IFPO Column: DARVO Damages…

October 1, 2024

Yolanda Hamblen of IFPO explores DARVO, a manipulative tactic used in the workplace to distort reality and reverse victim and offender roles

Ever challenged someone’s bad behaviour towards you only to have them claim they have been unfairly accused, even hurt by the accusation? At the same time, your challenges have gone unheard, unacknowledged, and there was no empathy for your feelings. Have you ever worked with someone who resists acknowledging any issues or faults in their behaviour and refuses to engage in self-reflection? Have you ever talked to someone about something hurtful they did and then found yourself comforting them at the end of the conversation? And you’re thinking, “Wait, I was the one upset about what they did!” If this sounds familiar, you might have experienced a form of gaslighting known as DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).

Let’s examine if you have been manipulated in the workplace using the DARVO technique and why this technique is emerging into prominence now.

DARVO has emerged from a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as sexual offenders, display in response to being held accountable for their behaviour. Some researchers inform that it’s a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers. DARVO is predicated in domestic violence; remember those phrases, “Why do you make me so angry?” and “If you didn’t make me angry, I wouldn’t hurt you.” In essence, what we’re dealing with here is, “You’re in the wrong, it’s not me, it’s you.” So what happens when this behaviour appears in the workplace or on the security frontline?

Let’s be honest with ourselves: domestic abusers, sexual offenders all have jobs to a degree, so do psychopaths. This is not to indicate that all people who use the DARVO technique form the aforementioned offender types, but we still need to learn how these behaviours like DARVO spread into regular spaces. So I took a look into what types of people use these coercive techniques like DARVO.

Just googling the acronym DARVO, there is an abundance of information, and it’s clear from very little research that those displaying narcissistic traits are more likely to use DARVO as a way to maintain their sense of superiority and avoid accepting responsibility for their actions than non-narcissistic types. Narcissism is a personality disorder characterised by an excessive sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy, and a need for validation. Have you worked with anyone that has those traits or struggled to work with anyone who shows those traits?

When you consider that a work colleague may deny they have done anything wrong, imagine a junior member of staff then stating that they are receiving abuse from you as their line manager. This form of manipulation may make it difficult for people to determine who is telling the truth. It becomes relevant when a formal complaint is made for HR to register and assign an investigative officer.

Some ten years ago, a client informed me rather angrily that one of my security officers had been found sleeping on duty by warehouse staff. (Hopefully not sneaking past his security checkpoint with bags of SWAG). He was in his probation, and when the client advised he was not permitted to return to the site, I had only one option: to fail his probation. I would rather give second chances, and failing probation is not pleasant to do, but I did so with empathy and kindness as much as could be extended under the circumstances.

A day or so later, my boss rang me—he was always rather animated when he was annoyed—but he asked me if I swore at this officer when I failed his probation. He asked me if I repeatedly swore and degraded this officer. I gasped. Of course, I hadn’t, I exclaimed. Yet as I was saying this, I was cautious. Why would the Security Officer claim I had treated him so badly? I took my Director through the process and the conversation and explained everything clearly. I definitely felt like I was being accused rather than treated as an innocent professional by my Director. He then asked me, “Well, why would he accuse you of doing this then?” as if I was the one with those answers!

After a few minutes, I put my Director out of his misery and said, “I recorded the call, you want me to send it over?” My boss laughed. He really laughed. You can imagine the voice recording vindicated me. However, what if I hadn’t recorded this call? My boss had a bit of fun with the dismissed Security Officer when he travelled into Head Office to attend an appeal meeting against his dismissal. My boss said he listened to him intently explain how he had been sworn at, how I’d mistreated him, called him names, really let him dig himself a hole. Then my director played him the voice recording.

Later, as the account of the appeal hearing was relayed back to me, I was told how the color drained from his face, how he begged for forgiveness for lying. My Director thought it was funny—and it was—until I’d said, “What if I didn’t have that evidence to support myself; would you have believed me?” Only he knows the answer to those questions….