The purpose of this study was to describe the experience of workplace bullying when the bully is one’s supervisor. Workplace bullying was understood to exist as meaning relations in human consciousness and therefore analysis was carried out with phenomenological research orientation. The aim of the study was to describe the entity of the experience of workplace bullying as it appears and to search those meaning units that were shared: mutually experienced.
The material of this study was the writings of subjectively experienced workplace bullying by their supervisors. The writings were analysed applying Perttula’s phenomenological psychology method and the analysis process was carried out in two parts. Through the first part the analysis proceeded at individual level while the second part proceeded at common level. As the results, one common meaning structure of workplace bullying was constituted, that is the essence of the phenomenon. This can be perceived by four specific core meanings that were: a) the treatment provided by the supervisor, b) social context and community bullying, c) getting help and the ending of the bullying, and d) emotional condition, self – esteem and health. The experiences of workplace bullying were perceived as a “continuum of meaning units”. Results of the common entity of the experience indicated a figure of a psychological trauma that is caused by being bullied by one’s supervisor. This study found that the experience of workplace bullying is strongly connected to the social context where it appears and that experienced workplace bullying can also be communal in the way that there are several perpetrators. These results can be utilized to help those who have experienced workplace bullying and further on in practical work with work communities and in research work.