Jennifer Fraser

An award-winning educator of 20 years, Jennifer has a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Toronto. She was trained to take discourses out of their silos, put them into the arena, and see if the conversation changed. When she put bullying and neuroscience into the arena, the conversation change was nothing short of shocking. Her latest book, “The Bullied Brain” (2022) lays out the significant physical harm to the brain from normalized bullying practices. The damage is visible on brain scans. The subtitle of the book “Heal Your Scars and Restore Your Health” shares the evidence-based practices on how to recover. Her next book – due in the fall of 2025 – is “The Gaslit Brain: Protect Your Brain from the Lies of Bullying, Gaslighting, and Institutional Complicity.” Jennifer believes knowledge is power and that there is safety in numbers. Time for change. The workplace, school, and all environments should be safe from practices that harm our brains.

Book: https://bulliedbrain.com/
Psychology Today series

Why is the International Day Against Harassment and for Inclusion in the Workplace so crucial today?

Bullying workplaces in general have three key components: fear, favouritism, and humiliation. They threaten employees creating a destabilizing pervasive fear. They have targets and beneficiaries so when the targets are maltreated, beneficiaries speak up in defense of those doing the harm. Humiliation is an effective weapon that tells two critical lies: you are not worthy and you do not belong. Standing up and shining a spotlight on normalized workplace harassment is a vital stance to take when one factors in the physical damage to the brain from ALL forms of bullying and harassment. The neurological scars are visible on brain scans. Any workplace that wants to have healthy, happy, high-performing employees needs to understand that the outdated command and control model needs to be replaced with a new brain-informed “neuroparadigm.”