DARVO

Acronym of “Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender”. Coined by Jennifer J. Freyd in “Violations of power, adaptive blindness, and betrayal trauma theory” (1997), Feminism & Psychology.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑː.vəʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈdɑɹ.voʊ/
• Rhymes: -ɑː(ɹ)vəʊ
• Hyphenation: dar‧vo

DARVO (uncountable)

1. Acronym of deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender, a behavior of perpetrators of wrongdoing (especially sexual offenders), when accused of attacking their victim, reversing the roles of victim and offender.
   • 2020 May 20, Brian Stelter, “Matt Lauer responds to rape allegation from Ronan Farrow’s ‘Catch & Kill’”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     And Nevils tweeted the acronym DARVO and spelled it out: “Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender.” DARVO is a “perpetrator strategy,” according to the professor who coined the term, Jennifer Freyd.

   • 2023 September 12, Jayna Bardahl, “College football’s overrated, underrated teams: Ole Miss, Duke and Alabama”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     Tracy directly replied to Tucker’s statement saying, “This is just more of the same DARVO, deflection, victim blaming and lies that I’ve been dealing with now for months.”

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:DARVO.

• Davor, Vardø, vardo