Heinz Leymann (17 July 1932 – 26 January 1999) was a Swedish academic, famous for his studies on mobbing among humans. He held a degree in pedagogical psychology, and another one in psychiatry and worked as a psychologist. He was a professor at Umeå University.

Born in 1932 in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, Leymann, became a Swedish citizen in the mid-1950s, and was awarded his PhD in pedagogical psychology from Stockholm University in 1978.^[1] He then went on to get another research doctorate (doktor i medicinsk vetenskap, "doctor of medical science," typically translated into English as PhD) in psychiatry in 1990 from Umeå University.^[2] Somewhat unusually, his doctorate in psychiatry was based on his clinical background as a psychologist; he did not go through medical training.^[3]

Leymann pioneered research into mobbing in the 1980s. His initial research in the area was based on detailed case studies of a number of nurses who had committed or tried to commit suicide due to events at the workplace.^[4] He developed the Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror (LIPT), a questionnaire of 45 mobbing actions.

Although he preferred the term bullying in the context of school children, some have come to regard mobbing as a form of group bullying. As professor and practicing psychologist, Leymann also noted one of the side-effects of mobbing is post-traumatic stress disorder and is frequently misdiagnosed.

Among researchers who have built on Leymann's work are:

• Davenport, Schwartz & Elliott^[5]
• Hecker^[6]
• Shallcross, Ramsay & Barker^[7]
• Westhues^[8]
• Zapf & Einarsen^[9]

• Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terror
• Workplace bullying