DARVO stands for Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender and is a tactic that abusers or others such as the judicial system, might redirect blame, taking attention off of the perpetrator while accusing a victim of being the actual abusive partner.
The concept of DARVO was first introduced by Jennifer J Freyd, a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. Her research shows that DARVO occurs when “an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of ‘falsely accused’ and attacks the accuser's credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation” (Jennifer J. Freyd, PhD).
If your ex is a narcissist/abusive, you've likely been a victim of DARVO. DARVO is a common manipulation tactic of abusers.
Common denial statements used during DARVO are:
“It didn’t happen.”
“It hardly ever happens.”
“It didn’t hurt you.”
DARVO sounds like this:
“What are you talking about? I didn’t do that, and even if I did, you know I rarely do that type of thing, and honestly, it’s harmless. [DENY, MINIMIZE] Why are you getting so worked up about this? [ATTACK] You’re always on my case about something.” [REVERSE VICTIM OFFENDER]
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