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.

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

Full Episode Transcript: howwecanheal.com/podcast

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Institutional Courage with Jennifer Freyd