DARVO
Clinical Practice
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Identified by psychologist Jennifer Freyd.
Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender. Identified by psychologist Jennifer Freyd. When someone is confronted about harmful behavior, they: deny it happened, attack the person confronting them, and then position themselves as the real victim. Common in abusive dynamics, but also appears in milder forms in ordinary conflict. Knowing the pattern makes it much easier to recognize and name.
Evidence
Clinical Practice
DARVO (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender) earns Clinical Practice. It names a recognizable manipulation pattern in which an accused person denies wrongdoing, attacks the accuser, and recasts themselves as the real victim. The concept comes from Jennifer Freyd's work on betrayal and abuse, and a small but growing line of studies has begun testing it empirically (Harsey and Freyd, 2020). The evidence base is still early and limited, which keeps the rating at clinical practice.
Origin
Jennifer Freyd, 1997
Sources
- Why Does He Do That? — Lundy Bancroft, 2002