When the term "trauma bond" comes up, it's common to think of early childhood or romantic relationships rather than the workplace. However, trauma bonds can form in any environment, including professional settings, and involve various types of relationships- including a trauma bond with your boss.
What Is a Trauma Bond
A trauma bond is not simply a connection between individuals who share similar traumatic experiences. It's a complex relationship marked by confusion, dysfunctional behavior, and sometimes abuse. These bonds can develop in both childhood and adulthood, and people often don't realize they're part of such a dynamic. As a business psychologist, part of my work is to create healthier dynamics in the workplace. This can include helping clients recognize and break these cycles, fostering better workplace interactions.
Common Trauma Bonds In The Workplace
When Your Boss is Dominant and Emotionally Abusive:
This pattern is glaringly evident and frequently observed in professional settings. It manifests as a relentless cycle where the employee can never satisfy their boss's expectations. The boss may employ gaslighting, making the employee question their reality by denying events or blaming them for misunderstandings. Devaluation is another tactic, where the boss diminishes the employee's contributions and self-worth. Exploitativeness involves taking undue advantage of the employee's efforts. This dynamic leaves the employee perpetually striving for approval that remains out of reach.
In this form of trauma bond, the employee continues to try to prove themselves hoping one day their boss will see them and recognize their value. They hold on to the hope things will change. Unfortunately, they don’t ever receive the validation they deserve. If an employee is stuck in this cycle for an extended period of time, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that they will internalize the negative beliefs their boss projects onto them. This creates lasting emotional scarring that can sustain long after the person has left the job.
I find oftentimes people who repeatedly find themselves in these situations where they have abusive bosses are replicating experiences from childhood. It’s not unusual for the employee to have had an attachment figure who made them feel not enough. When they enter the workforce, this type of abusive environment, while unhealthy, feels familiar. Familiarity is more powerful to the subconscious mind than what is healthy and supportive. We find ourselves in the same vicious cycle we had as children.
Core Needs:
Boss: Control, power, dominance.
Employee: Worthiness, connection, recognition
When Your Boss Treats You Like a Close Friend:
This scenario lacks hierarchy and paints the employee as the boss's confidant, privy to sensitive information not shared with others. This bond may stem from similar unmet childhood needs, leading both individuals to seek fulfillment in each other. While this relationship might seem supportive, it risks becoming codependent, with the workplace dynamic overly reliant on this personal connection rather than professional merit and collaboration. When this situation arises, other employees feel the perceived favoritism and resentment can start to build on the team. This can become a big blocker for team effectiveness and overall morale.
In the case of the boss and employee, it’s uncommon for both parties to have grown up in environments where codependent relationships were the norm. They unconsciously will replicate these dynamics at work and often will not recognize the unhealthy patterns in the relationship. They will be likely to dismiss dysfunction and call it close connection. In my experience working with several of these pairs, both parties struggle with a low sense of self worth and place too much of their identity in their employment and sense of achievement. When so much of your confidence is rooted in your job, it’s inevitable for unhealthy patterns to emerge, especially if you found yourself unwittingly in codependent relationships as a child.
Core Needs:
Both Parties: Reassurance, support, security, companionship.
When Your Boss Wants You To Take Care of Them:
Here, the dynamic mirrors a familial pattern, with the employee assuming a caretaker role for their boss. This includes managing emotional outbursts, offering advice akin to a therapist, and being burdened with inappropriate confidences. This pattern often reflects the boss's childhood experiences of neglect or emotional burden, leading them to seek comfort and support from employees in adulthood.
When bosses treat an employee like their personal therapist or sometimes even like a parent, it blurs the professional boundaries that need to exist within the workplace. Leadership positions can sometimes be isolating, leading bosses to seek out people to confide in. Employees, especially those who are highly empathic and intuitive can become sources for emotional support for their boss. This can become a slippery slope where without clear boundaries things can quickly escalate into inappropriate territory, particularly when initiated by someone in a position of power.
This was the most common pattern I personally replicated in my own early workplace experiences. I always played the role of therapist for my boss. Reflecting on my experiences, this was a replicated pattern from childhood. I was a sensitive kid and always wanted people around me to be happy. If they were happy, that must mean I am safe and ok. Also being my boss’s confidant gave me a high degree of job security. Who will fire the person they share all their secrets with? My need for safety in my job was a higher priority to me than maintaining healthy boundaries. Like many, I paid a high price for this. My boss’s problems became my problems and as time went on it became impossible to renegotiate the terms of our professional relationship.
Core Needs:
Boss: Emotional regulation, stability, fulfillment of emotional needs.
Employee: Validation, security, worthiness, connection.
Evolving Beyond Trauma Bonds:
The first step of moving past a workplace trauma bond is to recognize you are in one. I find many people stay in a state of denial on this– they will use excuses like “work is stressful” or “no job is perfect.” Little do they know, they are stuck in a textbook trauma bond with their own boss with no clear way out.
Until you come to terms with reality and do the inner work to unwind some of these patterns, quitting your current job will not be your best solution. My observation time and time again is people will leave one trauma bond boss and find themselves in a near exact replica within 6-18 months in a new job. The cycle continues.
Once the veil is lifted and you see your reality for what it is, there are different pathways for healing. Overcoming a trauma bond, especially with a psychologically abusive boss requires confronting the painful truth of the situation, a process that can evoke profound grief. Healing from these dynamics is challenging but vital for personal growth and healthier relationships. Because abusive workplace bonds are often cyclical patterns from a childhood experience, the first step is practicing inner child work. That is best done with a trusted therapist, specifically one trained in trauma and complex PTSD.
Other actions that help within the workplace include setting boundaries and rebuilding confidence. Regarding boundaries, determine what behavior you will not tolerate and create a plan for how you will respond if boundaries are crossed. Toxic bosses can dramatically impact your self-esteem. Work on rebuilding your confidence through success in personal projects, setting and achieving small goals, and surrounding yourself with positive people who support you.
Transforming the trauma bond where the boss and their direct report are close friends necessitates a mutual acknowledgment of the emotional dependencies at play and a concerted effort to professionalize the relationship, focusing on individual growth and professional boundaries. Out of the three trauma bonds, this is typically the version I see the most success with. If both people are able to see they are in a codependent relationship and realize how their relationship is holding the business back, they are more open to developing new habits and behaviors. There are obvious ways to professionalize the relationship. It first starts with having a private and honest conversation with your boss. Express that while you value your positive working relationship, you feel it’s critical to maintain professionalism. Begin adjusting your behavior through focusing on work-only related topics and not bringing up personal issues. Also actions like avoiding calling or texting outside of work hours, avoiding sharing secrets, limiting oversharing, and finding more happiness outside of work are great places to start.
For the employee whose boss treats them like their personal therapist, the solution lies in the employee setting clear boundaries and the boss seeking appropriate external support, such as therapy or mentorship, to address their emotional needs without overburdening employees. From both personal and professional experience this is one of the harder dynamics to transform and stay in the same job. It’s incredibly challenging for a boss to realize they have been using their employee for emotional security- akin to ways children seek safety in their parents. Sometimes this pill is too big to swallow and it can be better off for the employee to seek employment elsewhere. That being said, it’s worthwhile to try things like redirecting conversations when your boss starts veering into emotional topics. You can interrupt them with something like: “I understand you're going through a tough time, but perhaps we could focus on the upcoming project? I think there are some issues we need to address.” If the situation doesn’t improve, consider seeking advice from HR or a trusted mentor within the organization for help.
Being trauma bonded to your boss is not an easy thing. It becomes harder to wake up and go to work every day when you find yourself in this type of situation. The first step is to recognize and proactively address the problem. Waiting for the boss to change or hoping for improved treatment through increased effort is unlikely to yield positive outcomes. Taking charge of one's career and emotional well-being is the best way to move forward.
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