stages , victims

1. PsychologyOf Betrayal
By Heba Essawy

2. Defenition
• Betrayal (or backstabbing) is the breaking or violation of a
presumptive contract ,trust, or confidence that produces
moral and psychological conflict within a relationship amongst
individuals

3. Overview on Betrayal
• Betrayal is a sense of being harmed by the intentional actions,
or omissions, of a person who was assumed to be a trusted
and loyal.
• Betrayal is disbelieved at first as an harmful actions by an
trustful person not by an enemy.

4. Criteria of Betrayal
• Betrayals are ‘non-physical’ but emotional.
• There is no threat of serious injury or death.
• Have catastrophic effects include degradation, rejection,
humiliation.
• Are life-altering but rarely life-threatening.
• The range of reactions to traumatic events is wider than
generally

5. Traitor: Definition
• “Traitor" : a person who betrays their own political party,
nation, family, friends, ethnic group, team, religion to which
they belong .
• High treason: Treason against the king
• Petit treason: Treason against a lesser superior .

6. Category of Betrayal
Five categories:
1. Disclosures of confidential information.
2. Disloyalty.
3. Infidelity.
4. Dishonesty.
5. Failures to offer expected assistance during significant times
of need.

7. Effects of a betrayal: short term
1. Disclosures :Distress, punitive thoughts and anger.
2. Infidelity :Generates shock, distress, ruminative pre-
occupation, self-doubting.
3. Disloyalty : lowered self-esteem and anger.
4. Failure to provide expected assistance: distress, disbelief,
ruminations, anger.
5. Dishonesty : anger, distress, punitive thoughts.
• .

8. Psychiatric Complication Of
Betrayal
• • Numbness
• • Denial
• • Anger and hurt
• • Unhappiness and sadness
• • Panic and Anxiety
• • Depression.
• • Loss of confidence
• • No self-worth

9. Psychiatric Complication Of
Betrayal
• PTSD-like symptoms that are produced by catastrophic
betrayals.
• Anxiety, avoidance.
• OCD .
• Negative appraisals themselves.

10. The effects of a betrayal: long-
lasting
• A breach in the bond of trust.
• The bond is commonly replaced by a barrier and tends to be
permanent.
Re-construal occur:
1. when the betrayed person acquires new information that
disconfirms what happened.
2. During therapy.

11. Seriousness of Betrayal
**Depend on the interaction between
• The significance and depth of the trusting bond.
• The magnitude of the harm caused.

12. Degree Of Betrayal
• Trauma with high-betrayal was the largest
contributor to borderline traits
• Trauma with medium betrayal was predictor to paranoid
traits.
• Trauma low in betrayal was not associated with significant
features

13. Psychological effects of
betrayal
• Feelings of degradation,
• Humiliation, worthlessness.
• The betrayer becomes a source of contamination;
Human contaminant

14. Betrayal Trauma
**Betrayal trauma occurs when:
• The betrayer is the person upon whom the victim rely for
satisfaction of a need necessary for continued wellbeing.
• An example of betrayal trauma is childhood physical,
emotional, or sexual abuse."

15. Betrayal trauma: Emotional
Aspect
• Both victims and perpetrators report a range of negative
emotions.
• Victim experience : disgust, anxiety,and shame .
• Perpetrators experienced:
- Guilt.
- Self-disgust.
-Regret, remorse.

16. Betrayal Trauma Theory
• •A betrayal trauma is a type of trauma involving a violation of
a trust necessary for survival, e.g., between caregiver and
child (Freyd, 1996).
• the betrayal trauma theory proposes that a social utility
‫المنفعة‬‫االجتماعية‬ might cause an individual to undergo traumatic
amnesia in favor of maintenance of a relationship perceived as
needed for survival.

17. Betrayal Trauma Theory :
Criteria
• Freyd suggested the degree to which the relationship is
viewed as needed influences how events are processed and
remembered.
• Unawareness and forgetting of abuse were higher when the
relationship between perpetrator and victim involved
closeness, trust, or care-giving.
• used to refer to the prediction/theory about the cause of
unawareness and amnesia

18. Betrayal Trauma Theory Scale

19. Biology of Betrayal
• Genetic
- DRD 4
• Neuro-hormone
- Oxytocin increase in trust.
- Vasopresion

20. Betrayal blindness
• Betrayal blindness is the unawareness, not-knowing, and
forgetting exhibited by people towards betrayal
• In betrayals that are not traditionally considered "traumas,"
such as adultery, inequities in the workplace and society.
• Both victims, perpetrators display betrayal blindness in order
to preserve relationships, institutions, and social systems upon
which they depend.

21. Defense Mechanism
• Dissociation: when a person do not take their opportunities to
escape when they have the chance.
• learn to compartmentalize (i.e., dissociate) their traumatic
experiences from conscious awareness by dividing attention.
• Dissociation state : when a victim can cope with the abuse
they endure.