RESEARCH_FILE
DARVO
DARVO — Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender — is a documented response pattern where someone confronted about wrongdoing denies it happened, attacks the credibility of the person confronting them, and reverses the roles so the confronter appears to be the aggressor. Harsey, Zurbriggen and Freyd's 2017 study found about 72% of confronted wrongdoers used all three moves together, and heavier DARVO use predicted more self-blame in the person who spoke up.
SEE THE PRACTICE
Turn a thought this research explains into one clear move.
THE THOUGHT
“Maybe I misremembered it”
YOUR RECORDED RESPONSE
“I may be doubting this because it got pushed back on, not because it never happened.”
ONE PRIVATE MOVE
Open a note or paper and write five concrete details from the incident: date or day, place, exact phrase you remember, who was present, and what felt off. Save it without rewriting.
How it sounds in your head
The inner script: 'I brought up the deadline change in front of the team and he got so upset, calling me disrespectful — I must have really overstepped.' DARVO research reads the same exchange differently: denial ('I never said that'), attack ('you're the one being aggressive'), and reversal ('now I'm the one who's hurt') are a recognized sequence, not proof you did something wrong.
TEST_YOURSELF · How well do you know this science?
01 In the 2017 DARVO study, what happened to self-blame as DARVO use increased?
Harsey, Zurbriggen and Freyd found a positive relationship: the more DARVO components a perpetrator used, the more the person who confronted them blamed themselves — regardless of the facts of the original wrongdoing. source ↗
02 Which of these is NOT one of the three original DARVO components?
DARVO is Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. An insincere apology is a related but separate tactic Harsey and Freyd studied alongside DARVO in later work, not one of the original three components. source ↗
03 Why does DARVO affect people who witness it, not just the direct target?
Harsey and Freyd's 2020 experimental study found that DARVO use — versus denial alone — made observers rate the perpetrator as more credible and the victim as less credible, showing the tactic operates on third parties too. source ↗