The state of betrayal trauma theory: Reply to McNally—Conceptual issues, and future directions

Betrayal trauma theory (Freyd, 1994, 1996, 2001) is an approach to conceptualising trauma that points to the importance of social relationships in understanding post-traumatic outcomes, including reduced recall. We argue in this paper that child sexual abuse very often constitutes a severe betrayal trauma and that it is thus “genuinely traumatic”. We will also argue that one reasonably common effect of child sexual abuse—particularly the more it involves betrayal trauma—is some degree of forgetting or “knowledge isolation” about the event. This last claim speaks to the heart of betrayal trauma theory that McNally has summarised and critiqued. In this paper we will respond to aspects of McNally's critique as well as offer our own perspective on the state of betrayal trauma theory. We discuss (1) conceptual issues, (2) critiques of empirical studies, and (3) future directions. Although our interpretation of data diverges from McNally's in many places, we have all arrived at a surprisingly common endpoint. McNally suggests a child may not think about the abuse for several reasons, such as fears that disclosure may break up the family. In accord with betrayal trauma theory, we note that the failure to think about events will contribute to poorer memory for the event and that these processes are mediated by the unique demands placed on a child exposed to betrayal traumas.