Alan Dershowitz—Is He a Possessor of Perpetrator Psychology?

‘Dershism’ as ‘DARVO’

“DARVO” is an acronym psychologist Dr. Jennifer Freyd coined, and refers to:

“a reaction perpetrators of wrong doing, particularly sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. DARVO stands for ‘Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.’  The perpetrator or offender may Deny the behavior, Attack the individual doing the confronting, and Reverse the roles of Victim and Offender such that the perpetrator assumes the victim role and turns the true victim—or the whistle blower—into an alleged offender.  This occurs, for instance, when an actually guilty perpetrator assumes the role of ‘falsely accused’ and attacks the accuser’s credibility and blames the accuser of being the perpetrator of a false accusation.”

Just as Alan Dershowitz, or “Dersh” for short, talked about his “perfect sex life,” parroting Donald Trump’s language about his “perfect phone calls,” Dersh is now using Trump’s technique of throwing the same accusations being made against him back at those accusing him.  Dersh now says he is the victim of a new McCarthyism—rather than the perpetrator of it!

DARVO is a form of “projective identification,” coined by psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, referring to a defense one uses to deny traits or deeds that are intolerable in oneself by attributing them to one’s perceived opponent (also called “projection”).  The goal is to cause the other person to identify with those qualities and to believe that the characterizations are justified (also called “introjection”).  In doing so, the offender not only absolves himself of his own guilt, but controls and persecutes his opponent as an embodiment of his “crimes”.

A few weeks ago, I questioned if Dershowitz were “insane”, or just “out of his mind,” in words that others have used to describe him.  I asked, based on his insistence that law schools monitor the political beliefs and concerns of their students as well as note what they say and which demonstrations they attend.  He also insisted that law firms must “reveal” to their clients if they employ anyone who has certain views now or in the past.  Now, we can confidently state that someone so blinded by his beliefs that he veers away from virtually all his colleagues—who themselves labeled his method a “new McCarthyism”—to vindictively target and destroy those who disagree with him is exhibiting signs of mental unfitness.

Fitness to practice (or preach about) the law has nothing to do with intelligence or education.  It is about having the basic mental capacity to make use of one’s strengths and to apply one’s skills.  If one does not have fitness, it means that all the gifts one has will at best languish and at worst lay waste to anything one touches.

Fitness is generally presumed until questions arise, at which time it is prudent to require that the person pass a fitness test before assuming the function again.  This, at least, is how it is done in medical or employment settings.  Dersh’s screaming out that he is the victim of a new McCarthyism instead of its instigator and perpetrator, that he is being “canceled” rather than causing the extreme censorship of others, raises questions about whether he is even fit to be on television.  However, since “Trumpism” (having a severely mentally-impaired person in the U.S. presidency) has never been contained, “Dershism” is even less confronted.  And as is sometimes characteristic of someone assuming an undeserving “role” without accountability, he incessantly advances his outrageous discourse while aggressively shutting down anyone who thinks differently—thereby exerting control over his opponents, which is the actual goal of DARVO.

There are organizations fighting back against Dershism, but they are not doing so directly or sufficiently.  Consultation of mental health expertise is almost nonexistent, despite it being critical in such advanced cases.  Now that he constantly exhibits what I term “Trump Contagion,” others have adopted Dershowitz, turning him into a constant guest commentator, eagerly promoting his new books and his latest reincarnation as “one of them.”  Topping the list are Newsmax and One America Network, where he has practically been lionized—which surely suits his psychic needs.

And as is common among individuals who are handed positions they are unfit to hold, Dersh has abused his authority for sexual purposes.  Far from leading a “perfect sex life,” at least in his first marriage, he openly invited students he was sleeping with into his home, and flirted with students he was not sleeping with, all in front of his wife and small children.  This wife would later commit suicide.  I learned from researching Family Courts, which are the principal centers for child pornography child and sex trafficking in the United States, that Dersh might have had a role in trafficking at least one minor, whom he kept for himself while separating the preteen from her mother.  Virginia Giuffre, one of the most prominent accusers of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, Dersh’s friend and protégé, long argued that Dersh “was also a participant in sex trafficking, including as one of the men to whom Epstein lent out [Giuffre] for sex.”  Now, Giuffre is poised to release information that will effectively name 177 of Epstein’s high-profile associates, friends, recruiters, and more, by judge’s order on January 1, 2024, when Dershowitz is anticipated to be among those named.

When the American Psychiatric Association (APA) accused the mental health professionals conscientiously attempting to curb a public mental health threat of being “self-aggrandizing” and “using psychiatry as a political tool,” it was engaging in projective identification.  As a result, instead of containing perpetrator psychology, we have become a culture of rampant DARVO.  Alan Dershowitz is daily setting the narrative of “oppressor as victim,” in his own “Dershow”, as elsewhere.  Among his recent episodes are titles that are very telling: “Elite Universities are Highly Financed Incubators of Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism”; “Public Should See Hunter Biden and Hear Trump”; and “President Gay and Her DEI May Destroy Harvard.”  Trump Contagion has had such an impact on Dershowitz that he seems to be in competition with Donald Trump himself for the limelight!  The title of my initial newsletter about him may be growing more appropriate with time: “Alan Dershowitz—Is He ‘Insane’, or Just ‘Out of His Mind’?”