DARVO

DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. It names a response pattern that people who have done harm often fall into when they are confronted about it: they deny the behavior, attack the person who raised it, and then flip the roles so that the offender appears to be the wronged party and the victim appears to be the aggressor.

The term was coined by psychologistJennifer Freyd in 1997, alongside her work on betrayal trauma.

The three moves usually arrive together:

• Deny. The event did not happen, or did not happen that way, or was so minor that mentioning it is strange.
• Attack. The person raising it is unstable, vindictive, oversensitive, or has a hidden motive. The subject quietly shifts from what was done to who is complaining.
• Reverse victim and offender. “I’m the one being persecuted here.” The accuser is now the accused, and the actual harm never gets discussed.

Takeaway

Watch what the response is about. A response to the accusation is a defense; a response to the accuser is a redirection.

See Also

Attribution Bias The Value of Truth vs Comforting Narrative Learned Helplessness Gaslighting

References

• Freyd, Jennifer J., “ Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness, and Betrayal Trauma Theory,” 1997.
• Harsey, Zurbriggen, and Freyd, “ Perpetrator Responses to Victim Confrontation,” 2017.
• Harsey and Freyd, “ Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender (DARVO): What Is the Influence on Perceived Perpetrator and Victim Credibility?,” 2020.