Module Three - Institutional Betrayal

November 3, 2023

3 - Institutional Betrayal 

Content Level: Advanced

Contributors: Jennifer Freyd, PhD; Warwick Middleton, MB BS, FRANZCP, MD; Bridget Klest, PhD; Carly Smith, PhD; Su Baker, MEd, edited by John O’Neil, MD

Module Description
In this module, institutional betrayal will be explored in a variety of settings with broad implications for abused victims.

Institutional betrayal occurs when an institution (academic, military, religious, commercial, legal, healthcare, etc.) fails to protect an individual against harm, or to respond effectively when harm occurs, when protection is a reasonable expectation. Victims, perpetrators, witnesses, and treaters may display betrayal blindness (denial) so as to preserve relationships, institutions, and social systems upon which they depend.

Institutional betrayal exacerbates the symptoms of traumatic stress, and the clinician ought to be sensitive to this interplay. Victims tend to leave institutions that have betrayed them, compromising their social supports. The treating healthcare system may itself constitute another institutional barrier facing the client, and the clinician ought to understand their own position within that context. 

The betrayal of victims is documented as occurring in a wide range of institutions including churches, schools, scouting bodies, orphanages, universities, political organizations, police forces, sporting bodies etc. Credible evidence in multiple countries points to the existence at times of groupings of senior societal figures including politicians, involved in the sexual abuse of children. The large numbers involved in documented international web-based pedophile groupings points to the capacity of humans to organize around common interest, and how embedded organized abuse is in a society where the public image of such abusers is frequently one of total respectability. The findings of the globally unprecedented Australian Royal Commission into institutional aspects of child sexual abuse are enormously instructive in documenting the enormous resistance major institutions have to investigating child sexual abuse occurring within their structures.

Objectives

  1. Define institutional betrayal, betrayal blindness and organized ongoing abuse
  2. Examine and describe historical examples of organized abuse
  3. Discuss how institutional betrayal complicates traumatic experiences.
  4. Discuss the impact of institutional betrayal on the treatment of the trauma survivor

Readings

  1. Smith, C. P., & Freyd, J. J. (2014). Institutional betrayal. American Psychologist, 69(6), 575. doi: 10.1037/a0037564. 
  2. Middleton, W. (2013). Parent-child incest that extends into adulthood: A survey of international press reports 2007-2011. Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, 14:2, 184-197.
  3. Gómez, J. M. (2015). Microaggressions and the enduring mental health disparity: black Americans at risk for institutional betrayal. Journal of Black Psychology, 41(2), 121–143. 
  4. Gomez, J. M., Smith, C. P, Gobin, R. L., Tang, S. S., & Freyd, J. J. (2016). Collusion, torture, and inequality: understanding the actions of the American Psychological Association as institutional betrayal [editorial]. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 17, 527–544.
  5. Smith, C. P. (2017). First, do no harm: institutional betrayal and trust in healthcare organizations. Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 10, 133-144. 

Timed Outline
30 minutes:    Discussion of Readings 1 and 2
30 minutes:    Discussion of Reading 2 
30 minutes:     Discussion of Reading 3 and 4 
30 minutes:     Discussion of Reading 1 and 5
30 minutes:   Discussion of student’s disguised cases, or further discussion of readings 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 if no case material available.

Course summary
Available credit: 
  • 2.50 APA
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
  • 2.50 ASWB ACE
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), #1744, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. ISSTD maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 08/20/2021 – 08/20/2024. Social workers completing this course receive 2.50 continuing education credits.
  • 2.50 ISSTD Certificate Program
    This program is eligible for 2.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program.
Course opens: 
03/24/2023
Course expires: 
06/30/2024
Event starts: 
11/03/2023 - 10:30am EDT
Event ends: 
11/03/2023 - 1:00pm EDT
Rating: 
0

Available Credit

  • 2.50 APA
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
  • 2.50 ASWB ACE
    The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD), #1744, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. ISSTD maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 08/20/2021 – 08/20/2024. Social workers completing this course receive 2.50 continuing education credits.
  • 2.50 ISSTD Certificate Program
    This program is eligible for 2.50 credits in the ISSTD Certificate Program.
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