DARVO (Pronounced dhar-vo)
The acronym of Deny, Attack & Reverse Victim and Offender.
1997: Coined by US academic psychologist Dr Jennifer J Freyd in 1997 in Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory in the journal Feminism & Psychology (7, 22-32). The initialism references both the behavior of perpetrators of wrongdoing (said to be prevalent especially among sexual offenders) and the tactic used in courtrooms by counsel for the defense, attacking the victim, reversing the roles of victim and offender.
DARVO references the reaction noted sometimes of perpetrators of wrong doing. Said to be most prevalent among sexual offenders, as a general principle, it’s treated as a response to being held accountable for their behavior and is in its simplest form an elaborated claim of self-defense or provocation, legal concepts well known (and often codified) in the criminal law as a defenses in assault-related cases. It can be thought an instance of "victim blaming". DARVO deconstructed is:
Deny the behavior: This is actually standard legal advice; whatever else may happen during an investigation or subsequent proceedings, an initial denial is unlikely to compromise a later defense whereas an admission, even if later recanted, can be most damaging. An extreme example was the (unsuccessful) defense strategy of Ernst Kaltenbrunner (1903–1946; Austrian-born head of Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Nazi Germany 1943-1945) during the main Nuremberg trial (1945-1946). Whatever he was accused of, Kaltenbrunner, a trained lawyer, denied it; when shown his signature on a documents, he denied it was his, when shown photographs in which he appeared, he denied he'd ever been there and when witnesses attested to what he'd said, he denied he'd ever met them.
Attack the individual doing the confronting: This is the basis of the claim of self-defense or provocation. Self-defense can, depending on the fact of the case, be a good defense to a charge of assault and can succeed even in instances of death where the charge can be murder. The defense of provocation where the prior conduct of the victim tends to be either remote in time or indirect in the sense of something said rather than a physical attack, can succeed as a defense but is introduced more often in mitigation as a factor when considering sentencing.
Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender: The perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim (who can be a whistle blower previously unknown to the perpetrator) into an alleged offender. The variations on this theme most typically include (1) the perpetrator assumes the role of one "falsely accused" or (2) attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.
There is also Institutional DARVO which occurs when the DARVO is done by an institution (or with institutional complicity) such as when police wrongly charge rape victims with making a false complaint, institutional DARVO a form of what in the literature of political science is called “institutional betrayal”. Structural DARVO describes the cultural construct in patriarchal societies where institutions act to protect the interest of its hegemonic components (in Western cultures those white, male and rich). Other layers can be added to the analysis depending on the structure of a society: In non-Western cultures which can be essentially heterogeneous at what can be defined on some ethnic or racial basis, it can benefit those belonging to the dominant religious, cultural or tribal group. Anti-DARVO is an omnibus term which encompasses both (1) the research & teaching in academic work describing ways to reduce the negative impact of DARVO (2) actual legislative and procedural innovations such as restrictions placed on the conduct of defense counsel in certain proceedings, especially sexual assault cases.
The use of DARVO had for some time been controversial before Dr Freyd in 1997 coined the acronym and some jurisdictions had introduced some restriction of the extent to which defense counsel were permitted to attack victims (judges are limited in the extent to which they can intervene), especially on matters not directly connected with the offence. It was also of interest to the mental health community, empirical research published in the literature of psychology & psychiatry both noting the prevalence of DARVO during victim-perpetrator confrontations and a striking correlation among many of the victims displaying feelings of self-blame, the more DARVO the perpetrator used during the interactions, the more victims reported feeling blameworthy for the wrongdoing. Given the long history of the understanding of the imbalance in the power relationship between perpetrators (usually male) and victims (usually female), the findings were not suggested as unexpected. One of the most interesting findings to emerge was the importance perpetrators place on the building of the social capital which surrounds their relationship with the victim. For those who have committed abusive acts, the ability to influence how others perceive them and their victims is indispensable and typically this involves convincing those within their social circle (and even bystanders) either that nothing abusive happened and even if it appeared so it was not harmful. Constructing a perception that the victim is untrustworthy gives the perpetrator a clear advantage in both social networks and the legal system. Ultimately, in the absence of other evidence (as, inherently is often the case in these matters), in court it is a battle of competing narratives, the credibility of the authors often decisive.
Dr Freyd’s codification of DARVO however focused attention, both in law reform and the mental health community, the latter having previously documented tactics adopted by perpetrators to temper reactions to their wrongdoings, the umbrella term “outrage management” a construct which included a set of techniques employed to mitigate observers’ negative evaluations of both perpetrators and their objectionable behaviors. Notably, this included casting doubt onto the credibility of the victim and denying the victims’ versions of events or, more typically, re-constructing the narrative to make them seem something innocuous. Also identified were strategies intended to deflect blame for wrongdoing even if to some extent admitted: (1) Emphasize previous good behavior or (2) highlight some past suffering (thus inherently identifying as a victim). Again, both these approaches will be familiar to defense counsel, even those never involved with sexual assault cases. DARVO may thus be understood as generalized critique, although it’s most associated with sexual assault cases or other violence against women.
Research about the real-world effect of DARVO is interesting. The findings do suggest that exposure to a perpetrator’s use of DARVO does to some extent displace at least some of the blame for the abusive behavior from the perpetrator to the victim, this hinting at why defense counsel so often adopt the tactic: It works. The success of DARVO is not that it usually reverses the perception of a victim as blameless in favor of them being wholly culpable but that it introduces elements of doubt. DARVO indeed often seemed to decreases the extent to which perpetrators are viewed as believable so the technique has the general effect of rendering both victims and perpetrators less believable. That’s perhaps a predictable consequence of something so obviously antagonistic ("relational aggression" in the jargon). However, as a legal tactic, success is not infrequent because the purpose of DARVO is not to actually render perpetrator as victim but to induce a perception of doubt about the victim; in criminal law, if that reaches the threshold of reasonable doubt then a jury, if properly instructed, must acquit. In civil proceedings, cases are decided on a “balance of probabilities” but there too, the element of doubt must affect perceptions.
DARVO would presumably have remained little more than part of the jargon of law and psychology had it not been for a well-publicized defamation lawsuit (John C Depp II v Amber Laura Heard (CL-2019-2911; Fairfax County Circuit Court)) between two celebrity actors, the matters of dispute relating to the period of their brief and clearly turbulent marriage. It was a trial notable for reasons other than bringing the concept of DARVO to public attention, it being unusual in the US for defamation suits by public figures to succeed, based on precedent followed for some sixty years. The substance of the suit was a piece written by Ms Heard and in 2018 published in The Washington Post. Although the conventional legal wisdom is that where the choice exists, one sues the party with the capacity to pay whatever judgment one hopes to gain, in this case that was tempered by the robust protection courts have afforded the news media under the First Amendment to the constitution. Mr Depp, as a public figure was anyway limited in his capacity to seek redress for defamation but his strategy seemed more risky still because of the earlier outcome in a defamation trial in an English court in which he sued a newspaper which printed allegations much more serious than anything mentioned by Ms Heard (who in her piece didn’t mention his name). In that case (the verdict later upheld on appeal) the judge ruled against Mr Depp, noting in his judgment that "…the great majority of alleged assaults of Ms Heard by Mr Depp have been proved to the civil standard” of having, on the balance of probability, to have occurred as alleged. The conventional wisdom, widely shared at the time, was that Mr Depp’s likelihood of success in a US court was smaller still.
As it was, the judge in Virginia ruled any mention of the English case or its verdict inadmissible but whether or not the jury were aware (or during proceedings made themselves aware) of the matter isn’t known. The celebrity association aside, it was thus a trial of some technical interest, Ms Heard in her piece taking the precaution (if any doubt existed) of self-identifying as ”…a public figure representing domestic abuse". Mr Depp sued on the grounds that Ms Heard’s statements had damaged his career and reputation; Ms Heard counter-sued on the basis that one or Mr Depp’s legal team had defamed her in statements published in an English newspaper. Ms Heard’s defense was on the basis of (1) truth and (2) her free speech being protected by the First Amendment.
The jury found for both Mr Depp and Ms Heard in their respective suits although, given the nature of the claims and the quantum of damages awarded, it could hardly be represented as anything but a victory for Mr Depp. That of course was greeted with much commentary on social media though little of that was helpful, reflecting mostly the nature of celebrity culture, Mr Depp’s groupies both more numerous and more strident than those of his ex-wife. More serious criticism did however discuss the extent to which the verdict could be thought a successful execution of DARVO. Tellingly, many lawyers noted not only was it exactly that but nor was unusual, the novelty more the publicity attached to it being something between film stars. The feminist critique was more severe, some claiming that DARVO works as well as it does because it interacts with “himpathy” (the construct him + (sym)pathy) coined by Cornell philosophy professor Dr Kate Manne (b 1983) and defined as “the inappropriate and disproportionate sympathy men and boys (and the more powerful or influential the man the greater the himpathy) often enjoy in cases of sexual assault, intimate partner violence, homicide and other misogynistic behavior”).
DARVO and himpathy are recent constructs but both are said to represent the long history of sympathy shown toward male perpetrators of sexual violence, women having long been expected to endure sexism (including violence) as part of their defined gender role which includes protecting men's reputation and power. That of course went beyond being a social construct and was reflected in Western legal systems, women (and the bulk of her possessions) often literally “owned” by a husband or father and rape within marriage a statutory impossibility until well into the twentieth century. DARVO for its success draws on those cultural biases.
Depp v Heard (a civil matter with a jury not sequestered and thus exposed to what were essentially un-mediated publicity campaigns on social media) was obviously not a typical trial and what its effect might be on later criminal matters (with which DARVO is more associated) is uncertain. Lawyers do however note that in the US, relatively few cases actually proceed to trial and the greatest (and substantially unpublicized) effect is on prosecutors who decide not to proceed with cases (or downgrade charges) because, cognizant of the effectiveness of DARVO, take the decision there’s no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. This can be understood as an example of institutional DARVO, reinforcing the imbalance of power which typically exists between victim (typically female) and perpetrator (typically male) and it should not be unexpected that an institution created by the hegemon should act to protect the hegemony. So, there was nothing contradictory when lawyers remarked of Depp v Heard that the jury’s verdict was remarkable given the evidence and unsurprising given the history.
