S4: E10 — Courage

Summary

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Betrayal: Season 4, Episode 10 — “Courage”

Podcast: Betrayal (iHeartPodcasts / Glass Podcasts)
Air Date: July 24, 2025
Host: Andrea Gunning
Featured Guest: Dr. Jennifer Freyd, Betrayal Trauma Pioneer
Focus: The impact of betrayal trauma, the concept of “betrayal blindness,” DARVO, and the path to courage and healing

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Episode Overview

This season finale tackles the psychological and relational consequences of betrayal as experienced by Caroline Barega, whose husband—a respected police officer—secretly violated her trust. The episode centers on understanding "betrayal trauma," diving into its origins and effects with Dr. Jennifer Freyd, who coined the term. Through personal narratives and expert insights, the episode explores mechanisms like betrayal blindness, institutional betrayal, and DARVO, closing with reflections on transparency, community, and the role of courage in healing from profound betrayal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Caroline’s Healing Journey & Betrayal Trauma

• [04:59] Caroline: Within a day of her husband Joel’s confession, Caroline sought therapy for herself and her children. However, she never heard the term "betrayal trauma" in this process.
• Listening to Season 1 of Betrayal was life-changing for her, providing validation and language for her experiences.
• Quote: "I must have played that episode a dozen times. It was just a description that was so empowering and so relatable, and I just wanted to continue to have that connection, even if it was through a podcast.” – Caroline [06:01]

2. Understanding Betrayal Trauma (Interview with Dr. Jennifer Freyd)

• [07:27] Dr. Jennifer Freyd describes betrayal trauma as trauma inflicted by someone the victim depends on and trusts.
  • “A betrayal trauma is when somebody that you depend on and trust does something that harms you. It's that combination of harm with the nature of the relationship.” [08:59]
• The concept was formed in the 1990s when trauma, especially interpersonal, was rarely recognized in academia.
  • Dr. Freyd faced skepticism: “People were just, like, looking at me like I had gone nuts.” [08:17]
• Betrayal Blindness: Explains how people can overlook, subconsciously forget, or misattribute betrayals because their survival depends on maintaining the relationship.
  • Example: Wife not noticing stacks of illicit material in her home ([10:28]), or forgetting witnessing her husband kissed by another woman ([11:04]).
  • “The answer that I provided, that I came to call betrayal blindness, was that it's a survival mechanism.” – Dr. Freyd [11:36]

The Mechanisms Behind Betrayal Blindness

• Our attachment systems and need for survival cause the brain to filter out damaging information.
  • “We are programmed to fall in love with people we take care of...We have a really strong attachment system...It keeps us alive.” – Dr. Freyd [11:58]
  • For children, calling out or leaving an abusive parent might be dangerous. Similarly, adults who depend on partners may ignore betrayal for security ([13:07], [15:20]).
• Self-blame: Victims may twist reality and blame themselves for the perpetrator’s actions ([14:32]).

3. DARVO: Tactics Perpetrators Use When Confronted

• [21:10] Dr. Jennifer Freyd: “DARVO” stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender.
  • Deny: Perpetrators aggressively deny any wrongdoing.
  • Attack: They question the victim’s credibility or mental state.
  • Reverse Victim and Offender: The perpetrator positions themselves as the victim, blaming the accuser.
  • Example in Caroline’s case: Joel denies, attacks, and makes Caroline feel guilty for confronting him ([22:49]–[23:10]).
    • "I start feeling guilty for asking him something that I factually see, and then I start doubting myself..." – Caroline [23:10]
  • DARVO is often observed in legal defenses, shifting blame to survivors ([23:59]).

Personality Traits and DARVO

• Dr. Freyd notes those who use DARVO are more likely to exhibit traits from the “dark triad”: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy ([27:36]).
• “People that use Darvo are quite a bit more likely to also engage in sexually harassing behaviors.” – Dr. Freyd [26:22]
• Key Insight: “If we educate people about Darvo, it reduces the power of Darvo. If people know that this is a pattern, they're not swayed by it.” – Dr. Freyd [28:18]

4. Institutional Betrayal and Institutional Courage

• [33:23] Dr. Freyd: Institutional betrayal occurs when harm is perpetrated or enabled by larger entities: families, workplaces, churches, or governments.
  • Victims depend on, trust, and sometimes love the institution, increasing their vulnerability ([34:01]–[34:50]).
  • Caroline experienced this when the police department insulated itself after Joel was exposed.
  • Impact: Adds a “second concussion” to the injury—a new layer of harm ([34:15]).
• Institutional Courage: Involves transparency, accountability, and a willingness to shine light on difficult truths ([35:42]).
  • “Betrayal loves secrecy and really doesn't survive transparency very well at all...secrets are bad for families.” – Dr. Freyd [35:55]
  • Transparency prevents the perpetuation of family or institutional dysfunction.
  • Caroline’s decision to be open with her children is validated by Dr. Freyd as essential when children are mature enough ([36:41]).

Generational Healing and the Role of Truth

• Keeping secrets increases the risk that family harm will be repeated in future generations ([37:30]).
  • “Giving people that conscious awareness so they can choose not to repeat that.” – Dr. Freyd [37:30]
• Caroline’s son: “I wanted to know everything.”
  Caroline: “The truth hurt, but it was powerful. And it was needed.” ([38:33]–[38:38])
• Dr. Freyd notes this transparency and courage makes genuine healing possible: “It takes courage to learn that...but it does make it possible for him to support the family...without repeating this harmful pattern.” ([38:40])

5. Institutions and Survivor Outcomes

• “We know from now, dozens of studies that institutional betrayal harms people over and above the interpersonal betrayals they've experienced.” – Dr. Freyd [39:53]
  • For example, in the military, institutional responses to sexual assault often exacerbate trauma ([39:23]).
  • Accountability and public acknowledgement by the institution are crucial for survivor healing ([40:27], [40:37]).
  • Community validation is important, even when the perpetrator or institution fails ([40:49]).

6. Courage, Activism, and the Path Forward

• Quoting Judith Herman: “The antidote to despair is activism, and activism can take many paths. It sounds like in Caroline's case, her telling her story is activism because she's being courageous. She's sharing her vulnerability...all with the hope that it will help other people.” – Dr. Freyd [41:14]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “A betrayal trauma is when somebody that you depend on and trust does something that harms you.”
  – Dr. Freyd [08:59]
• “The answer that I provided, that I came to call betrayal blindness, was that it's a survival mechanism.”
  – Dr. Freyd [11:36]
• “We are programmed to fall in love with people we take care of...this love...keeps us alive.”
  – Dr. Freyd [11:58]
• “If you don't see it, it's hard to stop it. It's hard to get help. It's hard to get justice if you don't see it.”
  – Dr. Freyd [15:20]
• “DARVO is an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.”
  – Dr. Freyd [21:10]
• “We found that one of the consequences of being DARVO’d...is blaming yourself. When people blame themselves, they're much more likely to go silent.”
  – Dr. Freyd [23:26]
• “Betrayal really loves secrecy and really doesn't survive transparency very well at all.”
  – Dr. Freyd [35:55]
• “The antidote to despair is activism.”
  – Dr. Freyd quoting Judith Herman [41:14]

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Key Segment Timestamps

• 03:57 – 11:04: Caroline’s discovery of betrayal trauma, introduction to Dr. Jennifer Freyd
• 11:36 – 16:38: Betrayal blindness and survival mechanisms explained
• 21:10 – 28:18: Introduction, explanation, and real-world application of DARVO
• 33:23 – 41:54: Institutional betrayal, institutional courage, and the importance of transparency
• 38:28 – 38:40: Caroline and her son discuss truth and the pain/transformation of full disclosure
• 41:14: Activism as a path to healing

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Conclusion

Season 4 of Betrayal closes not with neat resolution, but with a meditation on courage in the aftermath of profound relational and institutional betrayal. Through Dr. Freyd’s pioneering work, the audience gains vital language and concepts—betrayal trauma, betrayal blindness, DARVO, institutional betrayal, and institutional courage—that validate survivors' experiences and offer frameworks for healing. Caroline’s story, and those like hers, are honored for their truth and their willingness to break the cycle of secrecy, forming the foundation for hope and communal resilience.

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Transcript

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

There was a woman whose husband was eventually arrested for sexually abusing children in a school and the police found all these stacks of child pornography sitting around his living room in plain sight. And they interviewed his wife and she said she did not see them. She could have her eyes on them and not see them.

[Andrea Gunning]

Foreign I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Betrayal Season four, Episode ten Courage. In our last episode, we closed the book on Caroline's story. But before we end our season, we wanted to dive deeper into one aspect of Caroline's healing journey.

[Caroline]

Within a day of Joel's disclosure, I was seeking therapeutic intervention for myself and my kids and I am grateful for that therapist. She definitely was there for crisis intervention. That being said, though, there was never this term betrayal trauma, I never heard the term in our duration of therapy. I'm not faulting her, but I hadn't had anyone actually walk me through the emotions and that how I was feeling was actually a normal part of being betrayed. The reason why I wrote to the podcast was because listening to season one driving with my daughter was life changing.

[Andrea Gunning]

Caroline was on a road trip with Nicole when they came across our first season of Betrayal. This was the first time either of them heard a professional Speaking about betrayal trauma.

[Caroline]

And I must have played that episode a dozen times. It was just a description that was so empowering and so relatable, and I just wanted to continue to have that connection, even if it was through a podcast.

[Andrea Gunning]

The shame, the guilt. Caroline thought she was alone in these feelings. She had no idea that there were others out there suffering from the same form of trauma. The people who've shared their stories in prior seasons and on the betrayal weekly podcast felt the same way.

[Caroline]

The person I had loved and been in a relationship with disappeared, and with him went three years of my life.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Into a black hole. I was like, what's wrong with me? I was just heart sick, gut sick, heart sick. My whole body responded, and all I could think of was, who are you? How could you do this?

[Andrea Gunning]

All these people experience betrayal trauma. It's the thread that binds all the stories we tell. And we got the opportunity to speak to the person who coined the term betrayal trauma in the first place. She's a retired research psychologist who pioneered the field of betrayal trauma. So to close out our season, we wanted to share parts of our conversation with you.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

My name is Jennifer Fried. I was a university professor at the University of Oregon most of my career, where I taught psychology and did a lot of research, specifically developing betrayal trauma theory, the concept of betrayal blindness, all the way through to in institutional courage.

[Andrea Gunning]

After going to graduate school for cognitive psychology, Dr. Fried made her way to the University of Oregon.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Some years into my time at the University of Oregon, I really changed, pivoted the kind of research I was doing to the psychology of trauma.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Fried started compiling research on a specific form of trauma, the kind you experience when someone close to you breaks your trust.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

At the time in the early 1990s, there was still within academic psychology a disbelief in the prevalence of trauma, particularly interpersonal, particularly sexual trauma, as well as its significance or importance. And I remember very well in around maybe 1991ish, I gave a talk in my own department about my new research and ideas, and people were just, like, looking at me like I had gone nuts.

[Andrea Gunning]

Still, she kept going. She knew there was something here. Eventually, this pattern developed into a theory, a theory of betrayal trauma.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

A betrayal trauma is when somebody that you depend on and trust does something that harms you. It's that combination of harm with the nature of the relationship you have with the person, the victim, perpetrator, relationships.

[Andrea Gunning]

Betrayal trauma theory accounts for how we process traumas differently when they're perpetrated by someone close to us. And there was Always one aspect of processing betrayal that intrigued Dr. Fried. How people can block out experience experiences like childhood abuse or sexual assault, or how they can forget moments when they caught a partner in a lie.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Betrayal trauma theory was always about understanding how and why people could forget seemingly extremely important experiences and events in their life. Very important traumas.

[Andrea Gunning]

This is something we've seen over and over again on our show. We've received emails from people of all ages, professions and backgrounds who say they didn't see what was right in front of them. Here's the thing. Not seeing when someone close to you is betraying you. It isn't just denial. It's a very real psychological experience, one that Dr. Fried has spent her career researching. She gave us an example she uses in one of her books.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

There was a woman whose husband was eventually arrested for sexually abusing children in a school. And the police raided his house and found all these stacks of child pornography sitting around his living room in plain sight. And they interviewed his wife, and she said she did not see them. She would look at the coffee table and she would not see them. She could have her eyes on them and. And not see them.

[Andrea Gunning]

When I read Dr. Fried's book, blind to Betrayal, I was struck by another story. A story of a woman who decided to visit her husband at his go to bar. She was waiting there to surprise him. And when her husband showed up, another woman approached him and kissed him. He explained it away and the wife forgot about the kiss for years. At first, these two examples seem unbelievable. How can people fail to see what's right in front of them or forget experiences entirely?

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

How does that happen and why does that happen? And the answer that I provided, that I came to call betrayal of blindness, was that it's a survival mechanism.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Freid explained that our brains block out information that could threaten vital relationships.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

We are programmed to fall in love with people we take care of. And people we take care of are also programmed to fall in love with us. We have a really strong attachment system. And it's a good. It's a beautiful thing. It makes life worth living. Is this love that we feel, I mean, it keeps us alive.

[Andrea Gunning]

Think of a child relying on a parent. The child depends on that parent for love, food, and shelter. And the child trusts the parent to continue to care for them.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

But here's the problem. What happens if you've got an abusive parent? What happens if the parent is the betrayer? If you withdraw or confront, you risk not getting your survival needs met at all. Or you may get more Abuse, it's not safe. The solution out of that is what I came to call betrayal blindness. The attachment system matters more. It's great to detect betrayal. But attachment matters more if it's keeping you alive.

[Andrea Gunning]

Our brains are constantly making choices about what information matters.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Most humans are amazing in how they filter information. We do it all the time. We sort information out as it's coming into the eyes and the ears and the nose.

[Andrea Gunning]

That filtering happens subconsciously. We don't notice it, but we've all experienced it. Like when you're in a crowded room.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Even though there's 20 people talking at the same time. You're not going to hear other parts of the conversation, but suddenly your name pops out. Or, you know, if there's a really juicy topic they're talking about, some good gossip over in the corner, you might suddenly be aware of that conversation. All that time, your brain has been filtering out the information coming in. And kind of deciding which parts of it to be aware of. Because we can't be aware of everything.

[Andrea Gunning]

At once, it can be unsettling to think about. But our brains are always selecting what we perceive and how we interpret that information. And when terrible things happen, our brains work to preserve important relationships. We can subconsciously delete information. Or sometimes even when we know the information. When we saw and experienced something firsthand, our brain can create an entirely new story.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

It's not just that we can block out information and not see things right in front of us or not remember things that happened. There are other ways we can twist reality. So for some people, the way they engage in betrayal blindness, they see the events happening, they remember it, but they twist around who's responsible. So they blame themselves, not the person who's harming them.

[Andrea Gunning]

Like Dr. Freid explained, this is a survival mechanism. That's why she first conceptualized betrayal blindness using the parent child relationship, because it's an essential relationship for that child's survival. But adults experience betrayal blindness, too.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

For many people, their intimate marriage or partnership relationships have these same dynamics where one party feels very dependent on the other. They may be financially dependent, they may be emotionally dependent. They may have been betrayed themselves in childhood. Whatever it is, adults can also have terrible betrayal blindness. And sometimes that is also serving a major survival benefit. If you are dependent on your partner and your partner's betraying you, and you confront or withdraw, you risk potentially losing access to resources you need. It's serving an enormous survival benefit for many people in many situations. But it does come at a cost. If you don't see it, it's hard to stop it. It's hard to get help. It's hard to get justice if you don't see it.

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Darvo is an acronym that stands for Deny, Attack and Reverse victim and Offender. And it's a tactic that perpetrators can use when they're being held accountable for a misbehavior.

[Andrea Gunning]

We asked Dr. Fry to break down the elements of Darvo.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

The denial typically is aggressive, a little over the top, very angry. Denial the attack is often an attack on credibility. It often takes the form of saying, you know, you were drunk or you're mentally unhealthy, or there's something wrong with your memory and the RVO is the most insidious part. This is reversing victim and offender. And this is when the true victim gets put into the offender role by daring to, you know, make this accusation.

[Andrea Gunning]

Even just hearing this description. We thought of Caroline's story like the time she heard about Joel having an affair with their tenant. Joel denied the accusation, and he even went with Caroline to confront her. This psychopath has got me on the.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Road to a divorce.

[Andrea Gunning]

My kids want me out of the house. Instead of taking accountability, he made himself the victim. Then there was the moment Caroline confronted Joel about lying about where he was in the middle of the night. He said he was at an accident scene, but his location on Life360 told a different story. Caroline described Joel exhibiting the first element of denial.

[Caroline]

Oh, my God. That had to be a wrong cell phone tower pinging. And I was not even close to there.

[Andrea Gunning]

Then the second element, Joel, attacked her.

[Caroline]

Why would you say that? Don't you think I want to be home?

[Andrea Gunning]

And finally, the third element. Joel reversed the victim and offender. He made her feel as though she had done something wrong.

[Caroline]

I start feeling guilty for asking him something that I factually see, and then I start doubting myself and almost believing, could a cell phone tower ping wrong on life360? Is that even possible?

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

We found that one of the consequences of being Darvo'd when somebody does that to you is blaming yourself. When people blame themselves, they're much more likely to go silent. And so if the perpetrator's goal is to get the victim to be silent, Darvo has that effect, too.

[Andrea Gunning]

This strategy worked on Caroline. It kept her doubting herself instead of doubting Joel. And Darvo is not just a tactic used interpersonally. It's commonly used in trials.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

It's often a technique used by defense attorneys in, say, a sexual abuse case where the defense attorney will very consciously deny on behalf of their client, the event happened and attack the credibility of the victim, and then reverse victim and offender by painting the true victim as the offender in the situation.

[Andrea Gunning]

This also made us think of Joel and how he shifted the blame onto his home life during his internal affairs interviews. We played Dr. Fried this tape from when he was investigated for sexually harassing reporters.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

I'm sorry. It's all right. Things were good at home, and I think I fell into the trap of, you know, being excited about the attention. What he does in the clip, it really puts himself into the victim role. You know, that crying and the way he's painting himself, you know, he's A person who we might want to feel sorry for. He sort of put himself in the position of the one being wronged.

[Andrea Gunning]

In this next clip, Joel goes even farther. When Internal affairs demanded accountability for having sex in his police car, he put the responsibility of his rehabilitation on the police department. In his interview as part of the IA investigation, he said the following.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

We pay a lot of lip service about our employees as our family and.

[Andrea Gunning]

All that, but I'd like to maybe.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Somehow believe in that and recognize that.

[Andrea Gunning]

I've had issues and I've had issues for a long, long time.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

And every day is a struggle and I want help. There might be a truth to all that in the sense that, you know, he has issues and it's been a traumatic job, but it's a way to deflect responsibility regarding his own behavior. In a police car with this woman.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Fried can't speak to Joel's specific psychological profile, but she says in her research she's learned a lot about the kinds of people who use Darvo.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

People that use Darvo are quite a bit more likely to also engage in sexually harassing behaviors.

[Andrea Gunning]

Once again, Joel appeared to align with the profile Dr. Fry developed. You may recall from an earlier episode, his behavior had grown so disruptive that he was eventually banned from the family doctor's office. Caroline learned the truth when she went to get tested for STDs.

[Caroline]

And so she does a full exam and she leaves the room. And when she came back in, she just had this horrible kind of fearful look on her face. And I just was sobbing. And I said, you can tell I have something, can't you? You can already tell I have something. And she shook her head and she said no. And she said she was debating on telling me that Joel had essentially been blacklisted from seeing her because he had come in for different appointments before and had been inappropriate with his commentary and very sexualized with his commentary toward her. And I was mortified.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Freid offered more details about people who use Darvo.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

They are more likely to hold beliefs that blame women for being victims. And they are more likely to have certain personality characteristics, three in particular, that are often called the dark triad, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

[Andrea Gunning]

People with dark triad characteristics can be cunning, self interested, and manipulative. They often lack empathy and are willing to exploit others to achieve their goals.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

It doesn't mean if somebody uses Darvo, they are for sure any of those things, just. It's just much more likely.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Fried's research does offer one encouraging.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Insight we find if we educate people about Darvo, it reduces the power of Darvo. If people know that this is a pattern, they're not swayed by it.

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[Andrea Gunning]

By We've all heard the stories. Missing persons, double lives, suspicious basements. But here's one mystery you don't need in your life. Why can't my kid learn to ride a bike? For a lot of families, it turns into a saga. Meltdowns in the driveway, scraped knees and frustrated parents googling how to teach a kid to ride a bike without losing your mind. That's where Guardian Bikes comes in. Their bikes are lightweight, low to the ground and built to help kids find their balance fast. Most are riding confidently in just one day. No training wheels, no tears, just high fives and I did it moments. It's everything. Learning to ride should be simple, smooth and actually fun. So skip the struggle and start with a bike that's made to make it easy. Go to guardianbikes.com youm'll save hundreds when comparing Guardian to its competitors. Plus get a free bike lock and pump a $50 value with your first purchase when you join their newsletter. That's guardianbikes.com Everyone knows that stuff happens. If something can break, it probably will at some point. That's especially true of appliances and home systems like your H Vac, plumbing or refrigerator. So it's best to protect those hard working items. That's exactly what an American home shield warranty does. So when that drip, drip, dripping faucet is driving you crazy, or when your fridge is on the fritz, American Home Shield will fix the covered item. And if they can't fix it, they'll replace it, no matter its age. As a benefit to some plans, you can even video chat with live repair experts to help assess or fix the issue on the spot. So let's recap with American Home Shield covered parts of your home systems and appliances that will inevitably break our protected Without American Home Shield, repairs and replacements could cost thousands. Visit ahs.com betrayal to get 20% off any plan and see promo details, visit ahs.comcontracts for coverage details, including limit amounts, fees, limitations and exclusions. What does feeling safe at home really mean to you? For a long time I thought it was enough to have good locks and maybe an alarm that would, you know, make a lot of noise if someone actually broke in. But after people close to me were broken into, I've realized that true security takes more a system that works to prevent that break in, that violation of your space from ever happening in the first place. That's why I trust Simplisafe to protect my home and family. It's about security that is proactive, not just reactive. Most security systems only react after a break in. Simplisafe acts before it happens with new active guard outdoor protection. SimpliSafe uses AI powered cameras and live monitoring agents to detect suspicious activity and proactively deter crime. There are no contracts, no hidden fees, and monitoring plans start at around a dollar a day. Try it risk free with a 60 day money back guarantee. Visit simplisafe.com betrayal to claim 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and get your first month free. That's simplisafe.com betrayal b e t R A Y L There's no safe like Simplisafe. We've been talking to betrayal trauma researcher Dr. Jennifer Fried. Her groundbreaking work has transformed how we understand and support victims of betrayal. One reason we wanted to speak with her for this season is her focus on a college concept she's termed institutional betrayal.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Institutional betrayal in its broadest sense is when the perpetrator of a betrayal is just something larger than one person. So families are little tiny institutions. It can be a family, it can be, you know, the workplace, it can be the church or the school or the government. It's the larger entity that is betrayed. Betraying somebody who is dependent on that institution cares for it, very often loves the institution. So the dynamics of betrayal trauma all apply to institutional Betrayal.

[Andrea Gunning]

After Joel was exposed, no one in the department came to Caroline's aid. She felt shut out and alone. Dr. Fried's research confirms this added layer of betrayal can be devastating.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

People are very vulnerable to being hurt by institutions they trusted and depend on. Fail to protect them, fail to respond well when they've been harmed in that institution. It's a whole new level of harm. I sometimes think of it like the second concussion, where you know, it's bad to be hit in the head once, but then you go and you hit the head again. That's, you know, way worse.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Fried explains, the way we depend on institutions is a lot like the way we depend on people in our lives.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Almost everyone has some institution they love. Most people love their family. Most people love their church, if they have one, or their school. They have emotional attachments, and the institutions can't actually love you back. But it doesn't stop people from loving the institutions. And that's not a bad thing that we love institutions, just a very human thing. But it does make us vulnerable to the harm of betrayal.

[Andrea Gunning]

Dr. Fried found this idea of institutional betrayal deeply troubling. But it also felt like an exciting issue to tackle, one Dr. Fried and her students could have a real impact on.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

It's actually easier to think about fixing an institution than fixing all the interpersonal violence in need of United States. And we developed steps one can take to make institutions less betraying.

[Andrea Gunning]

These steps and the idea that institutions can prevent further betrayal make up Dr. Fried's theory of institutional courage. One of the main steps is transparency.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Betrayal really loves secrecy and really doesn't survive transparency very well at all. In families where you've got institutional betrayal occurring, there's almost always secrets. There are things that aren't known, can't be talked about. And most therapists of healthy family systems will tell you that secrets are bad for families, and the more they can be shared openly and transparently, the better. The more transparency, the less likely these betraying things will occur.

[Andrea Gunning]

This made us think of Caroline, too. She made the choice to be very transparent with her children about what Joel had done. We asked Dr. Fried for her opinion on this.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

It's interesting because if you were talking about 8 and 9 year olds, this would be a tougher issue with children. You know, you have to be sensitive to their developmental stage and not overwhelm them with information. They may not really have a way to understand. By the time you're 16, that's no longer really an issue. 16, 17, and certainly 19, 20 year olds are fully Capable of understanding these sorts of issues and are only going to benefit from honesty and only going to suffer from secrets.

[Andrea Gunning]

She also brought up that this isn't just a question of knowing or not knowing. Transparency, in this case, is key to ensuring the cycle of betrayal ends with Joel.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

Secrecy is corrosive. Secrecy allows dysfunctional, harmful patterns to repeat over and over again. One way to think about this is in terms of what's the probability that a teenager who grows up in a family like this goes on to repeat this dynamic as an adult, versus the probability they go on to have a healthy relationship when they develop their own family? The more things are hidden, unspoken secret, the more likely they are to just repeat it. One of the best ways to kind of inoculate people from repeating dysfunctional family dynamics Is to really shine a light on them and be fully honest about what was messed up. Giving people that conscious awareness so they can choose not to repeat that.

[Andrea Gunning]

We played Dr. Fried a clip of Caroline's sons speaking about this issue.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

I wanted to know everything.

[Andrea Gunning]

The truth hurt, but it was powerful.

[Caroline]

And it was needed.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

That was the only way to move forward. One of the things that struck me in that clip was how much courage this young man has as well. It's not like he wants to learn that his father's done harmful things. It takes courage to learn that. But it does make it possible for him to support the other family members in a really meaningful way and for him to go and develop his own life without repeating this harmful pattern.

[Andrea Gunning]

The need for transparency also applies to larger institutions. Dr. Fried pointed to the issue of sexual assault in the military.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

What people who've experienced that very often say is that when they went to the authorities in the military to report what had happened, what happened after that from the authorities in the military, was even worse than the sexual assault in the first place.

[Andrea Gunning]

When victims aren't taken seriously or investigations are dropped or covered up, it adds to the pain.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

We've compared groups of military sexual trauma survivors who went on to have an institutional betrayal experience versus ones who didn't. Everybody had bad effects from the sexual trauma, but the ones who went on to have institutional betrayal on top of that were doing much worse. In fact, were even more likely to attempt suicide. That's how bad it is. So we know from now, dozens of studies that institutional betrayal harms people over and above the interpersonal betrayals they've experienced.

[Andrea Gunning]

The institution can counteract this by taking accountability for their wrongs, for being complicit or even directly aiding in betrayal.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

If they have the courage to really look at what's happened, then they can move forward in a healthier way.

[Andrea Gunning]

This examination is especially needed when the perpetrator walks away.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

One of the things that can really help healing is having a community that validates the reality. Even if the betrayer never fully discloses or fully takes account, a community around them can.

[Andrea Gunning]

Caroline may never get that validation from the CSPD, but Dr. Fried says Caroline is doing what she can to take healing into her own hands.

[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

There's a wonderful quote that I won't get exactly right from trauma theorist Judith Her Herman the antidote to despair is activism, and activism can take many paths. It sounds like in Caroline's case, her telling her story is activism because she's being courageous. She's sharing her vulnerability, her personal pain, all with the hope that it will help other people.

[Andrea Gunning]

Thank you to Dr. Jennifer Fried. If you want to learn more about Betrayal trauma, we highly recommend her book Blind to Betrayal. You can also check out the center for Institutional Courage, a Nonprofit founded by Dr. Fried. It's dedicated to understanding institutional betrayal and the steps needed to prevent and counteract it through Institutional Courage. We've linked the book and the nonprofit in the show Notes this is the final episode of Season four, Caroline's Story. If this story resonated with you, or if you have a betrayal experience of your own to share, you can write to [e-mail] we'll be back with new weekly stories starting August 7th. Thank you for listening to betrayal season four. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email [e-mail] that's betrayalpodmail.com Also, please be sure to follow us at Glass Podcasts on Instagram for all Betrayal content, news and updates. One way to support the series is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts. Please rate and review Betrayal 5 star reviews. Help us know you appreciate what we do. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Faison. Betrayal is hosted and produced by me, Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Carrie Hartman and Caitlin golden, story editing and producing by Monique Laborde, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Our associate producer is Kristin Melchiori. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Krynczyk. Audio editing and mixing by Matt d', Alvecchio, editing by Tanner Robbins and special thanks to Caroline and her family. Betrayal's theme is composed by Oliver Baines, music library provided by My Music and for more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

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[Andrea Gunning]

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[Dr. Jennifer Fried]

This is an iHeart podcast.