How to Rebuild Trust After Betrayal Trauma: Why Safety Comes First

Betrayal trauma leaves a lot of women asking whether they should forgive. But before you can forgive someone, there has to be trust, and before you trust them, there has to be safety. → Free checklist, Does This Count as Trauma? A Checklist for Women: https://cassiemccarthy.com/trauma-che... → For therapists: When Consent Is Compromised, a self-paced 8.5 CE hour course on treating sexual coercion (ASWB ACE and NBCC approved): https://cassiemccarthy.com/sexual-coe... "You cannot build trust on top of a base of fear." Betrayal trauma happens when someone you depended on, a partner, a friend, a school or a church, violates your trust or your wellbeing. We're social creatures, and we need each other to survive. So when a member of your pack hurts you, your brain can't make sense of it, and that's why it hits harder than harm from a stranger. People confuse safety and trust. Safety is knowing you won't be harmed. Trust is knowing you can rely on someone and predict who they'll be. I teach it this way: trust equals reliability plus accountability, multiplied by time. And if the person is abusive or violent, safety comes first, and you don't owe them a process of rebuilding trust. In this video: • what betrayal trauma is, and why it feels like trauma • the difference between safety and trust, and why safety comes first • how to rebuild trust after betrayal, and how to trust yourself again • when to forgive, and when not to • how trauma therapy helps you trust again Forgiveness, the way I define it, is giving someone the chance to change my mind about who they are. It comes after safety and after trust. I use Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), a frontline treatment for PTSD, to help women trust their own judgment again. If you need support right now National Domestic Violence Hotline: call 800.799.SAFE (7233) or text START to 88788, https://www.thehotline.org/ RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: call 800.656.HOPE (4673) or chat at https://rainn.org/hotline Chapters 00:00 Should you forgive after betrayal? 01:02 What is betrayal trauma? 03:00 Why betrayal feels like trauma 06:55 Safety vs trust: why safety comes first 09:31 How to rebuild trust after betrayal 16:25 How to trust yourself again after betrayal 19:07 When to forgive (and when not to) 23:48 How trauma therapy helps you trust again Find a trauma-focused therapist CPT provider roster: https://cptforptsd.com/cpt-provider-r... EMDR therapist directory (EMDRIA): https://www.emdria.org/find-an-emdr-t... Sources named in this video Freyd, J. J. (2008). Betrayal trauma. In G. Reyes, J. D. Elhai, & J. D. Ford (Eds.), The encyclopedia of psychological trauma (p. 76). John Wiley & Sons. Basile, K. C., Smith, S. G., Kresnow, M., Khatiwada, S., & Leemis, R. W. (2022). The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey: 2016/2017 report on sexual violence. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Smith, C. P., & Freyd, J. J. (2013). Dangerous safe havens: Institutional betrayal exacerbates sexual trauma. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 26(1), 119–124. Tang, S. S., & Freyd, J. J. (2012). Betrayal trauma and gender differences in posttraumatic stress. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 4(5), 469–478. Laaser, D., Putney, H. L., Bundick, M., Delmonico, D. L., & Griffin, E. J. (2017). Posttraumatic growth in relationally betrayed women. Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 43(3), 435–447. Schweitzer, M. E., Hershey, J. C., & Bradlow, E. T. (2006). Promises and lies: Restoring violated trust. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 101(1), 1–19. Resick, P. A., Monson, C. M., & Chard, K. M. (2017). Cognitive processing therapy for PTSD: A comprehensive manual. Guilford Press. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs & U.S. Department of Defense. (2023). VA/DoD clinical practice guideline for the management of posttraumatic stress disorder and acute stress disorder (Version 4.0). Hi, I'm Cassie McCarthy, LICSW. I've worked as a trauma therapist since 2008, helping women understand what happened to them and heal from it. I use Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), and I'm an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist (CST). 📍 Free checklist, Does This Count as Trauma? A Checklist for Women: https://cassiemccarthy.com/trauma-che... 📍 For therapists: When Consent Is Compromised, a self-paced 8.5 CE hour course on treating sexual coercion (ASWB ACE and NBCC approved): https://cassiemccarthy.com/sexual-coe...