Session Three - Institutional Betrayal and Institutional Courage
Content Level: Advanced

Session Description
Institutional betrayal refers to the impact on the individuals or groups when a trusted institution (e.g. educational, medical, religious, and governmental institutions and the military) fail to adequately protect, or respond to, or create a hostile, or unsupportive environment, following victimization (often sexual) to a member of its community. This impact exacerbates the trauma, resulting in further traumatization including PTSD symptoms, dissociation, anxiety, etc. As with any betrayal, it erodes trust in the institutions in which the victimization took place. Institutional courage refers to the moral actions that prioritize the safety and needs of the individual (or group), despite those actions making the institution vulnerable to both short-term (e.g. negative press coverage, financial costs) and long-term (e.g. legal actions, retaliation from hostile government) consequences.

In this session, we will discuss aspects of institutional betrayal, including who is most vulnerable to betrayal after reporting sexual victimization. We will also address institutional cowardice, an aspect of institutional betrayal, whereby the institution, while presumably acknowledging the wrong-doing, neglects its responsibility to address and correct it, and chooses to maintain the status quo. Another form of institutional betrayal falls under the concept of “cultural betrayal trauma theory”, (Gomez, 2024), pertaining to the intersection of racism and sexual violence, and its impact on black women and girls, when the perpetrator is a member of the black community.

Growing out of institutional betrayal, institutional courage can attenuate to the impact of victimization, including trauma symptoms, by acting ethically to protect and take action, within the institution. Finally, we will discuss what sorts of actions are part of institutional courage, in the face of racism and violence, with concrete institutional change.

Readings

1. Pinciotti, C. M., & Orcutt, H. K. (2021). Institutional betrayal: Who is most vulnerable? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 36(11–12), 5036–5054. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260518797315
2. Brown, L. S. (2021). Institutional cowardice: A powerful, often invisible manifestation of institutional betrayal. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 22(3), 241–248. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2020.1760166
3. Ford, J. D. (2025). Editorial: Truth is truth. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 26(3), 311–313. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2025.2481335
4. Gómez, J. M., & Gobin, R. L. (2024). “It will always feel worse because it comes with that added ‘betrayal’”: Intersectionality praxis and Black young women survivors’ perspectives on cultural betrayal trauma theory. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 25(5), 656–673. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2024.2383197
5. Adams-Clark, A. A., Barnes, M. L., Lind, M. N., Smidt, A., & Freyd, J. J. (2024). Institutional courage attenuates the association between institutional betrayal and trauma symptoms among campus sexual assault survivors. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/tra0001812
6. Gómez, J. M., Freyd, J. J., Delva, J., Tracy, B., Mackenzie, L. N., Ray, V., & Weathington, B. (2023). Institutional courage in action: Racism, sexual violence, and concrete institutional change. Journal of Trauma & Dissociation, 24(2), 157–170. https://doi.org/10.1080/15299732.2023.2167893