Today on the How We Can Heal Podcast, Lisa Danylchuk chats with Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D., a researcher, author, educator, speaker and so much more. The pair discuss Freyd’s path to finding the Center for Institutional Courage, how the connections we have to institutions affect us, and her research on DARVO. Now, let’s wrap up Season 2 and get talking about how we can heal.
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About Jennifer Freyd:
Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD, is a researcher, author, educator, and speaker. Freyd is the Founder and President of the Center for Institutional Courage, Professor Emerit of Psychology at the University of Oregon, and Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine, Affiliated Faculty at the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Affiliated Faculty, Women's Leadership Lab, Stanford University. She is also a Member of the Advisory Committee, 2019-2023, for the Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Freyd was in 1989-90 and again in 2018-19 a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Freyd currently serves as the Editor of The Journal of Trauma & Dissociation.
Freyd is a widely published and renowned scholar known for her theories of betrayal trauma, institutional betrayal, institutional courage, and DARVO. She received her PhD in Psychology from Stanford University. The author or coauthor of over 200 articles and op-eds, Freyd is also the author of the Harvard Press award-winning book Betrayal Trauma: The Logic of Forgetting Childhood Abuse. Her most recent book Blind to Betrayal, co-authored with Pamela J. Birrell, was published by John Wiley, with seven additional translations. In 2014, Freyd was invited two times to the U.S. White House due to her research on sexual assault and institutional betrayal. In 2021 Freyd and the University of Oregon settled Freyd’s precedent-setting equal pay lawsuit.
Freyd has received numerous awards including being named a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, an Erskine Fellow at The University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In April 2016, Freyd was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation. Freyd was selected for the 2021 Christine Blasey Ford Woman of Courage Award by the Association for Women in Psychology.
Additional Bio: Jennifer Joy Freyd profile by the American Psychological Association.
Outline of the episode:
- 04:26 Defining Institutional Courage
- 18:54 Institutional Betrayal & Betrayal Blindness Explained
- 33:29 The link between individuals and the institutions we love
- 47:47 DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender
- 54:38 Lab Research Institutional Courage
Resources:
Jennifer’s Website: https://www.jjfreyd.com/
Center for Institutional Courage: https://www.institutionalcourage.org/
Dynamics Lab: https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/
South Park DARVO clip: https://southpark.cc.com/video-clips/gfwbrf/south-park-it-s-called-darvo
You can follow Dr. Freyd on Twitter at @jjfreydcourage
Transcription:
Jennifer Freyd 0:03
Sometimes people ask me, is there an institution you found? That's very courageous. And I have to say that it's much easier to come up with examples of institutional betrayal then institutional courage.
Lisa Danylchuk 0:15
Yeah. Welcome back to Season Two of the How We Can Heal podcast. I so enjoyed sharing season one with you. And we have some incredible guests coming on for season two. I created this podcast because the hard times seem to just keep on coming these days. These guests and I have committed our lives to healing work, and to fostering health and joy in the world, even as we work through the impacts of trauma and face deep challenges. So let's dive in. And let's all keep talking about how we can heal.
Lisa Danylchuk 0:54
Today, our guest is Dr. Jennifer Freyd. Dr. Freyd is a widely published and renowned scholar known for her theories of betrayal, trauma, institutional betrayal, institutional courage, and DARVO. She's a professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Oregon, an Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the School of Medicine at Stanford University. Freyd is a theoretician and expert on interpersonal and institutional betrayal, trauma and sexual violence and discrimination within institutional settings. Dr. Freyd is also the founder and president of the Center for Institutional Courage. Her research there on betrayal, trauma and institutional courage have revolutionized the field of trauma psychology and the practice of institutional community building. She's the author or co author of over 200 articles and op eds. And she's also the author of the Harvard Press award winning book Betrayal Trauma, the logic of forgetting childhood abuse. Her most recent book, blind to betrayal, co authored with Pamela J. burl, was published by John Wiley with seven additional translations. In 2014, Dr. Freid was invited two times to the US White House. Due to her research on sexual assault and institutional betrayal. She received her PhD in Psychology from Stanford University, Jennifer and I connected through our work with the ISSTD, where I'm currently president, and she serves as the editor of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation. She's spoken at ISSTD events and brings a wealth of knowledge, care and commitment to the field. I'm so grateful to share her with you today. Let's welcome Jennifer to the show.
Lisa Danylchuk 2:36
Hey, folks, I want to be sure you're aware of the yoga for trauma online training program. It's an eight week certification I've been offering online since 2015. And it covers all of the foundations of how to bring yoga philosophy and practice into trauma treatment in a skillful embodied way. The program has created an international community of Yogi's mental health professionals, helpers, and healers who are offering trauma informed care to people all around the world. applications open just a few times a year and they're open right now. So head on over and submit your application at how we can heal.com backslash y four T, that's the letter Y, the number four and the letter T, how we can heal that comm backslash why 40 If you're into this podcast, and you're sharing healing tools with others, you just might be a great fit. And I'd love for you to join the community, head on over to how we can heal.com backslash Why 40 And perhaps I will see you in the program. Jennifer fried Welcome to the How we can heal podcast, I'm so excited to have you here and to be able to just talk with you for the next hour or so and share some of the really significant concepts that you've introduced to the field of trauma and trauma recovery. And I'm really fascinated about this and passionate about it because you don't just talk about the individual level, you really speak to systemic levels, and we're processing so much at the systemic level during this time. So I think I'd like to just start with this concept of institutional courage, right, you founded the Center for institutional courage. And, you know, we can read the definition of that and all of that. But I'm curious, where did that come from within you? It's your brainchild. Right? How did that concept of all for you?
Jennifer Freyd 4:26
Yeah, that's a great question. So, as you know, I've been working for decades studying the impact of certain kinds of trauma, both individual and institutional trauma on people and I knew by then how prevalent it was, and how often devastating it is. And I kept wanting to figure out a way to address this to fix the problem. And one day, I found myself with a What are they called bullhorns when you're in a crowd, and yeah, without a protest, that was happening on the campus at the University of Oregon regarding a, an alleged rape that came to light in circumstances that really disturbed the students. And I can tell you more about that if you're interested. But I was there at the protest. And suddenly, this device was put in front of me, and I was asked to talk. And so I said, I sort of hearing myself speak because I hadn't planned anything. I talked about how it was time for the university to show some institutional courage, word of mouth. And after that, I I, you know, thought that that's an interesting phrase. I started to write about it, and ventually define it and create a nonprofit to research and educate about institutional courage. But it was really, I'd say, a moment of, in some sense, hope that things could be better.
Lisa Danylchuk 6:07
Yeah. And I appreciate that. It's focusing on the vision, right? Like, this is where we're going. I know, cognitively, we can be so oriented to endpoints and goals, right? Like even even my Apple watch. It's like, you gotta close the ring to finish your move ring for the day. Like if we just want to get get to endpoints. And so having an endpoint, and having a vision, that's clear, I feel like that's really powerful. So I'm wondering if you can give some examples of institutional courage, like when have you seen it work? Well?
Jennifer Freyd 6:41
Yeah. Well, so people are are often asking me for examples. And sometimes people ask me, Is there an institution, you found that very courageous, and I have to say that it's much easier to come up with examples of institutional betrayal than institutional courage? Yeah, right now, I'm hoping we see a change. But I have found and I haven't found an institution that's just like, uniformly courageous. Maybe someday, but not so far, what I have found are more like individual examples of institutional courage. And they are very heartening. They tell me, it's entirely possible. And we've been two big research studies now where we've come up with some measures of institutional courage. And we found that when institutions behave in these courageous ways, it's good for the individuals who are dependent on the institution, which makes sense, but it's also good for the institution. So that's all very heartening, but the kind of examples that I have seen sort of fall into two general categories. One is what you might call top down, it's when you've got a courageous leader. And then the other pattern is from the bottom up when a group of people who individually don't have necessarily a lot of power in the institution, gather together and act with solidarity and make things change and their power comes from their their solidarity, both approaches can lead to acts of institutional courage. So for instance, one that I often talk about involves a university president when learning about an alleged sexual assault on his campus that involved athletes, and that was handled horribly at the time. But when he learned about it, he he investigated it, and he wrote an apology letter on behalf of the university. And then he hired the victim, as a consultant to help improve the system, which was just beautiful because it demonstrates institutional courage of acknowledging the truth of apologizing, of cherishing the whistleblower, and ultimately, this President and the victim, survivor, were able to go beyond just that campus and do work at the state level to change some of the laws. So it also illustrated the way a courageous institution can make the world around them better to so it was very, very heartening. And that's an example of that top down, courageous leader. Now, of course, he wouldn't have known to do this without victim survivor coming forward. But an example of the other direction. There there were a group of faculty at the University of British Columbia who became aware of a situation in which a student had been sexually harassed by a faculty member. The University had not been handling it well, which is, as we know, typical, and this graduate student wasn't getting very, very well treated. And the faculty did something unusual, which was they, they got together the solidarity part. And they issued an apology letter on behalf of the university. Just by themselves, they just they apologized on behalf of the university. And it was a really brilliant move. Because I think in the end, they got about 100 people to sign this letter. And it forced the institution to take a courageous stance, that really wouldn't have happened if it had been left in the hands of the administration. Yeah. So, you know, I think and I've seen other examples of each of these kinds. So I'm sure there are other ways that it can happen. But those seem to be the two predominant ways that institutional Courage comes about
Lisa Danylchuk 10:45
from the leadership or from the the group. Right, right, some sort of consensus, it stands out to me that a big part of this just seems to be the institution acknowledging that harm was done.
Jennifer Freyd 10:59
Exactly. It's huge. I mean, you know, this has been something other people have figured out through the years. I mean, the concept of the ideas behind Truth and Reconciliation, yeah. are, you know, about how, without acknowledging the truth, when really isn't going to go forward? You know, many theorists talk about what it takes to have a meaningful kind of forgiveness, we'll talk about the importance of acknowledging what really happened before being able to truly forgive. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in this. I've been struck by how individuals who receive apology letters from institutions, find them so transformative, but when it's a sincere apology, well, I had one, one woman who told me 30 years of therapy did not do for her. What once the fair apology letter? Well, yeah, so that acknowledges people's reality. And that's very, very powerful. And it stops the individual who has been victimized from blaming themselves. And no matter how much, you know, rationally, it's not your fault. Yeah. The perpetrator does not acknowledge that. It's like this, it's really hard to fully feel that. And self blame is so predominant people when they treat it that way.
Lisa Danylchuk 12:32
And there's a real victimization that happens if, say, there's a sexual violence on campus, and then the institution isn't responding well, well, then that's another form of trauma, right. And so it adds these layers. And then someone who's already reeling from, you know, a really impactful, negative, harmful incident is sort of swimming and trying to figure out how to get help, and then not getting the help and getting harmed again. And so I feel like the acknowledgement feels really important. But there's also, you know, these layers around and the systemic presence around people. And I know, Jennifer Gomez, who's Dr. Jennifer Gomez, who you've worked with, and mentored, has done the research and cultural betrayal, trauma as well. And I think she's writing right now. But when she's wrapping up her book, hopefully we'll have her on this podcast, too, to talk about that. So there's examples of betrayal trauma are pretty rampant right now. What do you tend to sort of use to help orient people more to institutional courage? You know, and I can even I'll just read the definition for folks, it's on your website, and you probably have it memorized, too. But just for folks listening institutional courage is an institution's commitment to seek the truth and engage in moral action, despite unpleasantness risk and short term cost. It's a pledge to protect and care for those who depend on the institution. It's a compass oriented to the common good of individuals, institutions and the world. It is it is a force that transforms institutions into more accountable, equitable, effective places for everyone. So I can imagine a lot of people who are in leadership roles might read that and go, Yes, this is what we want. But how do we get there? Is that something that your center is researching, what would you have to say along those lines?
Jennifer Freyd 14:26
Yes, absolutely. It's something we're researching. I have outlined already 11 steps that institutions can take to try to move towards institutional courage. So we do have some starting places, but I am sure that there are many more things that institutions can and need to do besides the 11. I identified I've just, I've just provided some starting places and one of the main reasons that I created a nonprofit was As to support research to answer these questions, because it's very under researched. And in general, interpersonal trauma and institutional behavior that's negative like this is under researched. But you know, we can't wait and do nothing until the research is in so. So using some of the steps that we have reason to believe are gonna bring us in the right direction are, it's probably a good thing for institutions even now to start to do. But yeah, we don't know all the ways. One of the things I think, though, that institutional leaders, they often I agree with, you will think that sounds good, I want my institution to be like that. I want it to be effective and equitable, and all those things. But early on, in that definition, the word risk was there. I think one of the things that becomes a stumbling block for leaders is, are they willing to take a risk? Because a number of the steps that are necessary, do involve some risk? No, sometimes, for instance, that apology letter that I described for the President, that is also risky, probably there were lawyers telling me how not to do it. But a good leader will, will take risk. I mean, excellence involves taking risks. Lots of good things involve taking some risks. So So I think one of the things leaders need to ask themselves, are they are they keeping themselves and their whole organization locked into a bad pattern, because they're afraid to take some risk?
Lisa Danylchuk 16:41
It makes me think just about culture, and you know, in different countries, and the US being a much more litigious place than many other places in the world. And feeling that fear and even sort of locked in by Well, if I say anything, I'm going to get this whole institution in hot water like, and leaders just being so afraid of legal ramifications, or of any sort of accountability, when the accountability piece and the apology piece is what is so healing, right. So I can see that kind of lock between not wanting to say anything, feeling like it's going to harm the institution to say something, when, when actually, it's a pathway of healing for the individual, but also for the institution. And I think when you say that it's better for everyone. People are watching and institutions are made up of people. And and we're, we know, to varying degrees, we're pretty savvy. And when we see things happening in and someone's not accountable. And this makes me think of Donna Hicks work in terms of dignity, too. And someone's not taking responsibility, or owning their actions, or being responsive. Well, the rest of us that are a part of that institution, we're watching and we're going oh, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I want to, you know, invest my tuition money here next year. I don't know if this is a place I want to be affiliated with, if this is what's happening. And so that kind of goes back to well, the people really matter, right? And you can see those examples of when people rise up, speak up and say, This isn't okay. And that in leadership, when you can take that leadership and say, This isn't okay. Well, then you're actually providing that platform of truth for everyone to stand on and you're rebuilding trust. So it's always stood out to me how much in all of your work and research on institutional courage and institutional betrayal, trust and and connection and attachment seems to be such a fundamental platform to that is that is that a way you still think about it as a very relational field?
Jennifer Freyd 18:54
Definitely, I think one of the reasons we are so vulnerable to institutional betrayal, psychologically, is because of the attachment that we have to institutions. And this is a very human trait that we attach to, to not just people but we attach to animals, we sometimes attached to objects. In fact, I don't think I've ever met somebody who doesn't love at least one institution, maybe their church or their school or their government or whatever. Most of us love more than one institution. And it's not a bad thing about us. We are, we are very social creatures. And the the theory that I worked on for a long time before moving to institutional betrayal was what I call betrayal trauma theory. And it really calls in on why when there's interpersonal violations by someone the victim trusts and depends upon why that's so much worse, essentially, somebody else and it in interpersonal betrayal trauma, people often cope by being unaware of the betrayal to some extent, or to a great extent they might forget an abusive experience entirely. Or they may forget many elements of it minimize its consequences. And this is this I understand as a way to preserve unnecessary relationships. So I call it betrayal, blindness. And if you imagine a child being abused by a parent, if the child is fully aware of how bad things are, they will pull away from the parent. And in pulling away, they risk getting more mistreatment and losing that the good parts, if we can call it that of the relationship, for instance, being fatter housed, it can be life threatening to pull away. And so even though betrayal, blindness means they endure the abuse, it keeps them alive. So it's adaptive. Well, the same thing can happen with institutions. So if you are dependent upon your school, because you want to finish your degree, and you are getting some mistreatment at your school, some institutional betrayal, you may not fully see it, because you're you want to stay in a good relationship with that school. And I don't mean, this is like a conscious decision, this happens outside of people's awareness, but it's an adaptive way to protect one's needs. The problem with betrayal blindness is it also then makes it hard to stop the ongoing abuse, because one's not fully aware of it. So we see this all the time, with both interpersonal and institutional betrayal. One of the places I think it's, its most interesting right now is, is when it comes to whether we see the betrayal of our own government. And we're in a time of societal change on that, in fact, a lot of people are beginning to distrust the government in ways that they didn't used to, because they're seeing the betrayal. But we can see a sense of distrust, it's very disruptive to the fabric of society, it's disruptive in our case, to the functioning of our democracy. Yeah. So, you know, part, some people might say, Well, somehow we have to get everybody trusting institutions again. However, I don't think it's a good idea to trust institutions that are not trustworthy, right? What, what I would say is, we need to first make our institutions trustworthy, and then they will earn people's trust back. In fact, I don't think we need to try to make people trust, what we need to do is to make institutions trustworthy. And I say that, because in the research we've done, what we see is individuals are very eager to trust the institutions around them, they want to trust them. The problem is that once they see that institutions aren't trustworthy, they can't. Yeah, so. So you know, I feel like this, these issues are really central to whether our society will, you know, be functioning in the future that we, we absolutely need to bring more institutional courage to our institutions, both of the institutions will function better, but also so people will, will trust those institutions and participate in society.
Lisa Danylchuk 23:42
There's so much in what you're describing. I mean, there's so many avenues my brain goes in terms of how massive this is, right? And the implications, and someone might, someone might say, oh, institutional courage, that sounds nice. And then you really think about it and start breaking it down you go, this is necessary for our collective survival, like this is essential for us to function and I think to heal from a lot of the things that we're trying to heal from collectively here in the States and around the world. I mean, dealing with the pandemic, dealing with racism, dealing with just different systems of oppression. There's not, there's not going to be a shift into blind trust that needs to be earned. Right? Just like with anyone Yeah, we want to trust but also we're paying attention and you know, Brene Brown talks about marbles in a jar like actions, speak and small interactions have weighed and over time, we're either putting more more marbles in the jar and building more trust or you know, in one single action, we can spill all of those marbles out and and completely lose trust. And so I think of institutions and leaders and institutions are thinking about these small ongoing ways to continue to build and rebuild trust. that can be, that can have a massive impact, right? It can really have a strong ripple effect. Throughout not just maybe the one person they're relating to but everyone who's watching everyone who's listening, everyone who relates, right. And, and I don't think leaders in institutions are always aware of those implications and even out into society in larger ways. I mean, I think of people in government and you know, the amount of decisions they need to make in a day and the amount of different tensions and all of that, and, and I think if we keep this concept of, of courage, and I'd love to bring in, we can bring in a link to the 11 points that you mentioned, as well. Because I think we need somewhere to orient with this stuff, it gets kind of challenging and overwhelming, and there's so much going on in the world, I think leaders start to swim a little bit. But when we orient to the courage, and we orient to like, these are some practices that have many that we can use to get ourselves going in a direction that builds trust. Well, that's going to be helpful for really everyone involved.
Jennifer Freyd 26:13
Yeah, I agree with you, I think one of the things that is important to know is that the problems of institutional betrayal are not all due to bad actors. And sometimes bad actors are part of the problem. But more often, it's people with good intentions, who don't understand what makes an institution of betraying institution or not. And, and I see this as that we're just in a state of, of ignorance. And we can learn and, you know, we've seen that these transformations occur when education works. So for instance, you know, there was a time when people didn't understand that, that by throwing their trash out the window, it was leading to death. And it worked that way, because people would throw the trash out the window would collect on the sidewalks, rats would be feasting on the trash. And they would then start to be spreading disease to humans, and then the humans were dying. So basic sanitation, reduced. In that case, in many other cases, reduced human death dramatically. But when people were throwing their trash out that window, they weren't trying to kill people, including themselves, they just didn't know. And I think a lot of institutional betrayal has that quality that people don't understand basics, you know, things about how institutions can hurt individuals, they, they don't grasp it, and when they're educated, and they learn about that, and they learn other techniques, other ways of doing things like, you know, put the trash in sealed bags, not throwing it out the window, when they learned those things, then it can improve the situation for so many other people, and there's still going to be the problem of some bad actors. But that actors alone are that's a manageable problem. The problem we have in our society, is that when you have bad actors plus Dysfunctional Systems, then you have, you know, very, very bad outcomes.
Lisa Danylchuk 28:27
Yeah, and this brings us to, maybe it's, some people would describe it as, like an ego defense of not wanting to be someone who doesn't know, right, like, there's, oh, no, I just throw my trash out the window, because it's okay. And you know, it can be a process of, of challenging change, to, to educate, and for folks to go, wait, I was harming people. And I have to actually take that in that my actions were harming other people. And, oh, if I'm really connected to how I feel, that doesn't feel good, and I have to sit with that and process that. And then I have to go and show my face to these people or the family of these people and be accountable and and it's so much easier to deflect, or it's so much easier to you know, deny, like, oh, that that's not what's happening, oh, it's not the rats that are getting people sick, it's the water or it's something else. And so just keeping with that analogy, I can see how it's so obvious when we speak about trash in the street. And we have our practices in place now. And I'd love to see this vision of you know, we have those, those elements that you describe and more all in practice in the future where this stuff isn't really happening, at least not to the same degree. But the process in between that. There's discomfort. You mentioned risk in the definition, but there's also that discomfort of individuals and groups. Oops, acknowledging Oh, like we've we've inadvertently even been causing harm. And how do we digest that? And how do we respond to that?
Jennifer Freyd 30:08
Yes, you're so right. And so one of the things that we need to figure out how to do is how to help people forgive themselves. And I mean, this is an each of us, I'm sure can learn more about because it can be paralyzing, as you said, if you if you get hung up on that, the the need to kind of protect your ego, and therefore deny that the harm you've done, even when that harm was completely and then hurt, and then you're stuck, right? You can't really fix things and change things. So how do we help people be okay with acknowledging that they have caused harm, and one of the things that, you know, I try to remind people is, we have all been betrayed in life, that's part of living and we have also off betrayed other people. It's part of being human because, you know, we, we, we end up making mistakes, we end up hurting people, when we didn't mean to, and it, it's like our duty, it's our job to figure out how not to compound that harm by getting getting paralyzed by it. I know, for me, that when somebody tells me, I've heard them, and I've done something wrong, I do feel that well, if defensiveness. I always do, like I have this well, of defensiveness come into me. But I've learned that if I just don't act on it, if I just sit on that defensiveness, I often can, can get to a point where it's not in my way. And sometimes, you know, it's as simple as realizing they're right. I just really messed up. Other times, it might be a little more complicated. I might say, Well, wait a minute, you know, I've just been accused of something I don't think I exactly did. So there's some sort of rationale to the defensiveness, I guess. But on the other hand, this is how this person experienced it. And this is how they feel about it. And that's legitimate, too. And defensiveness usually doesn't help get us to a good place, whether we have been accused of something we did or didn't do it. It's usually something that gets in our way. And I really hope that one of the kinds of research we can do at the Center for institutional courage is figure out how to help individuals. And this would be so important for leaders to not get paralyzed by their their very human defensiveness
Lisa Danylchuk 32:49
or to not act on it immediately. I love how you said, just let it sit there. Just be there. It doesn't have to do anything, you can feel it and you can maybe keep listening while it's there. Or maybe you can say, hey, I'm not in a place where I can listen now, can we talk about this tomorrow? Or can? Right? Like, there's ways to give that space because we know, you know, when we push things away and try to sweep things under the rug doesn't always work so well. But if we just okay, I'm noticing this, and keeping that awareness of this person has their experience and when and how I can I'm going to listen to that.
Jennifer Freyd 33:29
I think you know, one of the things that this conversation really, I think, touches on is how, how much institutional behavior and individual behavior both have to be understood in changing the world, like, you can't just look at one without the other because as you said, institutions are made of people. And yet institutions also start to have behaviors that are more than any one person. So we need to look at things at both levels and, and understand how they interact with each other. One of the things that I'm sure we could do a better job at is through education of our children, teaching them certain skills of interpersonal communication, that will help them become better institutional actors as well as better you know, people in relationship but, you know, there's no reason we couldn't teach people how to handle those defensive feelings or how to be better listeners when somebody tells them something. It that's hard to hear these are very actually teachable skills that we haven't done a very good job at, at teaching some some in some families. Children are lucky to have parents that do teach them those things, but by and large, it's not something that our culture has taught people how to do and it's not part of our educational system in most you know, most educational institutions, this is very fixable, this is not like, this is not something that has to be that expensive, or that difficult, it's, it's a change that we can make that I think will have really positive impact over, you know, over the generations in front of us.
Lisa Danylchuk 35:18
It also strikes me that it's, it's a change that we can teach directly. And I know, you know, I've worked in and been a part of a lot of those social emotional learning programs or risk and prevention programs, and they're usually this adjunct, right, that comes into the school or another place that youth go after school. And I think the more integrated it is, the better and the more that leadership is modeling these things. The more they're, they just become a part of how we communicate, and they become a part of culture, which, you know, youth and anyone developing in that environment are steeped in. So they're learning from not just what's being directly discussed, which I think that has a lot of value, like, let's talk about how you feel, when someone brings something says that you hurt their feelings, let's, let's talk about that feeling of protection, or defense or what happens in your body, I think all of that is really valuable. And seeing, let's just say, a principal, interacting with a teacher in front of them has a strong impact, seeing how the teacher interacts with the students and communicates their own, you know, challenges and work through them, all of that carries weight and has value. So I think there's a lot of room for growth in this direction. And there's a lot of possibility and opportunity with youth to to learn from them, too. I think a lot of times where we're struggling to try to show the way and then there's sort of a natural, almost instinct that comes out. And you're like, Yeah, we could, why don't we just do that?
Jennifer Freyd 36:56
Yeah, sometimes can feel like, it's overwhelming. It's hopeless. We can't, how can we change these failures, but in fact, we've got examples of where education has really changed things. The, you know, that education about wearing a seatbelt and cars, right education about the dangers of smoking, I mean, these have made profound changes in behavior. And I have three children, they're all grown now. But you know, they went through, they went to good schools. And because of their particular age, when they went through school, they receive certain kinds of education I didn't get when I was in school, so they learned things about nutrition, they learned things about sexual health, they learned a few things about physical safety, and all of that education was part of their curriculum, not not like extra credit things. And it was effective. I mean, it was really made a difference, what they didn't learn, and I think kids still are not learning is some of these more relational communicative skills there, you know, because I think partly because those get into these, you know, uncomfortable topics. But this is, I did a study with a graduate student, and we this was college students, but they're not them are children and high school students, we were able to make a real difference in their responses to difficult disclosures. Within an hour long session, this was not like a big educational lift, this was actually quite doable. So I think there's no reason for hopelessness at all. Actually, I think this is one of those things, we could start to really turn things around. And, you know, it's, it's a little bit far from institutional courage, because this is we're now talking about educating kids to be better listeners and communicators and, and have, you know, so on, but it's a piece of the whole big puzzle of how do we get leaders to be courageous leaders, and one of the ways we can intervene is how we are educating our kids and we will see the effect tomorrow, that's a part of the nature of change to we're gonna see that effect kind of effect in generations ahead of us.
Lisa Danylchuk 39:26
Yeah. And what's coming to my mind is just the power of care and the power of repair and modeling that from a young age like, Okay, how do we interact with each other? How do we demonstrate I mean, I really think of the root of a lot of trauma as coming from harm, right, coming from violence or harm. So what's the opposite of that? What what heals that? What supports that? What prevents that? Some form of care, investment protection. Nurturing might be different flavors in different situations. But if we're modeling for children and teaching, this is how we care for each other. This is how we repair things, just like I mean, I can think of a teen I'm connected to who took auto shop in high school, right? Like, oh, it's just an elective. I want to learn how to repair my car. Okay, well, can we learn how to repair relationships and miscommunications and, you know, challenges even when we start talking about institutions and how they are more than people, and they become this, you know, sort of system and organism on their own? Will? How do we repair when something is off within that that is harming someone inadvertently, even? How do we, you know, attend to and keep our focus on looking out for each other, taking care of each other, apologizing, working through hard things repairing relationally and repairing? Know, even when, when there is some kind of tangible harm that's done?
Jennifer Freyd 40:59
Yeah. And I think we, honestly, we do need more research to answer some of these how questions because, you know, we have ideas, and it's better than we don't know anything, but there's a lot more to learn. And I think that's also within our power, that we figure it out. I mean, we wouldn't expect to cure cancer without doing research on the mechanisms of, you know, how, how cancer happens, and how and research treatment. And so we're not going to fix things like our institutions without similarly doing that kind of digging, digging deep and figuring out the mechanisms, both of the problem and what works in terms of intervention.
Lisa Danylchuk 41:48
And one of the mechanisms. And you alluded to this earlier, I think you were talking about betrayal blindness, one of the mechanisms that I see people are starting to learn more about is dissociation and how we just sometimes don't know about the bad things are happening or don't want to know, or there's a protective nature of not knowing. And I know that's something that you involve, in your research, is that something you're looking at at the systemic level as well?
Jennifer Freyd 42:17
Yes, so one of the really interesting findings that we have from our research is that when individuals are betrayed in an institution, and they stay, and they have greater dissociative symptoms, so the dissociation, we can't find that be sure about cause and effect. We don't know if the dissociation wasn't there already. And because they were so good at dissociation, they were able to tolerate a being in an institution that was betraying them. Or maybe the betrayal led to this dissociative response that then produced more dissociative symptoms, or more likely, both things are going on. But but the link is clear that if you're more dissociative, you're more likely to stay in an institution that's betraying you, which means I think that, you know, means if we can give people skills to, and I think we have to be careful here, dissociation is serving a function for people. And I think we need to be respectful that not disrupt a system that that might be, you know, if we're going to disrupt it, we need to make sure that there's a good safety net there. And then individuals are doing this in a way that's empowering them. But it does suggest that if we can teach people ways to be more aware of what's really going on, they may be in a better position to, to make changes in their institution to be more courageous and less betraying. And so again, it's that moving between the individual level and in dissociation in, you know, happens in, in some sense, it happens inside the individual. Of course, there's, there's societal levels of dissociation too, but moving between that individual level and the societal level, I think is part of the task in front of us is to understand how those different levels interact. And if you look in academia, these are often siloed. So you have psychology, which tends to focus on the individual. And then you have a field like sociology and others that tend to focus more on the organization. And these are great fields that have uncovered lots of important things. But I think a lot of the work in front of us is understanding how these different levels interact with each other and how we how interventions at one level are going to interact with and produce change at the other level.
Lisa Danylchuk 44:59
Um, absalutely And I'm thinking about some of the work you've done to around disclosure and how, you know, we might learn and research and know that disclosure can be helpful when we're processing trauma. But when we look at the context around that, well, what's the implication of the disclosure? And when we look at even, is it safe to know what I know about myself? Or my experience in life? Well, if the context around me says, No, you can't be that way, or you can't share that experience that happened to you? Well, then I might not even know myself. And I think that's something that's hard. That's not necessarily like common knowledge yet, right? Like, I've worked individually with a lot of people who have come to know something about themselves and been like, How did I not know that? Whether it's an identity, or it's an experience? Like, how was that? How was that just not part of my words, I must have known at some level, and then we look and we say, Well, was it safe to No? And the answer, I mean, every example I can think of the answer was no, it wasn't safe to know that and, and it slowly over time, you know, your, your system, your body, your person started to feel safer, and then became safe enough, maybe in a therapeutic relationship or a friendship to start to acknowledge or connect with or know some of these things. And, and that's something that even when it happens to people, they're they're a little bit sometimes taken aback of like, where did this where did this come from, I thought I knew myself really well. And it can be jarring. And if it doesn't happen to you as an individual, you know, I think for for some folks on the outside, it's harder to grasp that. But that's where I think this education around dissociation and understanding the the protective function is so valuable, and exactly like you're saying, it's so valuable within the context of systems, it's so valuable to understand then how the individual relates to all the systems around them, their family, their institutions, you know, the multiple institutions that we're all a part of government, right? Schools, we've talked about religious organizations, whatever that is, there's, there's so many, but they all do carry weight. And they all can orient, sit to courage, right to creating a safer place for for people to be who they are, or to, you know, know what they know. But that's, that's deep work. And that is an interaction between psychology and sociology where, yeah, we don't we don't have we can be interdisciplinary or we can work together. We don't have to have a field to encapsulate all that. Maybe it's institutional courage. Maybe we'll have PhDs and institutional courage at some point down the line.
Jennifer Freyd 47:44
That would be something I'd like to see.
Lisa Danylchuk 47:47
Yes, that would be something I would sign up for, you know, Sign me up. And I know we're coming up to time, but I feel like, I feel like we just have to at least address and share with folks who haven't heard before. Can you in your own words, just describe DARVO? And anything of you know what? I don't know where the acronym came from for you if it was just by mapping the dynamic, but we'll put the link to the South Park episode in the show notes so people can watch that one. Learn that way too. But how would you describe DARVO?
Jennifer Freyd 48:23
Yeah, DARVO was a term I came up with in the 1990s. And it's an acronym, and it stands for deny, attack and reverse victim and offender. And it is a pattern I observed both in my own experience of how people treated me and then so profoundly watching the Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas hearings. And what I observed was that when somebody is being accused of or held accountable for Miss D, protecting particularly a sexual Mystique, there is a common tendency for that person to respond super defensively because this is very defensive response with this DARVO response, and the deny is to obviously say, No, it didn't happen, but the denials often kind of over the top and very fast. And then the attack is, is really focused on attacking the credibility of the person making the accusation. So saying, Oh, you're a liar or you're just doing this for money or you have memory problems or you are intoxicated, something that will undermine the credibility of the person making the accusation. And then the really insidious part is reversing victim and offender so the person being accused takes that victim role and says, I'm the victim here. You're ruining my reputation and you're making my life miserable and so on. And then By implication and puts the person making the accusation into the offender role, that they're the one who's causing harm by even bringing this up is a very effective strategy. You know, I, I published about this back in the 90s. But I didn't really do any research. Until much more recently, a student named Sarah horsy joined my lab. And she's now by the way, the postdoctoral fellow at the Center for institutional courage. But Sarah horsy was very keen to figure out how to research Darbo, and she came up with a way we could measure it. And then we use that tool to see some of the effects and one of the things that we saw was, first of all, women in our studies were more likely to be experienced being darker vote, so they had more experience with people responding to them with DARVO. But really alarmingly, they were also more likely to blame themselves once they got dark out. So yeah, it's effective. And we've been I've done quite a few studies, but one of them. We looked at what effect is DARVO have on observers when they're, they're like, hearing somebody defend themselves using DARVO. And we found that when DARVO is present, most observers actually kind of fall for it, and they doubt the victim. So again, it's effective. The one thing that gives me a lot of hope, though, is we found that if we educated people about darba, we taught them the concept, and how to look for it, then they weren't as susceptible to its effects. Yes. So I think it's another case where education could really make a difference. And one of the things I really like to do is figure out how we can teach people not only how to identify DARVO, but how to not use it themselves, like how to respond without DARVO. Because I think we can teach people how to respond without dharma. One of the points I try to make to people is, there's certain situations where you might hear an accusation, and there's no way you can know for sure the truth of that accusation, because it was behind closed doors, you just don't know. It's not necessarily your job to figure it out. But you can observe what's happening in the here. And now when when somebody is defending themselves? And are they using DARVO? If they are, you know, DARVO itself is harmful. So we can hold people accountable for using DARVO. And, and teach people that that's a harmful way to respond.
Lisa Danylchuk 52:36
Yeah, and I think to map it, and to recognize it, and like not to normalize it because it's harmful, but to understand that this is one of the ways that we defend ourselves is we we just try to throw a bigger rock back, right? Like we, we try to just shift the attention to, to the other, flip the dynamic so that we don't have to be in that discomfort of being held accountable. I mean, I I joke with my partner, and it'll be something like, Hey, can you load the dishwasher? How dare you ask me to load the dishwasher when you know, I'm so stressed out? Like, did you just starve? What was that a Darko? We all the time, he'll be like, Are you starving me? And I'm like, I shouldn't I shouldn't have shared, I shouldn't write you that conference. Because I can't, I can't do this. And you're right. And oh, my god, I just did that. So I think in terms of the normalizing like understanding that we we get defensive and we deflect and especially in our, you know, less refined moments or less graceful moments like this is something that is common and is really dangerous, especially when it's at the leadership level. I mean, we've got countless examples of people in leadership positions using this people in legal cases. And, and it really does make things more complicated and confusing. And I think the more we understand the dynamic, we can start to kind of slow down some of those communications and go, Okay, well, these are now we're talking about different issues. Let's start. Let's go back to the first thing. Let's slow that down. Right. And let's parse out what's really happening here, because I think it's, you know, sort of like with gaslighting, the whole point is to stir up a cloud of dust so that nobody knows what's going on anymore. And then you kind of like a cartoon runaway in the cloud of dust, and then there's no accountability, and there's no healing and there's no communication even so, is it something you're still researching then or folks in your lab are still researching?
Jennifer Freyd 54:38
Yes, in fact, it's really been the focus of a lot of the research we've been doing at the Center for institutional courage for this year. And one of the the findings that we haven't yet completed the study and it hasn't been through peer review, but we're certainly getting a hint that we're now looking at people who use Darko and comparing them to people who don't use serve as much. And we're finding that the people who used our vow are more likely to hold a number of other kinds of ideologies. So they're more likely to be sexist essentially, and to have engaged in, in acts of sexual harassment. So my sense is that Darbo is part of an sort of a toolkit of ways that individuals can, can mistreat others around them. And, you know, it's important to understand that because again, it's something we may be able to intervene with and reduce that ability to harm.
Lisa Danylchuk 55:46
Yeah, I think that points a lot to the systemic power dynamics and things at play, you know, histories and long term patterns of violence to that, that folks are brought up in and it becomes normalized, and it just keeps going. So I just so appreciate all of your work, and all of your research, thank you for everything you've contributed to the field to all these concepts you've introduced thank you to for focusing on the courage and, and of lighting a path forward for where we can go and what we can seek to create together as institutions and individuals. I really appreciate all of your work. And you coming here today to share it with us.
Jennifer Freyd 56:30
Well, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Lisa Danylchuk 56:33
Likewise, and I always, I always wrap with what gives you hope. But you answered that within our interview, you gave us so many examples of hope. So just last thing then is what's next for you is there, you know, how can people get involved or connected or support the Center for institutional courage?
Jennifer Freyd 56:51
Yeah, that I'm so glad you asked. We have a website, I hope people will visit. And there's a place there where you can sign up for our newsletter. And for those who are in a position to be able to support us financially, of course, that's right now, the biggest need that we have, because we want to give away our our research and our education. We don't want to charge for it, because there's so many people that need it, who wouldn't be able to pay for it. And so our goal is to have enough private support so that we can give this work away.
Lisa Danylchuk 57:27
Yeah. Nice. And the website is beautiful. And it's really easy to find information and contribute on there. So we'll definitely include it in the show notes. Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer. Dr. Freyd. I so appreciate your time and your presence here and all the work you've done. And thanks again for everything.
Lisa Danylchuk 57:51
Thanks for sticking around. If you're loving this podcast, I bet you'll love the eight week yoga for trauma online training program. The program covers concepts we touch upon here, yoga, embodiment, healing trauma and dissociation and creating healthy dynamics and organizations. Now, you might be thinking, I already did the eight week program, Lisa. Well, it just so happens the applications for the advanced training program, which only open once a year are also open now, head on over to how we can heal.com and click on training programs where you'll find a drop down to the advanced training program as well as the eight week certification. Now if you already did both programs, send me an email. I miss you. We spent a good year together and I always love getting little hellos from you.
Lisa Danylchuk 58:38
Thanks so much for listening. My hope is that you walk away from these episodes feeling supported, and like you have a place to come to find the hope and inspiration you need to take your next small step forward. For more information and resources, please visit howwecanheal.com There you'll find tons of helpful resources and the full transcript of each show. Thanks so much for your messages, feedback and ideas about the podcast. I love hearing from you and I so appreciate your support. There are lots of ways you can support the show and I'm grateful for every little bit of love you share. If you love the show, please leave us a review on Apple, Spotify, Audible or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also subscribe on YouTube to get updates every week. You can always visit howwecanheal.com/podcast to share your thoughts and ideas I love hearing from you. So keep your comments coming. If you'd like to stay connected in between episodes, you can also text me the word HEAL to 888-858-0811. That's 888-858-0811. That number has a lot of eights in it. I'll send you some inspiration and support a few times a month and you can text me back there too. Before we wrap up, I want to be clear that this podcast isn't offering any prescriptions. It's not advice or any kind of diagnosis. Your decisions are in your hands. And we encourage you to consult with any relevant health care professionals you may need to support you through your unique path of healing. I'd also like to send thanks to our guests today to Christine O'Donnell and Celine Baumgartner of Bright Sighted Podcasting, and to everyone who helps support this podcast directly and indirectly. Alex, thanks for taking the dogs out while I record. Last week, I'd love to give a shout out to my big brother man who passed away in 2002. He wrote this music and it makes my heart so happy to share it with you now.
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