Mobbing [as updated in Oct 2007]

Mobbing at work is characterised by the systematic psychological abuse or humiliation of a person by an individual or a group, with the aim of damaging his/her reputation, honour, human dignity and integrity, and ultimately driving the victim to quit the job.
Swedish psychologist Heinz Leymann was the first to use the English term ‘mobbing’ to describe hostile behavior by employees in the workplace, a term used in the early 1970s by a Swedish physician to describe hostile behavior observed among schoolchildren. Leymann defines mobbing as ‘hostile and unethical communication, which is directed in a systematic way by one or a few individuals mainly towards one individual who, due to mobbing, is pushed into a helpless and defenceless position, being held there by means of continuing mobbing activities’.
Different words for this hostile behaviour are used in different countries. In most European countries the term mobbing is used. In English-speaking countries, such hostile behaviour at work is called ‘bullying’. Other terms used are moral harassment, victimisation and psychological terror.

From Eurofound.