DARVO refers to a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.” The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim — or the whistle blower — into an alleged offender. This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of “falsely accused” and attacks the accuser’s credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
Institutional DARVO occurs when the DARVO is committed by an institution (or with institutional complicity) as when police charge rape victims with lying. Institutional DARVO is a pernicious form of institutional betrayal.
Anti-DARVO refers to ways to reduce the negative impact of DARVO and also more constructive responses to allegations.
Additional articles developed aspects of the relationship between DARVO, grooming, and betrayal trauma theory. (See section History of term on this page.)
Research: DARVO and Self-Blame
Empirical research is more recent. In a 2017 peer-reviewed open-access research study, Perpetrator Responses to Victim Confrontation: DARVO and Victim Self-Blame, Harsey, Zurbriggen, & Freyd reported that: “(1) DARVO was commonly used by individuals who were confronted; (2) women were more likely to be exposed to DARVO than men during confrontations; (3) the three components of DARVO were positively correlated, supporting the theoretical construction of DARVO; and (4) higher levels of exposure to DARVO during a confrontation were associated with increased perceptions of self-blame among the confronters. These results provide evidence for the existence of DARVO as a perpetrator strategy and establish a relationship between DARVO exposure and feelings of self-blame. Exploring DARVO aids in understanding how perpetrators are able to enforce victims’ silence through the mechanism of self-blame.”
Research: DARVO’s impact on third parties and Anti-DARVO
In our most recent published research Sarah Harsey and I completed several experiments (Harsey & Freyd, 2020). In one experiment we presented participants with accounts of abuse followed by a DARVO response versus a control response. We found exposure to the DARVO response was associated with less belief of the victim and more blame of the victim. In another experiment in the same report Sarah Harsey and I examined whether learning about DARVO could mitigate its effects on individuals’ perceptions of perpetrators and victims. DARVO-educated participants (compared with control) rated the perpetrator as less believable. While much more research is needed, these results suggest that DARVO is an effective strategy to discredit victims but that the power of the strategy can be mitigated by education.
Barnes, M. L., Mills, K. L., Harsey, S. J., & Freyd, J. J. (2020, August). Assessing perpetrator responses to confrontation: Development of the DARVO-Short Form scale. Poster presented at the 2020 Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C. ( Zoom), 6-9 August 2020.
Harsey, S.J. & Freyd, J. J. (2020, August). DARVO and its Influence on Perceptions of Sexual Assault: Experimental Findings. Poster presented at the 2020 Convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington, D.C. ( Zoom), 6-9 August 2020.
DARVO in the News (Selected Examples)
Podcasts:
Sexual Violence & Institutional Courage – Jennifer Freyd: Host John Markoff speaks with Dr. Freyd about her career from developing betrayal trauma theory to DARVO and institutional betrayal to her current work supporting institutional courage.
Brett Kavanaugh testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Sept. 27, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Tapestry6:18How to spot #MeToo’s pattern of denials
When Brett Kavanaugh denied sexual assault allegations, attacked his accuser’s memory, and then described himself as being the victim of a conspiracy — several psychologists knew what they were seeing: DARVO.
DARVO stands for deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender. The term was coined by a research team at the University of Oregon and the University of California, Santa Cruz, who identified the pattern alleged abusers use to deflect attention away from themselves and back to the person making the accusation.
University of Oregon psychology professor and Stanford fellow Jennifer Freyd, said that the reason it gets used frequently is that it works.
Jennifer Freyd is a psychology professor at the University of Oregon and a fellow at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (Submitted by Jennifer Freyd)
“I did not expect … that so many people actually found the DARVO convincing. But it makes sense. I mean that’s why people use it,” said Freyd.
However, she said that the number of people who are inclined to believe a DARVO response, lessens significantly as soon as they understand its mechanics.
For example, Freyd identified Kavanaugh as someone who used this aggressive retort to shift blame away from himself when accused of sexual harassment by Christine Blasey Ford and other women.
Here’s how DARVO works, using Kavanaugh’s senate testimony.
DENIAL:
“The drinking age was 18 in Maryland for most of my time in high school and was 18 in D.C. for all of my time in high school. I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers. Sometimes others did. I liked beer. I still like beer. But I did not drink beer to the point of blacking out and I never sexually assaulted anyone.”
ATTACK:
“Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a longtime friend of hers. Refuted.”
REVERSE VICTIM AND OFFENDER:
“This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
Freyd asserted that while not everyone accused of an accusation is guilty, DARVO is not a good way to defend your innocence.
“You don’t have to respond defensively to an accusation, whether you’ve done it or have not done it. And a non-defensive response can really move people,” said Freyd.
DARVO is an acronym for “deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender”. It is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.[1][2][3] The abuser denies the abuse ever took place, attacks the victim for attempting to hold the abuser accountable, and claims that they, the abuser, are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing the reality of the victim and offender.[1][3] This usually involves not just “playing the victim” but also victim blaming.[2] It is similar to some mechanisms that have been passed down subculturally and misused institutionally for millennia in the phenomenon of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism.[4]
The acronym and the analysis it is based on are the work of the psychologist Jennifer Freyd, whose webpage links to an article explaining that the first stage of DARVO, denial, involves gaslighting.[1][2][3]
Jennifer Freyd writes:
…I have observed that actual abusers threaten, bully and make a nightmare for anyone who holds them accountable or asks them to change their abusive behavior. This attack, intended to chill and terrify, typically includes threats of law suits, overt and covert attacks on the whistle-blower‘s credibility, and so on. The attack will often take the form of focusing on ridiculing the person who attempts to hold the offender accountable. […] [T]he offender rapidly creates the impression that the abuser is the wronged one, while the victim or concerned observer is the offender. Figure and ground are completely reversed. […] The offender is on the offense and the person attempting to hold the offender accountable is put on the defense.[5]
Examples
Alleged examples of DARVO in public events include:
The behaviour of R. Kelly during an interview related to criminal proceedings against him for sexual abuse of minors.[6]
The behaviour of former American PresidentDonald Trump in defending himself against sexual harassment allegations, as well as in defending himself against allegations of his other wrongdoings.[7][8]
Harvey Weinstein, in a 2017 interview, accusing his victims of gaslighting.[9]
In popular media
In the 2019 episode Season Finale of South Park, Randy Marsh is arrested for destroying home-growers’ marijuana. Randy calls President Garrison for legal advice. [10] The President explains to him DARVO and role plays how to use it.
Sexual Violence & Institutional Courage – Jennifer Freyd: Host John Markoff speaks with Dr. Freyd about her career from developing betrayal trauma theory to DARVO and institutional betrayal to her current work supporting institutional courage.
Jennifer Freyd discussing DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) and a better way to respond (6 minutes): Podcast: How to spot a pattern of denials in the #MeToo movement, CBC Radio, 26 October 2018.
South Park 90-second DARVO Explainer, 7 November 2019
