Speaker 1: How did I not see it? It's the haunting question
Speaker 1: all abused survivors have asked themselves. On this episode of
Speaker 1: Navigating Narcissism, I've invited the world's leading expert on betrayal,
Speaker 1: who has dedicated her life to finding the answer to
Speaker 1: this tormenting question. I can't remember the last time I
Speaker 1: was this excited to talk to someone. After decades of research,
Speaker 1: doctor Jennifer Fried has coined the term betrayal blindness to
Speaker 1: describe our inability to recognize betrayal, especially when the perpetrator
Speaker 1: is someone or something we trust, for example, a parent
Speaker 1: who abuses a child, or a partner that cheats, or
Speaker 1: a church that hides abuse. If you've been listening to
Speaker 1: Navigating Narcissism for a while, you've heard me talk about
Speaker 1: doctor Fried time and again. Her work is key to
Speaker 1: understanding what happens to survivors of narcissistic abuse. It is
Speaker 1: my honor to speak with the legendary doctor Jennifer Fried.
Speaker 1: This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
Speaker 1: medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
Speaker 1: independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
Speaker 1: professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
Speaker 1: or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. This
Speaker 1: episode discusses abuse, which may be triggering to some people.
Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the
Speaker 1: podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do
Speaker 1: not represent the opinions of Red Table Talk productions, iHeartMedia,
Speaker 1: or their employees. So, first of all, doctor Jennifer Fried, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Every so often we have a guest where again I'm
Speaker 1: a bit starstruck, and this is one of those days.
Speaker 1: I've been reading your work throughout my career and it's
Speaker 1: actually been really influential in shaping my work in the
Speaker 1: area of narcissistic abuse. So not only am I so
Speaker 1: happy you're here, I'm so deeply honored, in a little
Speaker 1: bit awestruck. So welcome and thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm delighted to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, doctor Fried. And I want to talk about
Speaker 1: what is betrayal? Everyone uses the word, but you have
Speaker 1: a really, really great comprehensive definition.
Speaker 2: What is it Betrayal is when somebody that you depend upon,
Speaker 2: you're close to, your trust, doesn't have your back in
Speaker 2: an important situation and in some way harms you. So
Speaker 2: it can be what we might call on every day betrayal,
Speaker 2: like somebody tells a secret that you ask them to hold,
Speaker 2: or it can be a traumatic betrayal what I call
Speaker 2: betrayal trauma when the thing that's being done to you
Speaker 2: is deeply harmful, such as marital rape or child abuse
Speaker 2: by a caregiver, and in those cases, the very person
Speaker 2: that you have a reason to trust and depend upon
Speaker 2: is the perpetrator of a harm.
Speaker 1: One thing that struck me about betrayal is that most
Speaker 1: people think of betrayal as lying, cheating, or stealing. That's it.
Speaker 1: Your work has broadened this definition into this idea of
Speaker 1: really being harmed by someone that you presumed yourself to
Speaker 1: be in a trusting relationship with.
Speaker 2: Yes, the betrayal trauma theory is a theory that I originally
Speaker 2: actually started to work on to make sense of one
Speaker 2: particular kind of betrayal blindness, and that in the devising
Speaker 2: this theory, I began to start to measure betrayal trauma
Speaker 2: and found that betrayal traumas, which are defined as significant
Speaker 2: mistreatment by somebody that the victim is dependent upon trusts
Speaker 2: and is close to that, they are very toxic that
Speaker 2: they have negative effects on almost every system we looked at,
Speaker 2: so people's mental health, physical health, substance misuse, behavioral problems.
Speaker 2: It's very toxic stuff.
Speaker 1: In order to better understand betrayal trauma, doctor Fried developed
Speaker 1: which she calls the Brief Betrayal Trauma Survey. This twelve
Speaker 1: question form can help someone recognize the amount of betrayal
Speaker 1: trauma they've encountered based on their personal experiences. This survey
Speaker 1: is available in the show notes and on our Instagram
Speaker 1: page at Navigating Narcissism Pod.
Speaker 2: It's very relational, and you know what we've learned over
Speaker 2: time is it's relational even if the entity harming you
Speaker 2: is bigger than a person, such as an institution. But
Speaker 2: where we started was one on one kind of betrayal
Speaker 2: and betrayal trauma, where it was one person hurting another person,
Speaker 2: and the harm exists in some sense, well sometimes just
Speaker 2: by the very act as part of the harm. But
Speaker 2: another part of the harm is this huge discrepancy between
Speaker 2: what you trust and what has happened to you.
Speaker 1: Okay, can you talk more about that, that discrepancy between
Speaker 1: what you trust and what has happened to you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, part of The reason it's so harmful is it
Speaker 2: creates a real world bind. What people do when they've
Speaker 2: been harmed, and you know, a healthy reaction is to
Speaker 2: seek support and shelter from those who have your back,
Speaker 2: those you trust. But when the harm comes from that
Speaker 2: very person or people, what are you going to do
Speaker 2: if you seek shelter from those who are harming you.
Speaker 2: Often that is actually what people end up doing, but
Speaker 2: it comes at a big cost. I mean, the other
Speaker 2: thing people do is they run away, but that comes
Speaker 2: at a big cost. It's a true buying. There is
Speaker 2: not an you're stuck in some sense and you're going
Speaker 2: to pay a price even though it wasn't your fault.
Speaker 1: There's two paths you've talked about, right. You either confront
Speaker 1: the betrayer, which is in some ways dangerous, right, and
Speaker 1: then there's the running away then not confronting it. But
Speaker 1: then one could argue there's a third path, which is
Speaker 1: tell yourself a story so that you don't even have
Speaker 1: to view this person as betraying your trust. And that's
Speaker 1: where we get into your really important work on betrayal blindness.
Speaker 1: Can you describe what betrayal blindness is?
Speaker 2: Betrayal blindness is a survival mechanism for a person who's
Speaker 2: being mistreated by somebody that they must depend upon. But
Speaker 2: it is a survival mechanism that comes with a big cost,
Speaker 2: and that cost is both in the short run in
Speaker 2: the sense they can't stop the mistreatment, and in the
Speaker 2: long run that they've lost some ability to assess who's trustworthy.
Speaker 2: People who cannot respond to betrayal trauma with betrayal blindness,
Speaker 2: and not everybody can. Some people are better out of
Speaker 2: than others often find themselves in the situation where the
Speaker 2: abuse just gets worse and worse, and you know, they
Speaker 2: may die from that abuse. So there's other ways betrayal
Speaker 2: trauma can be toxic, and one of them comes from
Speaker 2: not being able to have betrayal blindness, that it is
Speaker 2: inherently a bad thing that is happening to a person.
Speaker 2: I can mean, for instance, a child who cannot use
Speaker 2: betrayal blindness may end up actually getting kicked out of
Speaker 2: the house because their awareness is intolerable.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you this then, because the way you're
Speaker 1: saying a child who can't use betrayal blindness, a person
Speaker 1: in a relationship who can't use betrayal blindness, the way
Speaker 1: you're describing it, it sounds like a conscious process.
Speaker 2: I don't mean it to be. It's really hard to
Speaker 2: use it consciously because it's hard to control the attachment
Speaker 2: system that right well, and sort of our feelings tend
Speaker 2: to leak and it takes a lot of effort to
Speaker 2: deceive the hide feelings. So most of the time the
Speaker 2: betrayal blindness happens outside of consciousness, and it makes it
Speaker 2: much more effective. And then you can engage in all
Speaker 2: the behaviors that are positive for a relationship. So if
Speaker 2: you don't know you're doing it, that is, you don't
Speaker 2: know you're blocking out some mistreatment, you can continue to
Speaker 2: be friendly and loving and all the things that keep
Speaker 2: that relationship going. So it's actually better to have it
Speaker 2: outside of consciousness. But you know, I've talked to people
Speaker 2: who consciously try to use it, Like they say, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know my partner is cheating on me and doing
Speaker 2: these other harmful things, but I don't want to lose
Speaker 2: that person, And besides, I need their income, don't want
Speaker 2: them have to move out of my house. And you'll
Speaker 2: give you a host of reasons. They don't want to
Speaker 2: confront that person because they realize how risky it is,
Speaker 2: and so they try with all their might to put
Speaker 2: it out of their mind. And you know, some people
Speaker 2: are better at that than others, but I'm sure we've
Speaker 2: all tried it at some point, so you know they're
Speaker 2: really I think three pass. And they have an interesting
Speaker 2: analogy to the terms fight, flight, and freeze, because these
Speaker 2: are survival responses to threat. So when somebody betrays you
Speaker 2: and you are fully empowered, it actually is in your
Speaker 2: interest to either fight or flee because you don't want
Speaker 2: to continue to be harmed by this person. So you
Speaker 2: go to a store where you keep getting that product
Speaker 2: and you getting ripped off, Well, either you demand the
Speaker 2: store give you your money back, which would be fight,
Speaker 2: or you decide not to shop there anymore, which would
Speaker 2: be flight. You can think about that with relationships too.
Speaker 2: A friend betrays you in a certain way and you
Speaker 2: are empowered to pick different friends, well, you may well
Speaker 2: leave that friend or give them an ultimatum you either
Speaker 2: correct this behavior or this relationship's over. However, that's great
Speaker 2: if you have that empowerment, but it's destabilizing and you
Speaker 2: are risking the continuation of the relationship and your status.
Speaker 2: If you're not fully empowered. That can be very dangerous.
Speaker 2: So a child doesn't have the option really right. And
Speaker 2: when a child, say, fights against mistreatment, it's often going
Speaker 2: to escalate the mistreatment. And when a child tries to
Speaker 2: flee from this treatment in a real world sense, like
Speaker 2: maybe you know, hide in their room, or stop talking
Speaker 2: to their parents or withdraw, they risk the person, their
Speaker 2: parent or whoever it is not taking care of them
Speaker 2: and meeting their needs. Because relationships we cry are this
Speaker 2: active involvement. So this is where that third path comes
Speaker 2: in that I call betrayal blindness, which is the not
Speaker 2: seeing to some degree what's going on in order to
Speaker 2: stay engaged in a relationship that you feel and may
Speaker 2: truly be necessary to your survival, and it can keep
Speaker 2: a child or an adult alive. You see a similar
Speaker 2: dynamic in the workplace when somebody really needs a job
Speaker 2: and they have a boss who's bullying them or sexually
Speaker 2: harassing them. If they confront that by complaining or they
Speaker 2: withdraw from that boss in some way, they may lose
Speaker 2: their status, they may lose their job, and they may
Speaker 2: feel that that's an existential threat. They really need that job.
Speaker 2: So in that case, people can also use betrayal blindness
Speaker 2: to keep the job by not seeing fully the mistreatment.
Speaker 1: You said here that if a person feels empowered, then
Speaker 1: they may be able to face down the betrayal situation.
Speaker 1: In your experience, what do you believe drives this sense
Speaker 1: of a person feeling sufficiently empowered to be able to
Speaker 1: address betrayal in a relationship.
Speaker 2: That's a great question, and a complication is sometimes people
Speaker 2: are actually empowered and they don't feel it. Sometimes people
Speaker 2: are not empowered but they think they are, so people
Speaker 2: are not empowered when there is a vast power difference
Speaker 2: between the two sides. If you're a small child, you're
Speaker 2: not empowered in your relationship with your parents in a
Speaker 2: kind of physical sense. They can just overpower you. In
Speaker 2: a really healthy parent child relationship, the parent will try
Speaker 2: to provide a kind of power to the child that
Speaker 2: for instance, the child can complain and the parent will listen.
Speaker 2: But it's a resource the parent's giving the child. Inherently,
Speaker 2: the situation is very asymmetric. The parent holds the power well.
Speaker 2: Often in our society we have that kind of asymmetry,
Speaker 2: So you know, it can show up. Suppose a traffic
Speaker 2: violation and uses all their social position, whether it's racial
Speaker 2: or their gun in their holster, to overpower the person
Speaker 2: that they've just stopped. What's really tragic is when somebody
Speaker 2: is in fact empowered and they don't see it. And
Speaker 2: one way that comes about is through childhood mistreatment as
Speaker 2: well as societal messages. So we'll know, some people are
Speaker 2: socialized to believe, whether due to gender other dimensions, that
Speaker 2: they are supposed to succumb to other people's wishes and demands,
Speaker 2: and may feel that they don't have the power to
Speaker 2: stand up for themselves when even in some sort of
Speaker 2: more objective sense, they do. But you know, some people
Speaker 2: have learned betrayal blindness so well that they just immediately
Speaker 2: jump to the not seeing the problem, even when they've
Speaker 2: grown up and have some choices.
Speaker 1: I think that the issues with child and parent, child
Speaker 1: and teacher, even child and coach, anyone who could potentially
Speaker 1: betray a child, right, that makes sense. A child is
Speaker 1: inherently disempowered. It does start getting money, though, doctor Fried
Speaker 1: when we talk about the interpersonal context, like you said,
Speaker 1: people who are empowered but don't even know it is.
Speaker 1: You know, my work is in these narcissistic relationships where
Speaker 1: in fact, you might even have two people who might
Speaker 1: even hold relatively similar levels of societal power, and yet,
Speaker 1: like you said, through chronic blindness in the relationship, they
Speaker 1: don't feel empowered, They don't feel they can step up
Speaker 1: to this person. And this is where we get into
Speaker 1: terms like gaslighting, because even if they do front up
Speaker 1: and say, hey, I just saw these inappropriate text messages
Speaker 1: or I just heard from someone in your office that
Speaker 1: you're behaving badly, or I saw how you behave whatever
Speaker 1: it is that they're pointing out, that that betrayer as
Speaker 1: it were, will say to them, no, I didn't, or
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? And so, while there's no difference
Speaker 1: in power one person being willing to engage in that
Speaker 1: kind of abuse of psychological warfare, it makes the other
Speaker 1: person less empowered. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: It totally does. And you know I've seen this play out.
Speaker 2: I mean, if the person who's being betrayed had times
Speaker 2: in their life, and we all did, because we were
Speaker 2: all children where they didn't have power, and if in
Speaker 2: those situations there was any kind of abuse of that
Speaker 2: power and they learned to cope with it with betrayal blindness,
Speaker 2: then they're going to be very vulnerable to that system
Speaker 2: being exploited. Again. Another factor here is that we are
Speaker 2: wired and built to form attachments to other people to love,
Speaker 2: and we do that from the earliest days with people
Speaker 2: who have so much more power than us, because we
Speaker 2: love our parents, and that love is how we experience
Speaker 2: the attachment system that keeps us alive. And a baby
Speaker 2: that can't express love in the way babies can gets
Speaker 2: into trouble with a parent because parents need this to
Speaker 2: reinforce all that caregiving. Well, given this, that love then
Speaker 2: gets wrapped up in how betrayal works. Basically, if you
Speaker 2: are in a situation where you love somebody but they
Speaker 2: are manipulating you, it's kind of like you are a
Speaker 2: bit in that dependent relationship because of that love that
Speaker 2: you feel. It puts you in auation where you're going
Speaker 2: to have some motivation to protect that attachment, even if
Speaker 2: you don't need it for your bread and butter, but
Speaker 2: you need it emotionally or you think you do, and
Speaker 2: that can be weaponized, that can be played on. So
Speaker 2: these are good systems, the attachment systems good, but then
Speaker 2: these systems can be used in other contexts against people.
Speaker 1: In your book, blind to Betrayal, which every one of
Speaker 1: you needs to go out there and read immediately. This
Speaker 1: is one of the best books I've ever read. Every
Speaker 1: survivor of narcissistic abuse needs to read this book. On
Speaker 1: this show, we're talking about narcissistic abuse, right We're talking
Speaker 1: about people who are in relationships that are almost It's
Speaker 1: a given that these are betraying relationships. At the core
Speaker 1: of it, the person with that personality organization who's in
Speaker 1: the relationship and motivated by power, dominance, control and their
Speaker 1: own insecurity, plus the traits of lack of empathy, entitlement
Speaker 1: and all of that, is attempting to basically subjugate another person.
Speaker 1: You know that the other person is acting entirely in
Speaker 1: their service, and that is sometimes to me, that inherently
Speaker 1: is a betrayal. There's an inherent betrayal in somebody who
Speaker 1: doesn't treat you as an equal psychological player in a relationship.
Speaker 1: So do you agree with that framing that betrayal blindness
Speaker 1: may be basically an element of every single narcissistic relationship.
Speaker 2: I think that's a very reasonable hypothesis. What you're saying
Speaker 2: makes complete sense, and certainly you know it makes particularly
Speaker 2: makes sense if you think about narcissistic relationships that persist
Speaker 2: over time, right that, how could that persist over time
Speaker 2: without some amount of betrayal blindness?
Speaker 1: I'd argue they cannot. And I think that blindness to
Speaker 1: me fits this so well, because a narcissistic relationship is
Speaker 1: a relationship with somebody whose personality organization is such that
Speaker 1: they cannot be in a healthy, balanced, equitable relationship, and
Speaker 1: so they are going to betray to get their needs met. Right, So,
Speaker 1: using that as a framework, do you think betrayal blindness
Speaker 1: is what would make somebody vulnerable to getting stuck in
Speaker 1: a relationship characterized by these dynamics of gas lighting, manipulation, invalidation,
Speaker 1: chronic lying, could be cheating, could be financial abuse. Do
Speaker 1: you think that that isn't connected to people either staying
Speaker 1: in these relationships or getting sucked back in even when
Speaker 1: they try to step away from them.
Speaker 2: Yes, I do, And you know, if I'm correct, then
Speaker 2: helping people not respond with betrayal blindness will help them
Speaker 2: not stay in such relationships and protect themselves and have
Speaker 2: healthy boundaries so that they're not being mistreated in this way.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things you're saying that
Speaker 2: I think is really important is that abuse can occur
Speaker 2: in the emotional and psychological sphere. And it's much easier
Speaker 2: for us to identify abuse when it's physical or sexual,
Speaker 2: but for emotional and psychological abuse, which are so powerful
Speaker 2: in some ways at the heart of all abuse, are
Speaker 2: not always as easy to identify and to label and
Speaker 2: to know. And part of that is the way we're taught,
Speaker 2: and you know, we don't necessarily have the skills, But
Speaker 2: part of it is that emotional and psychological abuse really
Speaker 2: occurs over time in a relationship context. It's not usually
Speaker 2: in the moment, whereas you know physical and sexual abuse
Speaker 2: there is in the moment's sense of it. But everybody
Speaker 2: can have a bad like if you're in a long
Speaker 2: term relationship with somebody, you're going to say something harmful sometimes.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's human. So what makes it abusive is
Speaker 2: this pattern over time, and I think that's just harder
Speaker 2: to recognize. And so yeah, I think it's harder for
Speaker 2: people to say this is abusive, to understand it's abusive,
Speaker 2: whether you're the victim or even watching a relationship. I mean,
Speaker 2: how many times do we say in this world that
Speaker 2: this harmful relationship at the psychological level is abusive.
Speaker 1: I think that in narcissistically abusive relationships too. From the
Speaker 1: world at large, Like you said, these are long term relationships,
Speaker 1: and I'm really glad you made that distinction, because I
Speaker 1: think what happens is that there's a real risk of
Speaker 1: like everybody has a bad day, you know, it's not
Speaker 1: that big a deal. This isn't about a bad day.
Speaker 1: These are bad lifetimes. Like these are thirty forty fifty
Speaker 1: year marriages. These are relationships that have been characterized by
Speaker 1: this kind of emotional and psychological hijacking since pretty much infancy.
Speaker 1: So this is the only reality that this person really
Speaker 1: really knows. But the pushback from the world, and honestly,
Speaker 1: even I think the psychological community is sometimes like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's just someone who's a jerk. It's a larger scale
Speaker 1: psychological issue that is actually doing significant harm to an individual.
Speaker 1: We will be right back with this conversation. So going
Speaker 1: back then to betrayal blindness, I want to connect it
Speaker 1: to a really common phenomenon we see in survivors is
Speaker 1: that people in these relationships blame themselves. This has got
Speaker 1: to be me. I've got to be doing something wrong.
Speaker 1: How do you see betrayal blindness connecting to the self
Speaker 1: blame we see that people experience when they're in emotionally
Speaker 1: abusive relationships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're quite connected. In Another sort of
Speaker 2: related concept here, I think is shame. If you can
Speaker 2: take some or even all of the blame of what's
Speaker 2: not working onto yourself, it actually supports the betrayal blindness,
Speaker 2: right because you are no longer going to see the
Speaker 2: other person as responsible, so you're not going to see
Speaker 2: that they're betraying you. And you know, one way people
Speaker 2: take on the blame is through the emotion of shame,
Speaker 2: where they get mistreated by somebody else and then they
Speaker 2: feel shamed, and that shame has it sort of implicit
Speaker 2: in it that there's something I've done or could do
Speaker 2: differently to have prevented or in the future prevent this mistreatment,
Speaker 2: and therefore it's not the fault of the person who's
Speaker 2: doing it. It's something about me, and therefore I can
Speaker 2: stay in relationship with this person because I'm the one
Speaker 2: who's the problem. So it's part of that very dynamic
Speaker 2: of betrayal blindness, right.
Speaker 1: But the driver then, ultimately, going back to the attachment model,
Speaker 1: is to maintain the relationship that we're still going back
Speaker 1: to that sort of home base as it were, Right, It's.
Speaker 2: Not that people want to be masochistic. It's that people
Speaker 2: are trying to protect something they feel is essential.
Speaker 1: Yep. And to everyone listening to this who's going through
Speaker 1: narcissistic abuse, I hope you can sit with that that
Speaker 1: you are trying to preserve something, an attachment that feels
Speaker 1: so essential to you. This is not you being foolish.
Speaker 1: This is about you actually trying to safeguard something that
Speaker 1: feels important to you. And I think where survivor struggle
Speaker 1: is exactly where you're talking about, doctor Fried. Is this
Speaker 1: idea of this shame like what kind of fool am
Speaker 1: I that I'm okay with this. But the much more
Speaker 1: primal drum beat to that is the attachment need. That
Speaker 1: inherent human need for love, connection, relation, and attachment is
Speaker 1: so strong that this entire cognitive process is a way
Speaker 1: to keep the primal need met. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I mean part of that primal need is
Speaker 2: to us, so to love, it's to be loved, but
Speaker 2: it's too love too, and so it's a good thing
Speaker 2: about us. I mean, I think that people's eagerness to
Speaker 2: love is one of the best things about us, and
Speaker 2: the fact that it can make us vulnerable to mistreatment,
Speaker 2: to betrayal that comes hand in hand with this good
Speaker 2: thing will to love. So it does hurt my heart
Speaker 2: to see people blaming themselves for staying in a relationship
Speaker 2: where they love the person. Yeah, the person may be
Speaker 2: hurting them, and that's a terrible thing, but that you know,
Speaker 2: isn't fundamentally something they've done wrong. And although you and
Speaker 2: I from the outside might want them to get out
Speaker 2: of that relationship because we see it's harming them, their
Speaker 2: impulse to make it work and to stay in it
Speaker 2: comes from a good place.
Speaker 1: You've put it more clear than anyone I've spoken to
Speaker 1: about this, that the impulse to want to stay in
Speaker 1: this kind of let's call it, toxic relationship actually comes
Speaker 1: not from a good place. I'd say from the best place,
Speaker 1: which is our drive to love. And I think that
Speaker 1: when people can see themselves through that compassionate a lens,
Speaker 1: that it actually can foster healing and growth. Rather than
Speaker 1: I'm a damaged soul who's willing to settle for bread
Speaker 1: cross is, rather I am a healthy human being who
Speaker 1: wants to love, and this is what comes of loving
Speaker 1: somebody who's engaging in chronically betraying patterns.
Speaker 2: I think a place where I also see this happen
Speaker 2: is when the person being hurt isn't being hurt by say,
Speaker 2: an organization, their church, their team, their school, and they
Speaker 2: also love that organization and a very human desire and
Speaker 2: need an impulse to love extends not only to other people,
Speaker 2: but to the groups of people the organizations that were
Speaker 2: in particularly when you know we're in some sense its
Speaker 2: dependent on them, and so people will be like, why
Speaker 2: did I stay? You know, how did I first of
Speaker 2: all not see that there was this abuse going on
Speaker 2: in my church? And then why didn't I leave the church? Well,
Speaker 2: because they loved that organization and it was serving some
Speaker 2: important needs for them too, And so it is coming
Speaker 2: from the best place in us to love other people
Speaker 2: as well as other kinds of human things like whole organizations.
Speaker 1: Right, And people also trust these organizations. It's not even
Speaker 1: about loving these organizations. I actually think we're more likely
Speaker 1: to trust organizations sometimes than individual people because it is
Speaker 1: an organization, it is bigger than us, and a person
Speaker 1: did trust this, you know, this takes me to think about,
Speaker 1: you know, taking it into a larger scale of like
Speaker 1: massive betrayal by an institution, not just an individual. I
Speaker 1: think of major betrayals like, let's use the US gymnastics scandal,
Speaker 1: where so many young women were betrayed by an organization.
Speaker 1: Even when they were bringing concerns up, they were being silenced,
Speaker 1: and so they were saying, well, the organization can't we
Speaker 1: love gymnastics, We love the sport. This is the governing body.
Speaker 1: We have to believe in it. It's almost implicit that
Speaker 1: they do trust these kinds of organizations, whether they be
Speaker 1: churches or guild organizations, or even employers or even institutions
Speaker 1: like the justice system.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely we see that. And you know, to some extent,
Speaker 2: the organizations also foster this emotional reaction. So the organizations
Speaker 2: will say, you know, we're your family, We're here for you.
Speaker 2: They will use the language of trust and dependence and
Speaker 2: care that builds upon our impulse to trust these organizations.
Speaker 2: I see this as related to the trust we have
Speaker 2: in our families. If we don't just have an individual
Speaker 2: we trust and love. Our earliest groups are families, and
Speaker 2: we have a term family betrayal in my lab which
Speaker 2: capture some of the ways that the group can betray people,
Speaker 2: and we find that it can be even sort of
Speaker 2: in sometimes more powerful than individual one on one betrayal,
Speaker 2: which makes sense because if a whole group is hurting you, like,
Speaker 2: that's pretty bad, that's pretty scary.
Speaker 1: One thing you've wrote about in Blind to Betrayal you
Speaker 1: talk about leak cosmodes work on the social contract, this
Speaker 1: idea and evolutionary psychology that we actually are as human
Speaker 1: beings quite good at detecting betrayal, right, which is interesting
Speaker 1: because then that bangs up this idea of the social
Speaker 1: contract that there is a trust that comes into our
Speaker 1: relationships with individuals or group. Does that relate then into
Speaker 1: our inherent trust of big organizations, is that it's part
Speaker 1: of this trusting social contract that we have that we
Speaker 1: have to trust.
Speaker 2: This, right. What's really important in both cosmuities ideas and
Speaker 2: mine is that we continue to interact with the same
Speaker 2: people or organizations over and over, and so if they
Speaker 2: mistreat us, then what we should do is detect that
Speaker 2: and then take protective action, and that brings us back
Speaker 2: to fight and flight. Yeah yeah, so that it doesn't
Speaker 2: happen again. Yeah yeah, But you know, when we're dependent,
Speaker 2: we don't have that option in the same way.
Speaker 1: No, we don't use this term in the book that
Speaker 1: really stayed with me, which is this concept of the whoosh.
Speaker 1: We see the betrayal, We can even see the betrayal
Speaker 1: happening in real time. We're very aware that our trust
Speaker 1: is being betrayed, whether we catch someone in an infidelity
Speaker 1: or a lie. But this idea of the whoosh, could
Speaker 1: you talk about that?
Speaker 2: So this is something that some people experience more than others,
Speaker 2: and I think it has to do with the timing
Speaker 2: of when one's betrayal blindness sort of kicks in. So
Speaker 2: for some people, their betrayal blindnessabilities are so powerful they
Speaker 2: don't ever consciously see it, like they really don't. They
Speaker 2: can just not see it from the get go. For
Speaker 2: other people, they first catch a glimmer of something's just
Speaker 2: happened to me, and it's really not okay, And then
Speaker 2: there's a process that's going this is not safe to know,
Speaker 2: this is not at all safe to know, and that's
Speaker 2: when the woosh comes in and when they reflect back
Speaker 2: on the situation years later, some people are able to
Speaker 2: introspect and remember that progression from perceiving the problem to
Speaker 2: whushing it away just in time before they behave in
Speaker 2: a way that's going to get them into trouble.
Speaker 1: When you say behave in a way that's going to
Speaker 1: get them into trouble, what do you mean.
Speaker 2: By that, like confront the person, Okay, show you know
Speaker 2: some way, rock the boat, right, because that's what they're
Speaker 2: really trying to avoid. They're trying to avoid destabilizing something
Speaker 2: they need. And you know, I think rocking the boat's
Speaker 2: just a great metaphor because if you rock the boat
Speaker 2: too much, the boat tips. I mean, you're really in trouble.
Speaker 2: So there's a reason we don't want to rock the boat.
Speaker 1: Right, right, That's exactly right. And I often call it
Speaker 1: also maintaining the status quo. I'm married to someone, we
Speaker 1: have kids, we have an extended family, we have a home,
Speaker 1: we have a life. That the woosh is getting that
Speaker 1: information out of the way just before you blow it
Speaker 1: all up, you know. And that what's not happening, though,
Speaker 1: Doctor Fried, is that there is not this secondary attention
Speaker 1: to the toll it's taking on the person who remains
Speaker 1: in the relationship. The focus becomes so heavily on the
Speaker 1: attachment on the status quo, on not rocking the boat.
Speaker 1: That what's getting missed is that inherent harm that is
Speaker 1: just happening under the radar and often then contributing to anxiety,
Speaker 1: mood symptoms like depression, helplessness, hopelessness, powerlessness, confusion, self blame,
Speaker 1: self doubt. So the person is psychologically getting destabilized and
Speaker 1: there's almost a false sense of safety. Status quo remains.
Speaker 1: But I'm falling apart, and that, to wit is the
Speaker 1: struggle of every survivor of narcissistic abuse. Maintain the status
Speaker 1: quo as I psychologically erode.
Speaker 2: You put that so well, and I think what's a
Speaker 2: really important factor there is what happens if they don't
Speaker 2: maintain the status quo, And that then is hardly on
Speaker 2: the rest of us, right, It's what happens depends on
Speaker 2: the social context the person finds themselves in. If they're
Speaker 2: in a setting where rocking the boat on that relationship
Speaker 2: means they lose everything, truly, they lose their home, they
Speaker 2: lose all their other relationships, that's an untenable risk. But
Speaker 2: if they're in a situation where there's a safety net
Speaker 2: out there, there's going to be people that say here,
Speaker 2: come stay at my house, or you know, here's something
Speaker 2: for you. We will hold you through this period. That
Speaker 2: changes the equation. Then the cost and risk of staying
Speaker 2: is actually higher than the cost and risk of leaving.
Speaker 2: But which way that equation works out so depends on
Speaker 2: this larger context a person is in.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, have you looked at betrayal blindness as sort of
Speaker 1: a cultural phenomenon as well, that even if we can
Speaker 1: clear out safety nets and all of that, that ultimately
Speaker 1: the cultural reject or the cultural shame around, for example,
Speaker 1: getting a divorce or becoming a strange from a family
Speaker 1: is so overwhelming that it then makes more sense to
Speaker 1: remain in blindness. What has your work taught you about that?
Speaker 2: I haven't myself directly examined that so much, but some
Speaker 2: of my former students have taken that up, and one
Speaker 2: of the things that they have found is that especially
Speaker 2: for groups of people who are oppressed by mainstream culture,
Speaker 2: there's this need to have a protective sort of group
Speaker 2: with interracultural trust, and this is largely the work of
Speaker 2: Jennifer Gomez, and that then adds additional pressure to maintain
Speaker 2: the status quo when there's any kind of disruption within
Speaker 2: that group. So that adds to the cultural pressure to
Speaker 2: have betrayal blindness, and in that situation, it's coming in
Speaker 2: some sense from the fact that that's an oppressive larger
Speaker 2: context around that group. There's also cultural issues like is
Speaker 2: a society more collective or individualistic, and the pressure to
Speaker 2: maintain the collective harmony can be another component to betrayal blindness.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I agree that the betrayal blindness is going
Speaker 1: to happen when it is a collective situation in which
Speaker 1: familial disruption or estrangement. There's just absolutely no space that
Speaker 1: could be held, and there would almost be greater harm
Speaker 1: through ostracism that would happen if a person did that,
Speaker 1: as well as a shame that it would bring upon
Speaker 1: the entire family. Yeah, this connects to one of the
Speaker 1: stories that was in your book, the story of someone
Speaker 1: you called Kevin in your book, and the story of
Speaker 1: Kevin hit me profoundly. I grew up in the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies in the United States as well. What you captured
Speaker 1: in his story is that somebody who's not of majority race,
Speaker 1: and especially at that time in history, I still think
Speaker 1: it's an issue, but it was even more pronounced In
Speaker 1: Kevin's case, he was told that if he assimilated, good
Speaker 1: things would happen. But he played by all those rules
Speaker 1: in this larger system of the culture, of school, of education,
Speaker 1: all of that, and he was still ostracized, and that
Speaker 1: the betrayal blindness for him is this is fair, this
Speaker 1: is all fine. Yes, I can assimilate, and I'll play
Speaker 1: the sports that the other kids play, and I won't
Speaker 1: speak with an accent. I'll do all of that. And
Speaker 1: then he wakes up and realizes that, no, I'm still
Speaker 1: being ostracized. Could you reflect on that story of Kevin.
Speaker 2: What Kevin does is he takes on what's essentially prejudice
Speaker 2: and discrimination. He takes it on as if it's his
Speaker 2: own individual failing. So if he doesn't get invited to
Speaker 2: a birthday party, it's because in some way he's failed
Speaker 2: to be popular, or if he's not selected for the
Speaker 2: sports team, it's because he's not a good enough athlete.
Speaker 2: And this taking it on as an individual problem as
Speaker 2: opposed to seeing it as a societal problem. In his case,
Speaker 2: he's an Asian American in a very white context where
Speaker 2: he doesn't understand and won't let himself understand that he's
Speaker 2: being mistreated on the basis of the fact that he's
Speaker 2: not white, and he's being othered and ostracized for being
Speaker 2: Asian American. If he were to see it that way,
Speaker 2: that would then put him in a conflictual relationship with everybody.
Speaker 2: He would be a victim of discrimination, and that's a
Speaker 2: very hard position to be in while also trying to
Speaker 2: maintain all those relationships and friendships. If it's his fault,
Speaker 2: if he's just not good enough student or athlete or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, then he can maintain those relationships.
Speaker 1: We're going to be so give a personal sort of
Speaker 1: disclosure here. My parents were actually told in the nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties when I was born, a pediatrician took them aside
Speaker 1: and said, still stop speaking Teluguta Teluguza language my parents
Speaker 1: speak from India. And they asked why because obviously I
Speaker 1: was picking up the language that was happening around and
Speaker 1: they said, well, because she'll have an accent and you
Speaker 1: need her to assimilate. They wanted me to be able
Speaker 1: to assimilate. That was the doctor setting out as a goal.
Speaker 1: So my parents stopped speaking that language directly to me.
Speaker 1: They would stop me when I'd respond, so I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have an accent, but they continued having their conversations. I
Speaker 1: just wasn't allowed to respond in that language, and over time,
Speaker 1: my comprehension of the language is one hundred percent. It's
Speaker 1: still the language they speak to me in primarily, but
Speaker 1: my responses are all in English and I don't speak
Speaker 1: with an accent. That was sort of the endgame, But
Speaker 1: that was sort of the sacrifice of assimilation. I lost
Speaker 1: a massive part of my culture. That still makes it
Speaker 1: difficult for me to communicate with family members. But to
Speaker 1: your point, when I tried to try out for the
Speaker 1: high school choir, I was discouraged from doing so because
Speaker 1: I sort of didn't look the part. When I didn't
Speaker 1: fit in, I just assumed that it's because I'm an unskilled,
Speaker 1: unpopular person, something that I still well. Again, so what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, these tentacles go deep. It's a way I
Speaker 1: still view myself. And so you really had to give
Speaker 1: up what would have been an incredibly important part of
Speaker 1: your history. You know, I wasn't able to communicate with
Speaker 1: my grandmother as well as I wanted to because of this,
Speaker 1: And it was all that what we're assimilating and isn't
Speaker 1: that wonderful, but it didn't work out. I even tried
Speaker 1: to pursue a career in the media when I graduated
Speaker 1: from college, and I was telling absolutely not people like
Speaker 1: you are back of camera. You're not front of camera.
Speaker 1: So I even think to myself, I brought food for
Speaker 1: lunch as a little kid, Indian food, and the kids
Speaker 1: would actually mock it or take it or bully around it.
Speaker 1: And I said to my mother and then it was
Speaker 1: all peanut butter and jelly from that point forward. But
Speaker 1: the other lunch was healthier and more palatable. But so
Speaker 1: how much of one's sense of self get stolen by this?
Speaker 1: And instead of making it about this is a racist system.
Speaker 1: My parents were so desperate to make it successful in
Speaker 1: the United States they did were like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we're just not doing it right. So we internalized it.
Speaker 1: So Kevin's story hit me hard, and I never ever
Speaker 1: ever thought of that through a life of betrayal blindness.
Speaker 1: So I find this to be a really useful you know,
Speaker 1: it was really useful. I have to thank you more
Speaker 1: than anything. The gift that this book gave me was
Speaker 1: a personal one that it actually gave me a very
Speaker 1: different frame of reference. I thank you. Now I want
Speaker 1: to hit another story you had shared in the book,
Speaker 1: because I think it was such a powerful story that
Speaker 1: you open Blind to Betrayal with, which is the story
Speaker 1: of Julie, who is a successful attorney. Can you share
Speaker 1: that story from the book.
Speaker 2: Julie was a woman who had, on the surface, totally
Speaker 2: succeeded in life. She had a really thriving profession and
Speaker 2: lived in a beautiful home, and you know, appeared to
Speaker 2: be a very happy person, and in a lot of
Speaker 2: ways was. But she told me about her past, and
Speaker 2: clearly she was still disturbed by this. In her past,
Speaker 2: she was in a different relationship where her spouse was
Speaker 2: cheating on her and abusing her. I believe financially she
Speaker 2: was utterly dependent on him and trapped in the house
Speaker 2: with him when she walked in on him one time
Speaker 2: kissing another woman. She was the first one to use
Speaker 2: that word woosh with me. She described seeing the kiss
Speaker 2: and somehow managing to wosh it out of her mind
Speaker 2: so that it wasn't there anymore. And it was in
Speaker 2: a public place too. I mean, it was kind of
Speaker 2: a remarkable feat of betrayal blindness, but it allowed her
Speaker 2: in this highly dependent situation to stay in relationship with
Speaker 2: her husband, who she believed in arguably really did need
Speaker 2: to stay with given her total lack of resources. She
Speaker 2: had no car, she had no money, she had no
Speaker 2: way to exist as far as she knew without him.
Speaker 2: And what's remarkable is that eventually she did find her
Speaker 2: way out. She had a young child, so it was
Speaker 2: particularly difficult, but she did find her way out and
Speaker 2: then managed to pursue her own goals and dreams, which
Speaker 2: is why by the time I talked to her she
Speaker 2: was this highly successful person.
Speaker 1: It's remarkable because I think that that framework of she
Speaker 1: literally saw her husband kissing another woman and still managed
Speaker 1: to wooh it out. You know, we often think like, Okay,
Speaker 1: there may be innuendo, there may be suspicion, but this
Speaker 1: was really happening in her face. One are the pieces
Speaker 1: that struck me about Julie's story was also that she
Speaker 1: went on into another relationship where this kind of betrayal
Speaker 1: happened again. So I mean, betrayal blindness is a mechanism
Speaker 1: that stays within us, so when it does happen again,
Speaker 1: we're likely to experience it again and repeat this in
Speaker 1: relational cycles. In her case though, and this is where
Speaker 1: it really coalesces with what we know about narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: Doctor Fried is this idea that as she became more autonomous,
Speaker 1: she actually came into her own as an attorney, she
Speaker 1: cultivated sources of support that actually was the path to
Speaker 1: healing and growth for her, which is exactly what we
Speaker 1: tell survivors of narcissistic abuse. My conversation will continue after
Speaker 1: this break.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it makes sense that once somebody has used
Speaker 2: betrayal blindness to survive a situation, they'd be vulnerable to
Speaker 2: it again because there's an ability to detect betrayal that develops,
Speaker 2: you know, in childhood, when the child's in a situation
Speaker 2: in a context where they're allowed to develop that, and
Speaker 2: it's a very healthy ability. It lets the child know
Speaker 2: when the person that they're interacting with is safe or
Speaker 2: not safe. But if you have to suppress that to
Speaker 2: preserve a relationship, when you meet somebody new and they
Speaker 2: are they're not safe, they're a betrayal, you don't have
Speaker 2: the same ability as a person who's been allowed to
Speaker 2: freely develop it. So one of the things that happens
Speaker 2: when people heal is to redevelop that skill to learn
Speaker 2: how to make good decisions about who had to trust,
Speaker 2: how to hone in on the red flags, and to
Speaker 2: know when it's time to leave a relationship well.
Speaker 1: I often call it the privilege of not having had
Speaker 1: a betraying childhood, because it is a privilege if you
Speaker 1: have a childhood that is not emotionally abusive. It's a
Speaker 1: privilege that cuts across anyone, even if they're unprivileged or underprivileged.
Speaker 1: In other areas. It's a huge privilege because it allows
Speaker 1: you to maintain that critical intuition that you can take
Speaker 1: into adult relations. So blessed are those who are not betrayed,
Speaker 1: because they really really do get to hold on to
Speaker 1: something so so important. It's also interesting in the story
Speaker 1: you told of Julie in your book, was that yes,
Speaker 1: he was sleeping with other women, he was sleeping with
Speaker 1: her friends, all of that, but her husband also she
Speaker 1: had a new baby at home, and he was electing.
Speaker 1: After all week away, his first stop when he came
Speaker 1: back into a town wasn't to go to see his
Speaker 1: new baby and his wife. He'd stop and have drinks
Speaker 1: with his friends that bar. We don't typically think of
Speaker 1: that as a betrayal, but that is also a betrayal.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean, I think this is something that you're identifying.
Speaker 2: Is so important that we have duties in relationships, Yes,
Speaker 2: and for close intimate relationships there are particular responsibilities and duties,
Speaker 2: and so it's a betrayal to not fulfill those duties.
Speaker 1: Correct. Correct, Thank you for putting it that way, because
Speaker 1: I think that that's it. There are duties in a relationship,
Speaker 1: and you know, to not that is the betrayal. As
Speaker 1: you know, my work, doctor Fried is in the area
Speaker 1: of narcissism. And if you have developed an acronym that
Speaker 1: perfectly sums up the most damaging sort of interpersonal pivot
Speaker 1: that happens in any kind of toxic relationship, can you
Speaker 1: talk about your acronym and tell us where you came
Speaker 1: up with this, because this to me, when I use this,
Speaker 1: it's a game changer.
Speaker 2: Yeah. DARVO stands for deny attack and reverse victim an offender.
Speaker 2: So it's an acronym that connects to when a person's
Speaker 2: being held accountable for a misdeed, how they respond, and
Speaker 2: it is a destructive kind of response. Not all people
Speaker 2: respond with DARVO, but when they do respond with darvo.
Speaker 2: It can deflect the blame and responsibility because first of all,
Speaker 2: they deny, they say, no, I didn't do that thing
Speaker 2: you're saying. Then they attack the credibility of the person
Speaker 2: making the accusation, so they say, you know you are
Speaker 2: just doing this for attention, or you're just doing this
Speaker 2: for money, or you know there's something wrong with your memory,
Speaker 2: you have false memories. This didn't really happen to you.
Speaker 2: And then the most insidious part is reversing victim and offender.
Speaker 2: So now the person being accused puts him or herself
Speaker 2: into the victim role and says, you know you're harming
Speaker 2: me by this accusation, and therefore you're the offender in
Speaker 2: this situation. So it's this very powerful reversal, and we
Speaker 2: know from the research that darba tends to work. It
Speaker 2: does confuse people, and that's why perpetrate just do it.
Speaker 2: I experienced it in my own life, so in some sense,
Speaker 2: I really deeply understood it, but didn't have that kind
Speaker 2: of analytic intellectual understanding. And I'd seen it happen to
Speaker 2: other people because it's pretty common until I saw it
Speaker 2: happening on TV in a very dramatic way. And in
Speaker 2: a situation where I could just really pinpoint it, and
Speaker 2: that was the Anita Hill Clarence Thomas' hearings. Yes, and
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas was at that point considered for being appointed
Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court. And Anita Hill had brought forth
Speaker 2: an accusation that Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her at
Speaker 2: work back when he was running the EEOC, and Clarence
Speaker 2: Thomas denied it. He attacked her credibility, and he very
Speaker 2: much put himself in the victim world, and people around
Speaker 2: him enabled that. And I remember sitting there thinking, this
Speaker 2: is so striking because he's not just any old person.
Speaker 2: He was head of the EEOC. And if there's anyone
Speaker 2: who would know how important it is to be able
Speaker 2: to talk about sexual harassment, how hard it is to
Speaker 2: talk about, how important it is not to attack the
Speaker 2: person who brings it up, it would be the head
Speaker 2: of the EOC. So he had the knowledge, he had
Speaker 2: the professional awareness to respond in a constructive way. But
Speaker 2: it's not what he did. He did this conversation stopping response,
Speaker 2: and it was so bad for everybody, was so bad
Speaker 2: for Anita Hill, and it was so bad for all
Speaker 2: the people watching this who might have had stories to
Speaker 2: tell but saw what happened if anyone dared to say so.
Speaker 2: It was somehow clicked for me watching that that this
Speaker 2: was a pattern, and it was a particularly destructive pattern.
Speaker 1: When you bring it up in terms of the Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas Anita Hill situation, absolutely makes sense. But we see
Speaker 1: people do this all the time. I think we're living
Speaker 1: in the era of DARVO now. I mean, in some ways,
Speaker 1: the Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill story, that almost feels
Speaker 1: like a throwback to the early days. Now DARVO is
Speaker 1: twenty four to seven. It's happening all the time. Political leaders,
Speaker 1: business leaders. I mean, I would almost challenge anyone out
Speaker 1: there to watch the news or read news sites for
Speaker 1: one day and tell me you don't see at least
Speaker 1: one darvau story coming out. I mean, there's a universality,
Speaker 1: you know, to this. But what I love about DARVO
Speaker 1: is I think it takes gaslighting and it gives it
Speaker 1: the final punctuation point, right, because when we think about gaslighting,
Speaker 1: it's denial, right that I never said that, I never
Speaker 1: did that. It's attack. There's something wrong with you. What
Speaker 1: the heck is wrong with you? But that last piece
Speaker 1: of reversing victim and offender. I think that that still
Speaker 1: remains in that second part of gaslighting, which is to
Speaker 1: sort of undermine the person being abused. But I think
Speaker 1: it puts it in very stark focus because what it
Speaker 1: does is it plays on the empathy and the compassion
Speaker 1: and the equanimity of the person being abused. So they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, maybe I am wrong. And there's not
Speaker 1: a case out there where we have not seen darvaux use.
Speaker 1: I mean any of the big cases of perpetration Weinstein,
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby, R Kelly, I mean, think of Harvey Weinstein
Speaker 1: rolling into the courtroom in the wheelchair. Look what you've
Speaker 1: all done to me. I can't believe this is being
Speaker 1: done to me. I mean, after over one hundred women
Speaker 1: that we know of were perpetrated against. That was darvo
Speaker 1: happening at the highest levels. But this framework, whether if
Speaker 1: it's a massive news story involving hundreds of people or
Speaker 1: it's simply happening in somebody's interpersonal relationship, it takes gaslighting
Speaker 1: and it creates a much more holistic model of what
Speaker 1: happens in these relationships.
Speaker 2: I think it's awesome, more specific now got measurement instruments
Speaker 2: for DARVA experiences like being darvout, as well as DARVO use,
Speaker 2: like your tendency to use DARVO when you're acused of something.
Speaker 1: I have copies of those scales here, and doctor Fried's
Speaker 1: DARVO use scale is available in our show notes and
Speaker 1: on our Instagram at Navigating Narcissism Pod. This fantastic resource
Speaker 1: lists common DARVO phrases like your delusional and I'm the
Speaker 1: real victim here and can be used to check yourself
Speaker 1: to see if you're likely to use DARVO as a
Speaker 1: tactic or you're experiencing it. We're actually starting to use
Speaker 1: them in some of my own research on narcissistic abuse.
Speaker 1: We're bringing in your DARVA long form questionnaire. It's magnificent
Speaker 1: how this is now so measurable, because I do think
Speaker 1: that there's a real value even for clinicians to use
Speaker 1: with INDIVI visual clients so they can explore this in
Speaker 1: their clients. It's a phenomenal resource. Could you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about your research connecting DARVO and narcissism, because
Speaker 1: I can see them as being inherently connected.
Speaker 2: We knew from prior research that has been published that
Speaker 2: there are certain things that relate to the probability that
Speaker 2: you get darvoed, so gender is one of them. So
Speaker 2: women appear to be more likely to receive a DARVA response.
Speaker 2: What we were curious about was who does the darvoing
Speaker 2: and can we figure out who's more likely to darvo.
Speaker 2: So we included some personality scales. One of them was
Speaker 2: the dark Triad scale, used to measure three constellations of
Speaker 2: sort of personality traits. One is psychopathy, one is machia
Speaker 2: of alienism, and one is narcissism. And we found that
Speaker 2: the tendency to use DARVO was actually associated with each
Speaker 2: of those three sub scales, and that people who are
Speaker 2: more likely to respond with DARVO are also more likely
Speaker 2: to show traits of narcissism as well as psychopathy and machiavelianism.
Speaker 2: And this is not at all surprising to us, but
Speaker 2: it does allow us to begin to document the function.
Speaker 2: Darvo is a tool for people.
Speaker 1: Right, and it goes back to the driving of these
Speaker 1: antagonistic relationships is domination, power and control. That's it. It's
Speaker 1: not intimacy, it's not closeness, it's not even attachment or love.
Speaker 1: It's really power domination and control. And if one person
Speaker 1: in a relationship is being driven by power and control
Speaker 1: and the other person is actually seeking for attachment, love
Speaker 1: and connection, they're singing different songs, they're dancing different dances,
Speaker 1: and tremendous harm comes to that person who is being
Speaker 1: darvoed and who is being subjugated. You know one thing
Speaker 1: that is so important for people to know and is
Speaker 1: a takeaway. I think that many survivors will say, Wow,
Speaker 1: this stuff has a name betrayal blindness, betrayal trauma, darvo
Speaker 1: But then they want to know what to do. What
Speaker 1: are some things that people can do to address betrayal blindness.
Speaker 2: I tend to think about this both in terms of
Speaker 2: what can you do for yourself to protect yourself and
Speaker 2: also what can you do for the world to sort
Speaker 2: of make this a better world that we're going to
Speaker 2: all share for the self. You probably you have lots
Speaker 2: of wisdom here, but one of the things we wrote
Speaker 2: about in Blind to Betrayal was really getting very intentional
Speaker 2: about relationships and actually taking stocks. So we talk about
Speaker 2: the use of a particular measurement called the Relational Health
Speaker 2: Indices that has some scales and for relational health and
Speaker 2: we provide one of them in the book, where you
Speaker 2: can ask yourself, you know, is this what I am
Speaker 2: experiencing in these relationships? And it's not just for the
Speaker 2: intimate relationship, it's for all the important relationships in a
Speaker 2: person's life. They can go through this, and if the
Speaker 2: relationship is not healthy, then it's very beneficial for the
Speaker 2: person to either require it become healthy by getting an
Speaker 2: agreement from the person their relationship with, or to leave
Speaker 2: that relationship and find other relationships. And for some people
Speaker 2: that's going to be easier for them to do with
Speaker 2: maybe not their closest relationships, like start there and start
Speaker 2: to build healthy relationships around them, and then maybe tackle
Speaker 2: that most central relationship, which can be very scary to
Speaker 2: start with that one.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yes, what are other thoughts you have on
Speaker 1: ways that people can sort of get ahead, if you will,
Speaker 1: or at least use the understanding of betrayal blindness to
Speaker 1: inform them as they go forward into other relationships or
Speaker 1: manage the relationships in their lives.
Speaker 2: So looking for signs that the person themselves might be
Speaker 2: using betrayal blindness, you know, asking themselves, am I safe
Speaker 2: in this relationship? Do I need to space out in
Speaker 2: order to stay in it, which would be a really
Speaker 2: big red flag that something's not right if you need
Speaker 2: to space out. And to know that this is something
Speaker 2: that can happen and why it happens can help people
Speaker 2: be empowered when they otherwise don't feel empowered. I mean,
Speaker 2: we see this too with darva, where if we tell
Speaker 2: people about the concept, they're less susceptible to being swayed
Speaker 2: when they see it. So if somebody doesn't know the
Speaker 2: concept and they see darvo happening, they tend to in
Speaker 2: some sense believe the perpetrator who's using it. And so
Speaker 2: if you educate people and they go, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: they're essentially able to say I'm being kind of manipulated here,
Speaker 2: and I'm not interested in being manipulated, then they're safer.
Speaker 2: So there's a certain amount of grounds you get from
Speaker 2: being able to identify and label a problematic pattern.
Speaker 1: And both of these things very much resonate with what
Speaker 1: I consider to be central tenets of working clinically with
Speaker 1: survivors of narcissistic relationships, the first being fostering other supports.
Speaker 1: Doctor Fried. Not everyone can leave, you know that, I
Speaker 1: know that, So if they're not going to we have
Speaker 1: to help them cultivate. It might even be therapy as
Speaker 1: another safe relational space, but some place where they can
Speaker 1: be open and feel that there's a sense of trust
Speaker 1: in that social contract, if you will, is safe and
Speaker 1: trusting and loving. The second piece of awareness, we call
Speaker 1: this just straight up psycho education. This is it. There's
Speaker 1: an architecture to this, and if there's a model for this,
Speaker 1: it means it's not just happening to you. You said
Speaker 1: that there are things that using people can do for
Speaker 1: the world, not just to protect themselves. Could you share that,
Speaker 1: because I think that's such an important perspective.
Speaker 2: It's because I believe this so strongly that I'm spending
Speaker 2: most of my time these days nurturing a nonprofit called
Speaker 2: the Center for Institutional Courage, And in the work we're
Speaker 2: doing at the Center Institutional Courage, we're particularly focused on
Speaker 2: the harm and betrayal that occurs at the institutional level,
Speaker 2: which by the way, includes institutional darvo and coming up
Speaker 2: with an alternative way for people and organizations to be
Speaker 2: in the world to not do all this harm. And
Speaker 2: that's what we call institutional courage. So you know, what
Speaker 2: people can do for the world is to learn about
Speaker 2: these things and get involved with organizations and groups that
Speaker 2: are attempting to fix and address them as well as,
Speaker 2: you know, being good friends to other people who are victims.
Speaker 2: It's being pro social and the irony is that one
Speaker 2: of the best ways in the long run to help
Speaker 2: one's own healing is to use what we've learned through
Speaker 2: mistreatment to help other people. That's a very rewarding and
Speaker 2: ultimately empowering place to be.
Speaker 1: It really is thank you for seeing that. That's so
Speaker 1: beautifully put, and I think that's also a context survivors
Speaker 1: will appreciate in terms of how they can also do
Speaker 1: good in the world. Many of them feel like they've
Speaker 1: lost their voices, and to know that that's a place
Speaker 1: of sort of healing and gross for them will be profound.
Speaker 1: Is there any other words of wisdom you'd like to
Speaker 1: leave with survivors of relationships that are characterized by betrayal, trauma, betrayal, blindness,
Speaker 1: and darvo.
Speaker 2: I do believe very strongly in self compassion. It takes
Speaker 2: a lot of energy to beat yourself up and blame
Speaker 2: yourself when really you are doing the best you could
Speaker 2: that the situation was and maybe still is not fair
Speaker 2: and destructive, and that loving yourself and taking care of yourself.
Speaker 2: It's sort of trite, but it is true that it
Speaker 2: just is hugely beneficial. It is a good thing you love.
Speaker 2: It is a good thing you're vulnerable.
Speaker 1: I love that. I really love the frame you put
Speaker 1: on this, that it's a good thing to love. We
Speaker 1: tend to lose that in the conversation about toxic relationships,
Speaker 1: So thank you for bringing it home to that. So,
Speaker 1: doctor Fried, I cannot tell you what an amazing conversation
Speaker 1: this was. Here are my takeaways for my conversation with
Speaker 1: doctor Jennifer Fried. In my first takeaway after listening to
Speaker 1: doctor Fried talk about betrayal blindness, it seems that almost
Speaker 1: everyone who is in or has ever been in a
Speaker 1: narcissistic relationship has experienced some level of betrayal blindness. These
Speaker 1: are relationships where trust is betrayed regularly. As a psychologist
Speaker 1: who has worked with people in these situations and with
Speaker 1: people who stay in the relationships for years, I have
Speaker 1: witnessed them not seeing or acknowledging what happens, but that
Speaker 1: not seeing it while it allows them to stay, takes
Speaker 1: a toll on their health and behavior. In many ways.
Speaker 1: Doctor fried has given us a blueprint for understanding narcissistic abuse,
Speaker 1: what happens, why people stay, and how it takes such
Speaker 1: a toll on health and well being. For my next takeaway,
Speaker 1: an important observation is this idea of being empowered enough
Speaker 1: to not only be able to see it, but do
Speaker 1: something about it. A real struggle for people in any
Speaker 1: relationship characterized by betrayal trauma is that they are not
Speaker 1: empowered for any number of reasons. They may be children,
Speaker 1: they may have less power for societal reasons ethnicity, gender,
Speaker 1: social status, or they may simply be in a relationship
Speaker 1: that is characterized by imbalance and inequity, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: is what we see in narcissistic relationships. She calls this
Speaker 1: relational asymmetry, and this is really important to understand because
Speaker 1: we can pay attention to this dynamic in our relationships.
Speaker 1: As you heal from a toxic relationship and may even
Speaker 1: be angry at yourself for not fighting back, it seems
Speaker 1: pretty likely that you were in an asymmetric relationship where
Speaker 1: fighting back may have felt too risky. In this next takeaway,
Speaker 1: doctor Fryed points out that betrayal blindness tends to become
Speaker 1: our normal, and if you had to learn to use
Speaker 1: it as a child, you are more likely to use
Speaker 1: it as a go to as an adult. This is
Speaker 1: an important pattern for survivors to explore and lines up
Speaker 1: with what we observe as the legacy pattern of people
Speaker 1: who experienced childhood narcissistic abuse also finding themselves in similar
Speaker 1: relationship cycles in adulthood. Next, betrayal blindness and its effects
Speaker 1: remind us that there is no way to win in
Speaker 1: these relationships. These are relationships with people we trust or
Speaker 1: need to trust, like parents. Seeing betrayal feels harmful because
Speaker 1: we may not be able to safely do anything about it,
Speaker 1: But not seeing the betrayal takes a toll on our health.
Speaker 1: As doctor Fried said, this is a survival mechanism that
Speaker 1: comes with a cost. The process of betrayal blindness allows
Speaker 1: us to maintain the status quo and our lives the
Speaker 1: way we may want them to be. But this process
Speaker 1: of wishing, as doctor Fried calls it, takes a real
Speaker 1: toll on us.
Speaker 2: For this.
Speaker 1: Next takeaway, self blame is the pattern that most survivors
Speaker 1: struggle with. Betrayal blindness can help take some of that
Speaker 1: apart by not acknowledging the betrayal, and then if you
Speaker 1: take the blame for the betrayals, you won't see the
Speaker 1: other person as responsible, which is where shame comes in.
Speaker 1: Most survivors feel ashamed that they got mistreated, and this
Speaker 1: brings up the idea that you could have done something
Speaker 1: to stop the betrayal from happening. All of this means
Speaker 1: that survivors then think this is my fault, which then
Speaker 1: means you can stay in the relationship. Self blame then
Speaker 1: tragically fosters attachment, which is essential in our next takeaway.
Speaker 1: One of the most important things that doctor Fried shared
Speaker 1: with us is something we already knew, but she put
Speaker 1: a finer point on it. Love is good. Wanting to
Speaker 1: love and be loved is good in a trusting, close
Speaker 1: relationship with a parent, or a partner, or even an institution.
Speaker 1: We are trying to protec something good and necessary and
Speaker 1: attachment and love. Our healthy drive to love also explains
Speaker 1: some of the why of betrayal blindness and also the
Speaker 1: why of why we stay. Many survivors view themselves as
Speaker 1: weak or needy or ridiculous for staying, but perhaps you
Speaker 1: can tap into recognizing that you are a person who
Speaker 1: wants to love and be loved and that is healthy. Next,
Speaker 1: the concept of DARVO is not only the architecture of
Speaker 1: every narcissistic relationship out there, but also rounds out our
Speaker 1: understanding of gaslighting, because not only are our reality, perception,
Speaker 1: and experience denied, we are dismantled and told there is
Speaker 1: something wrong with us, and then have to carry the
Speaker 1: burden of believing that we are the offenders and the
Speaker 1: abusers when they reverse victim and offender, and that is
Speaker 1: one more piece of how we get stuck in the
Speaker 1: cycles of self blame. And finally, once we understand betrayal blindness,
Speaker 1: we recognize that healing means discernment, the ability to detect betrayal.
Speaker 1: Learning about the mechanics of betrayal blindness and DARVO, then
Speaker 1: you can see the betrayals and call them what they are.
Speaker 1: Foster support and healthy relationships with a foundation of trust,
Speaker 1: Support other people who are going through these experiences, and
Speaker 1: practice self compassion. Remember the very best part of you,
Speaker 1: the part of you that simply wanted to love and
Speaker 1: be loved, was played upon and manipulated, But you can
Speaker 1: still hold on to that as a healthy part of yourself.