022). Bullying victimization is associated with reduced cognitive flexibility and emotional regulation capacity (Palamarchuk and Vaillancourt, 2022), and behavioral issues (Idsoe et al., 2021). Many of these outcomes may persist into adulthood (Moore et al., 2013, 2017).

Many of these outcomes may persist into adulthood (Moore et al., 2013, 2017). Investigation of the literature to date suggests that efforts to reduce the negative effects of bullying on adolescent mental health have focused on reducing bullying behavior, and that this approach has had limited success (Gokkaya, 2017; Menesini and Salmivalli, 2017; Jadambaa et al., 2020). Further, treatment for the effects of bullying typically often occurs in school group settings (Gokkaya, 2017). By comparison, research investigating specific psychological treatment that directly supports the individual victim has been neglected. The present paper aims to address this by investigating existing evidence that supports the adoption of the cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) model (Beck, 1976) as a potential framework for psychological treatment targeted at the sequelae of psychological issues associated with bullying victimization. BV-CBT takes a developmental perspective and considers the impact of victimization during the developmental stage of childhood and adolescence. It is hoped that future research will build on this proposal and test this model through appropriately designed studies.