Post Betrayal Syndrome® Is Real, It’s Measurable, and Your Organization Is Almost Certainly Living With It
By Dr. Debi Silber · Founder, The PBT® Institute · PBS® Researcher · Two-time TEDx Speaker
In 2018, I completed my doctoral dissertation on something that had no name at the time: the distinct experience of recovering from betrayal. What I found in my research was both surprising and immediately recognizable to anyone who had ever lived through a significant trust breakdown: betrayal is not just emotionally difficult. It is physiologically distinct from other forms of stress and trauma, it produces measurable and predictable symptoms, and it follows a universal recovery pathway that every person must travel to genuinely heal.
That cluster of physical, mental and emotional symptoms are now known aws Post Betrayal Syndrome® (PBS®). I also identified The Five Stages of Betrayal Recovery™. And I built the PBS® Assessment to measure it directly.
Years of working with individuals across thousands of assessments has confirmed what the original research suggested: PBS® is extraordinarily common, significantly underrecognized, and deeply consequential in organizational settings.
A Few of The Research Findings
The PBS® Assessment data from workplace contexts reveals a consistent picture:
- 84% of employees experiencing PBS® symptoms have impaired trust — directly affecting collaboration and team performance
- 88% experience reduced motivation and engagement — the primary metric HR is trying to improve
- 83% carry unresolved anger into the workplace — driving conflict, reputational incidents, and team stress
- 80% are at burnout risk from chronic stress response — the primary driver of absenteeism and healthcare utilization
- 81% experience loss of personal power — impairing decision-making, leadership, and collaboration
- 78% feel overwhelmed — increasing errors, missed deadlines, and burnout acceleration
- 71% have low energy — reducing productivity and compromising innovation
- 68% cannot focus or concentrate — decreasing quality and efficiency
- 47% have physical symptoms — directly increasing medical leave and healthcare spend
These are not soft metrics. They are measurable, documented, and addressable — with the right framework.
| PBS® is not a rare phenomenon that affects a few sensitive employees. It is a common, measurable organizational reality. And it is now addressable. |
What This Means for HR
The existence of a research-backed framework for symptoms of PBS® changes the role of HR in a fundamental way. For the first time, HR professionals have a validated tool to measure what has previously been invisible, a certified pathway to guide employees through recovery, and our practitioner program— that positions them as the organizational expert in something that is driving a significant portion of the workforce challenges they’ve been hired to solve.
Your organization is almost certainly living with symptoms of Post Betrayal Syndrome®. The question is whether HR has the tools to see it and address it. Now it can.
| Explore PBS® certification and more for your HR team · thepbtinstitute.com |
— Dr. Debi Silber is the world’s leading expert on how betrayal and broken trust affect human performance and the founder and CEO of The PBT Institute — the world’s leading organization devoted to betrayal recovery research, education, and transformation — whose research, validated across 100,000+ people in 50+ countries, has produced three groundbreaking discoveries transforming lives, teams, and organizations globally.