I don’t think it’s emblematic of this specific moment—though it’s fair to say that many of us feel betrayed by our leaders, the politics of the day, and systems that are supposed to protect us—but it seems like many, many of my friends are dealing with various flavors of betrayal. Some are relationship-shaking, others are low stakes. Some relate to love, others to business.

It got me thinking about this Q&A I did with Debi Silber many, many years ago about a concept called “Post-Betrayal Syndrome.” In Debi’s work, she sees people who never fully heal from betrayal and find themselves repeating the same patterns—along with people who can’t put their story about betrayal down in order to move forward. In all forms, it’s a type of stuckness.

Here’s our conversation, I think it’s really helpful, whether it relates to you or someone you love.

If you live until you’re 40, there’s a good chance that you’ll experience betrayal—small, easy-to-shrug off moments with friends or co-workers or potentially the heartbreaking variety, the type that can linger for years. Therapist Debi Silber argues that the effects of betrayal can actually stick around for decades, creating self-fulfilling and deeply unwanted patterns in our relationships and wreaking havoc in our lives. She’s so convinced, in fact, that she’s focused her practice on the concept, and has an entire institute devoted to helping people understand the impact and heal—rather than harden. Naturally, she gave the TEDTalk on betrayal as well. Below, she takes us through the implications along with the stages she’s outlined for recovery.

I define betrayal as the breaking of a spoken or unspoken rule. Every relationship has rules.

I had a painful betrayal from my family and thought I did all I needed to in order to heal. Then it happened again a few years later—this time, it was by my husband. That was the deal-breaker. I got him out of the house and looked at the two experiences, trying to figure out how I could change this repeat betrayal cycle. I couldn’t find anything that could help—there I was with four kids, six dogs, and a thriving business—and so I enrolled in a PhD program in Transpersonal Psychology. When it was time to do a study, I studied betrayal—what holds us back, what helps us heal, and what happens to us physically, mentally, and emotionally when the people closest to us lie, cheat, and deceive. I was really only hoping to find tools to heal myself. I had no idea that the study would lead to three discoveries.

Betrayal is a different type of crisis that needs a different protocol to heal. Originally, I was studying betrayal and post-traumatic growth—the opportunity to rebuild your life and see things differently after trauma. But I’d been through disease, death of a loved one, etc., and betrayal felt different. My study participants felt that way too. Because betrayal feels so intentional, we take it very personally—the self is shattered, with feelings of rejection, abandonment, belonging, confidence, worthiness, trust. So, the invitation is to create a new life and a new self. With that, I coined a new term: Post Betrayal Transformation, where you’re rebuilding a new life and self from the ground up after betrayal.

There’s a collection of symptoms (physical/mental/emotional) so common to betrayal it’s known as Post Betrayal Syndrome. The stats are staggering, even though people assume that “time heals all wounds.” I have the proof that time doesn’t heal all wounds, even a new relationship won’t heal Post Betrayal Syndrome. The only thing that heals it is through deliberate and intentional action. People have issues (ex: 45% of everyone betrayed has a digestive issue, 47% a weight issue, 68% struggle with sleep, 62% are unable to concentrate, I could go on and on). They assume it’s from their daily experiences but these stats can be from a betrayal that happened decades ago.

There are five stages we go through if we fully heal from betrayal. This was the most exciting of the three discoveries because we also learned what happens physically, mentally, and emotionally in order to move from one stage to the next. Healing is entirely predictable. (Most people stop in Stage 3—transformation doesn’t even begin until Stage 4). There are so many reasons why we get stuck in Stage 3—most people assume that since time has passed, they’re healing. They’re not, they’ve just solidified more time in the most common stage to get stuck in.

Here’s an excerpt (adapted) of the five stages from my book From Hardened to Healed:

This is the “set-up” stage. I saw this with every study participant, including myself. Imagine four legs of a table: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. We’re leaning heavily on the physical and mental legs, often neglecting the emotional and spiritual legs. It looks like we’re really good at “thinking and doing” (using our mind) and not really good at prioritizing the “feeling and being” (tuning into our heart). With only two legs strengthened, it’s easy to see how that table would topple over. And that’s what happens to us.

The breakdown of the body, mind, and worldview. This is the scariest of all of the stages. It’s the day you receive information which changes life as you’ve known it. There’s a psychological earthquake; your life is now compartmentalized into two camps: before and after it happened. It’s “D-Day” (Discovery Day). It’s a complete shock to the body, mind, and heart. Here’s what happens:

Physically, the shock ignites the stress response and you’re now headed for every single stress-related symptom, illness, condition, even disease. Mentally, you can’t wrap your mind around what you’ve just learned. The mind is in a complete state of chaos and overwhelm: None of this makes sense. Finally, your worldview is shattered. Your worldview is your mental model. It’s the rules you’d been living by: “Don’t trust this person,” “These are the rules,” “Do things this way.” In one earth shattering moment, everything you’ve known to be real and true is no longer. The bottom has bottomed out on you and a new bottom hasn’t been formed yet. It’s terrifying. In this stage, we’re scared, frantic, lost, confused, and desperate to feel better. We’ll grab onto anything or anyone who we feel can help us do that.

Survival instincts emerge, making this stage the hardest to leave. It’s the most practical stage where we ask questions like: “How will I survive this?” “Where do I go?” “Who can I trust?” Then, once we figure out how to survive, here’s what happens:

Because survival feels so much better than the shock and trauma that we just came from, we think: “Whew! We’re okay.” The problem is, we don’t know Stage Four and Stage Five are available to us or that they even exist, so we resign ourselves to thinking: “This is as good as it’s going to get, so I’d better get used to it.” (Transformation doesn’t even begin until Stage 4.) When that’s the belief, four things happen:

1. We start getting all kinds of “small-self benefits” from being in that space. We get to be right. We get someone to blame, we get our story, we get sympathy from others, we don’t have to do the hard work of learning to trust again, etc.

2. Because you’re here longer than you should be, the mind starts creating thoughts and beliefs that don’t serve you. You may start to question: “Maybe I’m not all that great, maybe it’s me, maybe…”

3. Because these are the thoughts we’re thinking, this is the energy we put out. Like energy attracts like energy so now we start calling situations, circumstances and even relationships toward us to confirm these limiting beliefs. If we’re feeling less than, unworthy, undeserving, unlovable, our energy attracts exactly what we feel. Our mind always wants to prove us right, so if that’s our belief, our mind will find confirming evidence to support our belief. This is when we typically join that lame support group where everyone just complains, where we surround ourselves with others that are stuck, etc. We also start having lots of physical symptoms and we start spending our time on “symptom relief” not realizing the unhealed betrayal is creating the symptoms. We feel awful or at best, we’re “fine.” We’ve grown used to our story. It feels easier to either keep the big wall up or settle for the familiar known…which is a setup for repeat betrayals.

4. If you weren’t stuck enough in Stage Three, this is the glue that keeps you there. Because you need to work, raise your kids, keep going on with your life, you’re miserable and don’t know how to manage things so right here we start using food, drugs, alcohol, TV, keeping busy, etc. We’re doing this to numb/avoid/distract ourselves from this painful place. You’re not happy in this stage, but we don’t know that there’s a Stage Four and Stage Five. We don’t know how to make those uncomfortable feelings go away. We dive into these “methods of mass distraction,” and while they may keep the feelings at bay, nothing is happening to move us through our discomfort. We’re simply trying to outrun it. So we do it for a day, month, year, ten years, even 20 years. I can see someone 20 years after their betrayal and ask: “That drinking/emotional eating/mindless scrolling…do you think that has anything to do with your betrayal?” They’d look at me like I’m crazy and say: “That happened 20 years ago!” All they did was put themselves in Stage 3 and stay there.

Here’s where you recognize, accept, and acknowledge that your old normal no longer exists. We realize we can’t undo our betrayal, but we can control what you do with it. Just with that single decision, we turn down the stress response. We’re not healing those symptoms yet but at least we’ve stopped the massive damage that had been created in Stages 2 and Stage 3. Stage 4 feels like if you were to move to a new house/office/condo/apartment. It’s very forward moving but while Stage 3 was action oriented around your betrayal, Stage 4 is action oriented around what you’re now ready to try and become. What’s so interesting about Stage 4 is also this: If you were to move, you don’t take everything with you. You don’t take the things that don’t represent who you want to be into your new space. Here’s an interesting observation: When people move from Stage 3 to Stage 4, if their friends weren’t there for them, or if they’re ready for different types of relationships that are more aligned with who they’re now ready to become, this is the place where we outgrow those friendships (especially the ones still stuck in Stage 3). We think: “Is it me? I’ve had these friends for years?!” Yes it is, you’re undergoing a transformation and if they don’t rise, they don’t come along.

This stage represents healing, rebirth, and a new worldview. Here, the body starts to heal. We’re prioritizing ourselves and our self-care. Our mind begins to heal as well. We’re making new rules and boundaries based on what we see so clearly now. By this stage, we’ve also formed a new worldview as we look back on all we’ve been through. We look at the road we’ve traveled and see how far we’ve come. We’re choosing to heal, and it feels great! Remember in Stage 1 where we were more focused on the mental and physical versus the emotional and spiritual? By this stage, we’re solidly grounded because we’re focused on all four of the table legs.

Stage 5 is where we see new levels of health, new businesses, new relationships (with someone new or with the person who hurt you). It’s an entirely new relationship because you’ve deliberately and intentionally created it. You didn’t “patch things up.” Instead, everything crashed and burned and you’ve built something entirely new. If more people truly understood what’s waiting for them in Stage 5, they’d never waste their time in Stage 3, but it’s the lack of information, along with the fear of change and the unknown that keeps most people stuck.

The more we trust and the more we depend on the person who betrayed us, the greater the impact. For example, for a child who is completely dependent on their parent, when the parent does something awful it will have a different impact then your best friend sharing your secret, your co-worker taking your idea, etc. Those are still betrayals, but a different level of cleanup is left in its wake.

Any time there’s an understood (or perceived) understanding, and a person chooses to break that spoken or unspoken rule without someone’s awareness or consent, there’s a betrayal. We can even feel betrayed by companies, for example. If we’re told a product is good for us and it turns out it’s not, we’re furious. We don’t like being “duped.” We’d rather knowingly choose something we know isn’t good for us than be told a lie. In my study, I was originally studying the betrayals of family members, partners, or friends. I had to drop the friend part because while friends will infuriate us, they don’t “break us” (of course we’re never broken, just bent) like our family members or partners. Those are the ones that hurt the most. Once the heart and trust is involved, it’s a whole other level of pain. These were the people who gave us that sense of safety and security. So when they’re the ones to take it away, it’s devastating.

We can be betrayed by others, we also can betray ourselves. For example: if you know that person or thing isn’t in your best interest and you keep going back for more, that’s self-betrayal. Or, we keep sabotaging our success or growth because we don’t want to outgrow our Stage 3 people. Others are threatened when we grow—it forces them to look at themselves and we’re changing the dynamic of the relationship. This is a common place where repeat betrayals happen. We want something better but we stay with the familiar known instead of risking something different.

Betrayal is still an issue if you’re not thriving in work, health, and relationships and saying you’re “fine.”

In relationships, unhealed betrayals show up in two ways. The first is evidenced by repeat betrayals where the faces change but it’s the same thing. People wonder: “"Is it me?” Yes! Not in that it’s your fault, but that it’s your opportunity to learn a profound lesson that you are worthy, lovable, and deserving. Until and unless you get that, you’ll have “opportunities” in the form of people to teach you. (After my family betrayal and then my husband, for me to enroll in a PhD program was totally crazy. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it, manage the time, and so on. But it was the first time I took my needs seriously and it changed everything, including my health, my work, my family, my life. Lesson learned.)

The second way is that we’ll see that big wall go up: The pain of the betrayal was so great, we’d rather keep everyone at bay then risk that level of trust and vulnerability again. That’s an unhealed betrayal.

Unhealed betrayals show up in our health: We go to the most well-meaning doctors, coaches, healers, and therapists to manage a stress related issue, but at the root of it is often an unhealed betrayal.

Unhealed betrayals also show up at work: We deserve that raise or promotion but our confidence was shattered so we don’t have the confidence to ask. Or, we want to trust that boss, co-worker, collaborative partner but the person we trusted the most proved untrustworthy, so how can we trust that boss or co-worker?

Healed is someone who has moved through the 5 Stages from Betrayal to Breakthrough. Here we’ll see new levels of health, new businesses, new relationships (completely new with the person who hurt them, or with someone new). They’ve completely rebuilt themselves, taking the parts they love and leaving the rest behind. They’re creating a version of themselves that never would have been able to be birthed had the experience not happen. For example, I recently hosted a retreat for people in my high level program—those who are ready to move through all of the stages within six months. Four out of the 11 at the retreat have started new businesses. This is common to see, because once you’ve healed from something so painful like betrayal, and you’re rebuilding yourself and your life strategically, you open yourself up to things you never would have had available to you. For example, The PBT Institute and a completely new marriage to my husband (as two completely transformed people we married each other again). Those were Stage 5 actions. That’s what happens when we’re healed.

Hardened on the other hand is when our “fuel” isn’t coming from a healthy place. It’s more like “I’ll show you” fuel. This shows up when someone becomes really fit because they were bullied, someone appears to have it all but at the root there’s a deep need to seem perfect (like those moms who bring in the perfect cupcakes to school, looking perfect, acting as if everything is perfect), etc. I also do functional labwork testing and I can tell you that their bodies are paying a huge price to keep that up. Hardened is when you’re in Stage 3 and a huge protective shield has you portraying one picture but behind the shield there’s a different reality going on. If I could explain it with an example of an egg it would be like this: Healed is that hard boiled egg: Consistent, flexible, strong yet not so rigid it can easily break. Hardened is an uncooked egg: hard on the outside, soft on the inside. There’s so much power in the softness, it’s the hard exterior that’s the issue.

(Note: I met Debi through Carissa, who offered an interesting teaching on betrayal as well.)