Working with Young People Who 

Bully Others: Tips for Mental 

Health Professionals

Mental health professionals have important roles in

helping to change the behavior of youth who bully

others. To be effective, mental health professionals

need a clear understanding of the roots of bullying

behavior and a focus on those strategies that are

likely to work. It is also important to understand what

approaches may inadvertently make the bullying

behavior worse. 

Bullying is aggressive behavior that is intentional and

that involves an imbalance of power or strength.

Often, it is repeated over time and can take many

forms. Many young people who bully see their own

behavior as justified. Many are viewed by peers and

teachers as popular at school. According to Olweus

(1993), children who bully are likely to come from

home situations in which there is little warmth and

little positive adult attention and in which discipline

is inconsistent and periodically emotionally and

physically aggressive. These young people may not

develop adequate empathy for others and may not

make cause-and-effect connections between their

own actions and the consequences of these actions.

Instead of re-examining their own behavior when

they get in trouble for hurting others, they may

blame adults in authority or the children whom they

hurt. Consequences for bullying at school, in sports

situations, and in other environments may be rare or

inconsistent. Without supervision, clear expectations,

and consistent consequences, youth who enjoy the

power and social status gained from bullying are less

likely to change. 

Principles of effective interventions

Because young people who bully may be very

comfortable with their own actions, some traditional

counseling techniques may not help. Effective

interventions are built on the following principles:

• Advocate for inevitable, consistent, nonhostile, and

escalating consequences—within a positive

relational context—to raise the cost of the bullying

behavior and to help the young person consider

alternatives to their behavior.

• Hold the young person who bullies fully

accountable for his or her actions. Confront excuses

that minimize the behavior (“I only called her a

name.”) or externalize the cause of the behavior (“I

hit him because he kept staring at me.”). Help the

young person fully acknowledge his or her behavior.

Emphasize that the youth had other options, no

matter what the provocation and that he or she is

fully responsible for the decision made.

• Support parents and educators in holding these

young people fully accountable for their actions

and not suggesting or allowing rationalizations

(such as “He only teases people because he’s bored

at school.”).

• Once the young person is able to recognize

problems with his or her behavior, mental health

professionals can help them set and work toward

goals for change, help them track their progress

toward new behaviors, and feel pride about those

changes. Focus on helping them discover the

specific positive goals that the aggression is

directed toward (‘What goal were you trying to

reach by calling Eric names?’) and finding other

pathways to reach those goals. These goals may

include leadership, being left alone, experiencing

mastery of a skill, and dealing with anger. 

• Help adults in the child’s family and environment

recognize and affirm the gradual progress 

these young people often make toward new,

nonaggressive behaviors. 
These and other materials are available online at: www.stopbullyingnow.hrsa.gov

• Help the young person build positive ties with

parents and adult mentors.

• Build genuine empathy, to help young people

understand and experience the impact of their

behavior. Be careful, though, not to keep this

learning at a cognitive level only. If we do that, we

risk helping these young people understand better

how to hurt others.

• Build conscience. The first steps in conscience

development may involve young people learning

that their own actions can cause them to get in

trouble. After reaching that realization, they can

begin to appreciate the impact of their actions on

others. 

For some youth, bullying and other forms of social

aggression are more related to impulsivity and poor

social skills than to an effort to control others. When

this is true, cognitive-behavioral interventions to

improve impulse control and structured social skills

training may also be helpful. Anger-management

strategies may be effective with these young people;

these strategies are not likely to help youth whose

aggression is planned and done calmly.

Misdirections in bullying prevention 

What about approaches to build self-esteem?

Research indicates that many aggressive youth have

high self-esteem and that their aggression can result

from a sense of entitlement. It is rarely effective to

employ counseling strategies based on self-esteem

building with aggressive youth.

What about peer mediation? Mediation-based

strategies frequently are based on the assumption

that both parties have done something wrong.

Especially when carried out by young or relatively

untrained mediators, mediation in bullying situations

risks solidifying the power differential between the

young person who bullies and the young person who

is bullied.

Effective interventions with youth who bully often

involve strategies such as reality therapy or cognitivebehavior therapies, which hold the client accountable

for his or her actions and for the impact of those

actions on themselves and others. Work with family

systems and consultation and advocacy with schools

also are often necessary. 

As William Glasser (1975) wrote in Reality Therapy,

“[In therapy] someone cares enough about the

patient to make him face a truth he has spent his life

trying to avoid: he is responsible for his own behavior.”

References and Resources

Baumeister, R. F., Bushman, B. J., & Campbell, W. K. (2000). Self-esteem, narcissism, and aggression: Does violence result from low self-esteem or

threatened egotism? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 26-29.

Baumeister, R. F. (2001). Violent pride: Do people turn violent because of self-hate, or self-love? Scientific American, 284, 96-101.

Davis, S. (2005) Schools Where Everyone Belongs: Practical Strategies for Reducing Bullying Champaign, IL: USA, Research Press.

Glasser, W. (1975). Reality therapy: A new approach to psychiatry. New York: Harper Collins.

Juvonen, J., Graham, S., Schuster, M. (2003). Bullying among young adolescents: The strong, the weak, and the troubled. Pediatrics, 112: 1231-1237.

Mullin-Rindler, N. (2003). Relational aggression and bullying: It’s more than just a girl thing. Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA. Wellesley Centers

for Women Working Paper Series, 2003. Working Paper # 408.

Nansel, T.R., Overpeck, M., Pilla, R.S., Ruan, W. J., Simons-Morton, B., Scheidt, P. (2001). Bullying behaviors among US youth: Prevalence and

association with psychosocial adjustment. The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, 2094-2100. 

National Association of School Psychologists. (2002) Bullying prevention: what schools and parents can do. National Association of School Psychologists,

Bethesda, MD. Retrieved August 25, 2005 from http://www.naspcenter.org/resourcekit/bullying_new_rk.html.

New South Wales Health Department (2001). What parents should know about bullying. Retrieved August 25, 2005 from

http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/health-public-affairs/mhcs/publications/5705.html.

Olweus, D. (1993). Bullying at school: What we know and what we can do. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Ross, D. (1996). Childhood bullying and teasing. Alexandria, VA: ACA Press.

Rutter, M., Giller, H., & Hagell, A. (1998). Antisocial behavior by young people. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.