Healing from Bullying with the Help of Therapy

It’s heartbreaking to learn that someone you care about is being bullied. It’s equally devastating to experience bullying yourself. If you’ve taken steps to prevent further bullying but still feel that things haven’t improved, have you considered therapy? Art and play therapy can provide gentle and creative ways to explore what your child has been through and the emotional challenges they are still dealing with.

A child who has been bullied may hide feelings of self-doubt, body image issues, low self-esteem, hopelessness, and more. Therapy offers a safe space to rebuild or strengthen these areas. Since a therapist is a new presence in your child’s life, they provide a unique opportunity for your child to open up to someone—who happens to be a trained, compassionate professional—who doesn’t know their story, but can listen and offer healing tools in a personalized way.

How Therapy Can Help You Cope with Being Bullied as an Adult

Bullying is not limited to children; as adults, we can experience bullying as well. Family, partners, children, coworkers can be bullied. Sometimes, there may be no one to advocate on our behalf, and we might feel voiceless and undervalued. We may experience hopelessness or a sense of being lost. 

A therapist can truly “see” you and listen to your story. They can work with you to establish boundaries, enhance communication skills, provide psycho-education, identify your support system, and address issues related to self-worth, among other things.

Bullies have a malicious way of seeing the parts of us we don’t want others to see and putting them insensitively in the spotlight. Therapists, on the other hand, see those same parts and handle them with care and compassion. They support us in rebuilding and reinventing stronger, more authentic versions of ourselves.