“False allegations and bogus calls to the police are an extremely sick form of abuse.”

—Tara J. Palmatier, Psy.D.

I introduced a useful term in my previous post coined by psychologist Jennifer Freyd and adapted by psychologist Tara Palmatier to her own practice and professional writing: DARVO, an acronym of Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

In sum, the abuser in a relationship denies a behavior s/he’s called on, attacks his or her confronter (the victim of the behavior), and by social manipulation (including false allegations, hysterical protestations, smear tactics, etc.) reverses roles with him or her: the batterer becomes the beaten, the stalker becomes the stalked, the sexual harasser becomes the sexually harassed, etc.

The restraining order process and DARVO are a jigsaw-puzzle fit, because the first party up the courthouse steps is recognized as the victim, that party’s representations are accepted as “the truth,” a restraining order is easily got with a little dramatic legerdemain, and procurement of a restraining order instantly qualifies its plaintiff as the victim and its defendant as the villain in the eyes of nearly everybody. In one fell swoop, the exploiter dodges accountability for his or her misconduct and punishes his or her victim for being intolerant of that misconduct.

To illustrate, a conjectural case in point:

Imagine that a solitary, bookish man, a starving but striving artist working on a project for children, haplessly attracts a group of overeducated and neglected women keen for recognition and attention. Their leader, a brassy, charismatic, married woman, works her wiles on the man to indulge an infatuation, contriving reasons to hang around his house up to and past midnight. He lives remotely, and the secluding darkness and intimacy are delicious and allow the woman to step out of the strictures of her daytime life as easily as she slips off her wedding ring and mutes her cellphone.

Her coterie of girlfriends is transposed straight from the halls of high school. They’re less physically favored than the leader of their pack and content to warm themselves in her aura. The adolescent intrigue injects some color into their treadmill lives, and they savor the vicarious thrill of the hunt. The man is a topic of their daily conversation. The women feel young again for a few months, like conspirators in an unconsummated teen crush.

Eventually, however, the creeping finger of consequence insinuates itself between the pages of the women’s Harlequin-novel holiday, and the game is a lark no more. Realizing the ruse can’t be maintained indefinitely, the married woman abruptly vanishes, and her cronies return where they came from like shadows retreating from the noonday sun.

What no one knows can’t hurt them.

The man, though, nevertheless learns of the deception and confronts the woman in a letter, asking her to meet with him so he can understand her motives and gain some closure. The woman denies understanding the source of his perplexity and represents him (to himself) as a stalker. She then proceeds to represent him as such to her peers at his former place of work and then to her husband, the police, and the court over a period of days and weeks. She publicly alleges the man sexually harassed her, is dangerous, and poses a threat to her and her spouse, and to her friends and family.

Her co-conspirators passively play along. It’s easy: out of sight, out of mind.

The life of the man who’d hospitably welcomed the strangers, shaking hands in good faith and doling out mugs of cheer, is trashed: multiple trips to the police precinct to answer false charges and appeals to the court that only invite censure and further abuse. His record, formerly that of an invisible man, becomes hopelessly corrupted. His artistic endeavor, a labor of love that he’d plied himself at for years and on which he’d banked his future joy and financial comfort, is predictably derailed.

The women blithely return to realizing their ambitions while the man’s life frays and tatters.

Sleepless years go by, the economy tanks, and the man flails to simply keep afloat. The paint flakes on his house and his hopes. His health deteriorates to the extent that he’s daily in physical pain. He finally employs an attorney to craft a letter, pointlessly, undertakes a lawsuit on his own, too late, and maunders on like this, alternately despairing and taking one stab or another at recovering his life and resuscitating his dreams.

The married woman monitors him meanwhile, continuing to represent him as a stalker, both strategically and randomly to titillate and arouse attention, while accruing evidence for a further prosecution, and bides her time until the statute of limitation for her frauds on the court lapses to ensure that she’s immune from the risk of punishment. A little over seven years to the day of her making her original allegations, she takes the man to court all over again, enlisting the ready cooperation of one of her former confederates, to nail the coffin shut.

This is DARVO at its most dedicated and devotional, and it’s pure deviltry and exemplifies the dire effects and havoc potentially wrought by a court process that’s easily and freely exploited and indifferently administered.

In her explication of DARVO, Dr. Palmatier introduces this quotation from attorney and mediator William (Bill) Eddy: “It’s only the Persuasive Blamers of Cluster B [see footnote] who keep high-conflict disputes going. They are persuasive, and to keep the focus off their own behavior (the major source of the problem), they get others to join in the blaming.”  As a scenario like the one I’ve posited above illustrates, persuasive blame-shifters may keep high-conflict clashes going for years, clashes that in their enlistment of others verge on lynch-mobbing that includes viral and virulent name-calling and public denigration.

Consider the origins of consequences that cripple lives and can potentially lead to physical violence, including suicide or even homicide, and then consider whether our courts should be the convenient tools of such ends. Absent our courts’ availability as media of malice, the appetite of the practitioner of DARVO would starvo.

Copyright © 2014 RestrainingOrderAbuse.com

Dr. Tara Palmatier: “Cluster B disorders include histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. At their core, I believe all Cluster B disorders stem from sociopathy (i.e., lack of empathy for others, refusal to hold themselves accountable for their behaviors, and exploitation of others). Bleiberg (2001) refers to these characterological disorders as ‘severe,’ because they chronically engage in extreme conflict [and] drama, and cause the most problems in society.”