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[Music] hi Dr Romy thanks for being here. What is betrayal trauma?
So betrayal trauma is a series of reactions that a person will experience, psychological and emotional reactions that a person will experience after a pretty significant and protracted period of betrayal in a closer significant relationship. So, you know, sort of a classical example of betrayal trauma would be, it's not as simple as just somebody cheated on you, but you come to find out they've been cheating on you for 15 years, or they have a child with this other person, or all all those years you or months or whatever you suspected they were cheating on you and you keep bringing it up like something doesn't feel right. They're like, "Don't be ridiculous," and they come up with all these aliases and gaslight and all of that. It's this, it's this fallout that comes after somebody who's been significantly betrayed.
It could be, it could be something that's a public betrayal, you know, that somebody not, it's not just an infidelity, but maybe an infidelity with a family member, like you're sleeping with your sister kind of thing, or they're, they're behaving in a really inappropriate way in a public way that could bring shame upon a family. So, and it again, it tends not to be sort of a one-off. It's something that may have been going on for a very long time, and then a person comes to find out there was this whole big story behind the betrayal. It wasn't just this one thing, it was, it was this whole constellation of things that kind of came together, and it, it's really destabilizing for a person who goes through it.
Is the term or phrase betrayal trauma something that's being used by clinicians, or is this a layman's term?
No, no, it's something that clinicians use, and it's, it's, I, I often view betrayal trauma as something that's very tightly linked in with complex post-complex trauma. Not necessarily. I mean, it's, say again, complex trauma has some specific kinds of parameters around what that trauma looks like, but if the betrayal trauma is long-term enough, is sort of has this really kind of big wide web around it, that in essence, a person experiencing betrayal trauma will say, "I was married to a stranger," or "My family member is a stranger," or it's just sort of this, "What just happened?" kind of thing. And a person kind of walking through their life, kind of hollowed out, looking like a deer in the headlights, because it's not just as simple as somebody wakes up one day and says, "You know what, this marriage isn't working anymore. Let's." It's not that, and you're kind of sad, like, "Where did this come from?" But there is no other person, you really truly did grow apart. This is something very, very different, sort of deceit upon deceit upon deceit.
I understand that. So how does somebody respond differently from a betrayal trauma versus a more standard trauma, like we're getting a divorce? That can be traumatic, that's a big deal, but it's not. I mean, I think that what gets tricky is, like, again, this word "trauma," and without belaboring it, is like, where do we use it? Somebody's saying, "Hey, we've been growing apart for for years now. You want to take this job in a different city? I think we need to talk about, you know, unbraiding." Is that traumatic? It's certainly stressful, it's certainly upsetting. I think though, somebody waking up one day and recognizing that for years their trust has been violated in a fundamental way, what they thought life to be simply wasn't life. Things that they suspected, they, that's a, that almost elevates it a bit more to a trauma because it's just, it's so much. And it can often affect a person's stand in the community and on and on. So I think that the, the, the nature of betrayal, the that fundamental violation of trust. People growing apart isn't a violation of trust, it's just sort of like things changed.
Yeah, yeah. So what are the symptoms or what types of behaviors would people experience after experiencing behavioral or after experiencing betrayal trauma?
So when we, in betrayal trauma, we see a lot of the patterns similar to what we sometimes see in narcissistic abuse. Rumination, um, almost a fixation, and sometimes even an obsessiveness. The focus on the situation, "What do, what, what did I miss? What just happened?" Going back, looking at old messages, emails, you know, like trying to almost construct it, "Where, where did I not see this right?" It's a, a sort of a feeling almost like dissociated from your own instincts, like, "How did I, did I see this? Didn't I see this?" So like a person literally doubting themselves and blaming themselves sometimes in a really sort of a fundamental way. Tremendous anxiety. A person like, you just, you're on edge. You can't believe this has happened. It's a, um, it's, uh, tremendous grief. The life you thought you had, you actually don't have. And so there's this massive shift to like, "Okay, this was my life last week, and this is my life this week, and how could this be happening?" It is a, it is, it's confusion. You might even see some of the sort of the patterns you'd see in sort of post-trauma of sort of a difficulty concentrating, sort of a feeling of being on edge, being very hypervigilant, very aware of everything that's happening. And betrayal trauma can also be complicated that as the betrayal becomes known, the person may keep getting continually hit with more reports. They'll see something on social media, a friend will say that they saw something, like then all, if it's a public story, they'll keep having things coming up in the news or the headlines. So it's not like it's one and done. This keeps happening and a person keeps getting reminded of it. And then again, they may not sleep well and have changes in their appetite. So it's just awful. It feels awful.
I've, I've never experienced betrayal trauma, but I would imagine that I would question everything afterwards. I wouldn't trust anybody. I would go, "My boss is probably lying to me. My parents are probably lying to me." Correct.
So you've lost all trust in anything, everyone. You become suspicious. Suspiciousness really depletes a lot of our bandwidth, right? Because you're always looking, you can't trust anyone. You almost, you're wasting all this time doing due diligence on everything, even people you thought you could trust. And above all else, you stop trusting yourself. And a lot of people going through betrayal trauma feel foolish, like, "How? I suspected this. I knew this. I let myself be talked out of it, and this is happening repeatedly, and how did I miss it for so many years?" And everyone's going to think I'm an idiot because how did I not know this was happening for 10 years? So there's, there's a shame that comes from betrayal trauma as well.
Yeah. Okay, let's move into some solutions for this. Therapeutic interventions for betrayal trauma, what do we have that you like?
I would say if somebody's going through betrayal trauma, step one is to have a place to vent and talk about it again and again and again. What clinicians need to understand is that these are folks who are experiencing a massive sense of injustice, and there's nothing we can do to make them feel whole. So part of it is letting, because I do believe that if we let a person say something over and over again, they kind of off-gas it. There's like a dialysis that takes place. You just, because I think over time, unfortunately, a lot of people going through betrayal trauma, a lot of their social supports do get burned out after a while, like, "I cannot listen to this again. Nothing is changing, right?" And they may say, like, "I can't, I just can't do this anymore." Whereas a therapist, that's their, that's what they do. And so, and to not judge that. I think that people just need to keep going. And then at some point, even just with the advantage of time, things may shift. But if the betrayal trauma is one where stuff keeps coming up, more revelations are made, it can be a really drawn-out process.
The other is that therapy becomes a place to process the grief. A person is grieving a life they thought they had, a relationship they thought they had. It's not like nobody's dead. So this is a very difficult kind of grief. It's a, it's, um, it's, it's something that Pauline Boss sometimes calls ambiguous grief, is this idea of it's like everyone's saying, "Okay, I get grief. They're not dead, you know, you can move on." It would actually been easier if the person was dead, because then it's not, they're not out there living in their new betrayal future, kind of thing. Whereas a person going through this is going through very real grief. And we'll keep saying, "I can't believe that life is gone. They can't." I mean, they had a life, and now they don't have that life. To really step for a minute and say, "What must that feel like?" It's almost like having your house burned down, you know, you had a house, and now you don't have a house anymore. And so, I, I, I think that it's very important that in therapy, that grief process gets to unfold because we often give short shrift to people who are going through betrayal trauma. The world may sometimes look at these as people scorned, "Oh, they're just hurt because this person." No, it's much more than that. Like fundamental truths in their life have been utterly violated. And so it's, it's therapy becomes a very patient process of letting the grief unfold, empathizing with the client, and recognizing that this is an injustice that there's no magic wand we can wave over this to make it okay.
And then simultaneous to that, a lot of betrayal trauma is perpetrated by people who are sociopathic, psychopathic, narcissistic, manipulative. And so some of it becomes a psychoeducation about what those personality styles are, and sometimes that helps people have a framework so they don't feel as lost.
Are there any therapeutic modalities like CBT that you would recommend?
I think one of the challenges becomes is that, you know, CBT is like, "Change how you think about this." Right? The person's like, "I don't even know how to think about this, right?" Is that, you know, person betrayed you, they've betrayed you, and if it's been going on a long time, it feels terrible. So I do think that just creating a safe holding space, more that we'd see in more of a humanistic style of like letting a person talk it out. I do think an eclectic approach would be absolutely essential here where you get at some of the historic issues around betrayal. This may be mirroring a betrayal from childhood. Let's say a person's betrayal traumas around infidelity, and they, one parent cheated on the other, that could be really bringing up some old stuff. Acceptance and commitment therapy can also become very important because at the end of the day, it's, this is it, you know, and you've got to, you sort of have to work with. It doesn't mean you're okay with it, but you're going to have to work with that. For folks who may feel very disregulated, because some people will really get angry, they will get, you know, they, again, it's obsessive, they might find that their emotions are out of control. And in some ways, modalities, even though a person going through this, it doesn't mean they have a personality issue, but modalities like dialectical behavioral therapy, or DBT, that can also help people sort of deal with sort of bringing in skills like mindfulness and sort of how to think about things, just sort of how to to be with this, to be with this kind of betrayal. There's some things there that can be quite useful. Um, so I do think the therapist doing this would be drawing from different models. And if a person has a trauma history, it's really important that it be a trauma-informed perspective.
Well, hey, shout out to all of you out there moving through that betrayal trauma. Goodness gracious. And, uh, also shout out to all the supporters out there. You guys play a big role. So thank you for watching this. Um, so that you're, you're well informed. Dr. Romney, thank you so much. And remember, whatever you're going through, you got this.
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