DARVO

DARVO (an acronym for "deny, attack, and reverse victim & offender") is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Some researchers indicate that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.

Process

As the acronym suggests, the common steps involved are:

1. The abuser denies the abuse ever took place
2. When confronted with evidence, the abuser then attacks the person that was/is being abused (and/or the person's family and/or friends) for attempting to hold the abuser accountable for their actions, and finally
3. The abuser claims that they were/are actually the victim in the situation, thus reversing the positions of victim and offender. It often involves not just playing the victim but also victim blaming.

Origins

The acronym and the analysis it is based on come from the work of the psychologist Jennifer Freyd, who wrote about it in 1997. The first stage of DARVO, denial, involves gaslighting. 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.

Usage and effectiveness

Freyd stated that DARVO is frequently used and effective, although the number of people who are inclined to believe a DARVO response decreases once they understand the tactic. However, the examination and determination of who is using DARVO proves to be difficult until the abuser and the victim in a case are clearly established. An example of the difficulty was seen in the Depp v. Heard case.

DARVO tactics are more successful when abusers can take advantage of societal beliefs and stereotypes to convince their audience of their new narrative. In the case of sexual violence, assailants sometimes victim-blame by appealing to societal opinions on gender roles and power dynamics. Stereotypes can help perpetrators: if an assailant is a white wealthy man, he may be perceived as authoritative and sincere, whereas if an accusation against him was made by a journalist, they might be seen as predatory and thus less trustworthy. Stereotypes also can limit the effectiveness or opportunity for DARVO tactics: one example is how the ethnic stereotype of Black men as dangerous predators makes it harder for assailants who are Black men to employ DARVO.

Setting

DARVO is a particular concern in legal contexts and institutional reporting systems, because perpetrators engaging in DARVO tactics frequently use these systems against their victims. Judicial systems often treat alleged perpetrators and victims neutrally during investigations, so an alleged perpetrator and victim have similar legal processes and may have the same access to supportive or protective measures. In American universities, where Title IX offices often handle investigations of sexual assault and harassment, limited protective measures are available before a full investigation is completed. Assailants engaging in DARVO use these protective measures against their victims, taking advantage of the neutral policies of the office and the attempts of administrators to support the rights of both the accuser and accused. DARVO manifests in the legal system when assailants file lawsuits against their victims, and these commonly take the form of defamation or libel cases where assailants accuse their accusers of trying to hurt their reputations. Legal DARVO tactics had been growing more common as of 2022. After this rise, many U.S. states passed anti-SLAPP laws to help victims dismiss certain DARVO-based defamation lawsuits. Anti-SLAPP measures help in cases where a perpetrator's lawsuit would obviously fail and was just brought forward to increase public and financial pressure on the victim.

Although DARVO is often discussed in cases where the perpetrator had committed sexual violence, it has been studied and documented in many other situations where the perpetrator had committed some sort of harm. DARVO has been labeled in some cases of medical malpractice, where victim blaming is already common since doctors and hospitals generally refuse to admit their mistakes due to legal risk. DARVO has also been cited as common in workplace bullying and toxic workplace culture. In the case of academia, when professors try to report bullying, DARVO tactics often compel them to stop speaking up, adding to their trauma and contributing to a culture of silence.

In this vein, DARVO has been theorized as acting on groups of people and not just individuals. One case under study was the intense backlash to the MeToo movement, where men's rights activists cast MeToo allegations as false and claimed the assailants were the real victims via a reactionary hashtag, #HimToo. Other researchers say DARVO can happen at even wider societal levels, labeling it as DARVO when media organizations promote rape myths in efforts to discredit sexual assault victims. Researchers have also drawn parallels between individual DARVO tactics and the tendency for dominant cultural groups to stigmatize and blame groups who are speaking up about their trauma.

Internal beliefs

Researchers have examined how the beliefs of abusive partners match what is claimed in DARVO tactics, where perpetrators deny abuse happened and blame the victim for being the aggressor. In one study concerning intimate partner violence among college students, researchers asked students to fill out private surveys that measured internalized beliefs about their relationships and allowed students to self-report intimate partner violence they had committed. Researchers found a strong correlation between students of all genders who had previously abused their partners and the belief that relationship difficulties were their partner's fault, and not their own. For male respondents, avoiding the discussion of relationship difficulties was also strongly correlated with the likelihood of past abuse. Other research has found that violent men are more likely than nonviolent men to believe their partners are critical and intentionally malicious. Studies of abusive men have also found that they frequently minimize or fully deny that incidents of abuse happened, and that this behavior is most common when the abusers fear legal issues or other situational consequences.

DARVO tactics are also associated with victims blaming themselves more for their abuse, with one explanation being that perpetrators' victim blaming gets internalized by the victims over time.

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. The President explains DARVO to him and roleplays how to use it. When Randy attempts to do so, the police officer he tries it on informs him that the tactic will not work, as Randy is not the President.

See also

• Accusation in a mirror – Hate speech incitement technique
• Chilling effect – Discouragement of exercising rights by threats of legal sanctions
• Crocodile tears
• Scientology controversies § Dead agenting
• Gaslighting
• Psychological projection
• Tu quoque
• Victim blaming