Psychoeducation · Trauma reactions
Hurt by someone who matters to me (betrayal trauma)
It can hurt deeply when someone who matters to you is the one causing harm.
It makes sense if you struggle to connect who you thought they were with what they did.
What is it?
Betrayal trauma is about how deeply someone can be affected when harm happens in an important relationship. You may have cared about or depended on the person even if you didn't fully trust them. Attachment and fear can become tangled together.
How can it happen?
It may be hard to name abuse when you have good memories of the person and hope things will change. Fear of losing the relationship or facing consequences can also make asking for help harder.
Supportive words
The fact that they mattered to me doesn't change what they did.
I can recognize the abuse even if I once loved or trusted them.
What it does not mean
Trusting someone, caring about them, or struggling to understand their actions does not make abuse acceptable.
What it might feel like
“They could never do that.” “Maybe they didn’t mean it that way.”
Background and sources
Betrayal trauma is a theoretical framework for understanding harm in important relationships. Claims that it necessarily causes memory loss remain disputed.
These sources relate to the topic. The explanation is independently edited educational content, not a clinically tested intervention.
- Freyd, Klest & Allard (2005) · Betrayal trauma: relationship to physical health, psychological distress, and a written disclosure intervention
- McNally (2007) · Betrayal trauma theory: a critical appraisal
- WHO · Health care for women subjected to intimate partner violence or sexual violence: a clinical handbook (2014)