Organisations demonise whistleblowers and depict them as mentally ill in an attempt to discredit their claims, according to new UK research.
A paper from the University of Warwick Business School found whistleblowers lost their jobs either through dismissal or by being pressured out of the firm, while those who stayed faced bullying, demotion, and harassment. Others were forced to attend mental health counselling by their company.
This has led to some suffering depression, panic attacks, and anxiety, while others developed drinking issues.
Warwick Business School’s Marianna Fotaki said the mental health issues of whistleblowers could be used to discredit their allegations, while diverting attention away from the information revealed by them.
“The stigma surrounding mental illness can be used as a weapon intended to defame and neutralise a person who discloses wrongdoing, with the process of whistleblowing only intensifying the likelihood of experiencing such negative health effects,” Fotaki said.
The paper, titled ‘How Organisations Use Mental Health to Discipline Whistleblowers and Undermine their Message’, interviewed 25 whistleblowers from the UK, Europe, and the US, and found all 25 respondents faced retaliation from the firms either through isolation, demotion, or termination of employment.
No organisation was grateful for the whistleblower bringing wrongdoings to the fore, nor did they attempt to remedy the wrongdoings. Instead they went into denial and demonised the whistleblower.
One whistleblower saw his organisation commission a report into his complaint but the report was about the whistleblower rather than the firm’s wrongdoing, and it described him as “emotional and not reasoned, measured or coherent”.
