Blind to Betrayal: Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled (20 page)

In most of the expressive-writing studies, mental and physical health has been measured as an outcome to writing a series of three or four essays about an upsetting event versus writing about less emotional topics. Under most conditions, the participants randomly assigned to write about an upsetting event show improvement in both their physical and their mental well-being. In one of our favorite studies in this line of research, Pennebaker worked with a group of middle-aged engineers who had recently been laid off.
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Half of the engineers were randomly assigned to write about their feelings about losing their jobs, and the other half wrote about their plans for finding new jobs. The outcome measure in this case was success at finding a new job. Those engineers who had written about being laid off and their feelings about it were more likely to have found new employment than were those who had written on the seemingly more practical topic. This stunning result offers clear evidence that disclosure itself can be a good thing for people. Note that the engineers received no specific feedback to their disclosures in the research study, so they had no damaging negative responses. Rather, the disclosure apparently allowed the engineers to process their negative experience in ways that ultimately left them more able to gain new jobs, perhaps because their psychological health made them more attractive to future employers. It appears there is something in disclosure itself that is valuable, as long as there is not a negative response.

All of this research implies that the social context in which people disclose affects the process itself. Related to this, disclosure is often not a single event, but rather a process that is highly dependent on the reactions of others. People disclose usually not in one moment, but over some period of time, and they gauge how much more they want to disclose depending on the responses they get.

Melissa Foynes and Jennifer Freyd looked at disclosures as they occur in real time.
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Most research on disclosure has used a retrospective methodology, where people have been asked about their history of disclosure and other people's responses to it. In contrast, we brought people into the laboratory in pairs. We asked people to come in with a friend and to disclose an event that they have not told their friend that was very distressing to them. We videotaped this and then coded the videotapes to see what occurred in that context. We also asked participants to complete pre- and post-questionnaires, so that we could look at how the disclosure experience affected them. The individuals in each pair of friends were randomly assigned to be a “discloser” or a “listener.”

In this study, we found that a history of high-betrayal trauma was associated with having received (in the past) more negative responses to disclosure. We also discovered that, not too surprisingly, posture on the listener's part predicted outcome; when listeners leaned backward, this was associated with more negative responses to disclosure. Most interestingly, we found that the number of interruptions was quite predictive of a positive experience, with a moderate level of interruptions being best.

From this research, we developed some materials to help people be better receivers when others disclose traumatic experiences to them.

First, it is important to use attentive body language.

Second, it is important to use verbal skills that encourage the speaker to continue.

Third, it is important to use words in ways that convey support.

In a follow-up study (which was then published before the original study, as sometimes happens in academic publishing), Melissa Foynes and Jennifer Freyd used these listening tips to see if they could help people become better listeners.
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Pairs of friends were once again recruited to the lab. They were randomly assigned the roles of discloser and listener. As with the first study, the disclosers were asked to tell their friend something upsetting that they had not shared before. After the initial disclosure, they were randomly assigned either the listening tips or a control condition that consisted of healthy living tips. They then made a second disclosure. The disclosers rated how well the disclosures went, from their perspective. In addition, research assistants, unaware of the experimental conditions, coded and rated videotapes of all of the disclosures. The researchers found that the listening tips did improve the listeners' behavior, compared to the control condition, and the disclosers felt that they were better heard. This preliminary study suggests that listening skills can be taught.

Author James Carse got it right when he said, “A creative listener is not someone who simply allows me to say what I already want to say, but someone whose listening actually makes it possible for me to say what I never could have said, and thus to be a new kind of person, one I have never been before and could not have been before this directed listening.”
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In this chapter, we have seen that without disclosure of trauma, healing and prevention are hampered, and yet nondisclosure of trauma is common. The reasons for nondisclosure are both explicit (for instance, fear of being blamed) and implicit (particularly, an often unconscious need to protect a relationship with the perpetrator). We have also seen that disclosure can lead to positive or negative outcomes relative to nondisclosure, depending on social response. A negative response to disclosure is often itself a fundamental betrayal and can at times be so severely harmful as to constitute a betrayal trauma. The disclosure process is both internal and external. Finally, we have seen that people can learn to be better listeners, and this can lead to healing.

A lot of what we talk about in this chapter is based on empirical research, to the extent possible, but clearly much remains to investigate. Future research is needed to study the psychology of disclosure and response to disclosure, to identify best responses and to discover how best to teach these best responses. We must continue to find ways to make the unspeakable safely speakable and thus promote healing and prevention.

We've discussed the importance of disclosure and how it can be risky. Yet for true healing to happen, we not only need to know about our betrayals and to face the pain of them, we also need to tell the story. Despite the risks, all of this is ultimately healing. The next chapter examines why and how this is true.

Notes

1.
J. J. Freyd, “Shareability: The Social Psychology of Epistemology,”
Cognitive Science 7
(1983): 191–210.

2.
J. J. Freyd, “Betrayal-Trauma: Traumatic Amnesia as an Adaptive Response to Childhood Abuse,”
Ethics & Behavior 4
(1994): 307–329.

3.
J. J. Freyd, “Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness, and Betrayal Trauma Theory,”
Feminism & Psychology 7
(1997): 22–32.

4.
Jane Doe, “How Could This Happen?: Coping with a False Accusation of Incest and Rape,”
Issues in Child Abuse Accusations 3
(1991): 154–165. (
Issues in Child Abuse Accusations
was self-published by Ralph Underwager, a prominent defense witness who became a founding member of the FMSF advisory board, and his wife, Hollida Wakefield. Underwager later resigned from the FMSF board after publicity was drawn to his quote in an interview published in
Paidika: The Journal of Paedophilia
that included: “Paedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose. They can say that what they want is to find the best way to love.”)

5.
E. Jonzon and A. Lindblad, “Disclosure, Reactions, and Social Support: Findings from a Sample of Adult Victims of Child Sexual Abuse,”
Child Maltreatment 9
(2004): 190–200; D. Smith, E. J. Letourneau, B. E. Saunders, D. G. Kilpatrick, H. S. Resnick, and C. L. Best, “Delay in Disclosure of Childhood Rape: Results from a National Survey,”
Child Abuse & Neglect 24
(2000): 273–287.

6.
M. Hébert, M. Tourigny, M. Cyr, P. McDuff, and J. Joly, “Prevalence of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Timing of Disclosure in a Representative Sample of Adults from Quebec,”
Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 54
(9) (2009): 631–636.

7.
E. Somer and S. Szwarcberg, “Variables in Delayed Disclosure of Childhood Sexual Abuse,”
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 71
(2001): 332–341.

8.
D. W. Smith, E. J. Letourneau, B. E. Saunders, D. G. Kilpatrick, H. S. Resnick, and C. L. Best, “Delay in Disclosure of Childhood Rape: Results from a National Survey,”
Child Abuse & Neglect 24
(2) (2000): 273–287.

9.
D. W. Smith, E. J. Letourneau, B. E. Saunders, D. G. Kilpatrick, H. S. Resnick, and C. L. Best, “Delay in Disclosure of Childhood Rape: Results from a National Survey,”
Child Abuse & Neglect 24
(2) (2000): 273–287.

10.
T. Sorenson and B. Snow, “How Children Tell: The Process of Disclosure in Child Sexual Abuse,”
Child Welfare 70
(1) (1991): 3–15.