The psychology of torture

[Anne Bonney]

Someone posted this on the Straight forum.  It sure does describe what I went through and so many of these places remind me dead on of Straight that I thought it would be appropriate here.

http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?t=20144

This is a long read, but I think it is a good description of what Straight did.

{{attention}}

'''Psychology of torture''' relies on [[psychological pain]] coupled
with physical [[Physical trauma|trauma]] to achieve the purposes of
the [[torture]]r.

Psychological pain is [[pain]] caused by [[psychological]] stress and
by emotional trauma, as distinct from that caused by
[[Nociception|physiological]] injuries and syndromes. The practice of
[[torture]] induces psychological pain through various acts that
often involve both [[physiological]] pain and psychological
manipulation to achieve a tactical goal or for the gratuitous
[[sadistic]] satisfaction of the torturer.

==Process==

The process of psychological torture is designed to invade and
destroy the presumptions of privacy, intimacy, and inviolability
assumed by the victim. Beyond merely invading the victim's mental and
physical independence on a one-to-one level, such acts are made
further damaging via public humiliation, incessant repetition, and
sadistic glee. As a result, the effects of psychological torture tend
to remain with the victim long after the actual activity is
discontinued.

Psychologically, torture often places the victim in a state where the
mind works against the best interests of the individual, due to the
inducement of such emotions as shame, worthlessness, dependency, and
a feeling of a lack of uniqueness. These and other mental stresses
can lead to a mutated, fragmented, or discredited personality and
belief structure. Even the victim's normal bodily needs and functions
(e.g. sleep, sustenance, excretion, etc.) can be construed as self-
degrading, and ironically, dehumanizing and animalistic.

==Social Implications==

A common factor of psychological torture, sometimes the only factor,
is to extend the activity to family, friends, and others for whom the
victim has a deep concern (the "social body"). This further disrupts
the individual's familiar expectations of their environment, their
control over their circumstances, and the strength and reliability of
their support network.

==Expert Opinions==

Beatrice Patsalides describes this transmogrification thus in "Ethics
of the unspeakable: Torture survivors in psychoanalytic treatment":

:"As the gap between the 'I' and the 'me' deepens, dissociation and
alienation increase. The subject that, under torture, was forced into
the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority,
intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only,
and perspective?that which allows for a sense of
relativity?is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind
and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains
our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and
the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and
outside, past and present, me and you, was lost."

Torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to
reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and
time are warped by [[sleep deprivation]]. The self ("I") is
shattered. The tortured have nothing familiar to hold on to: family,
home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually,
they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel
alien?unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with
others.

Torture splinters early childhood grandiose
[[Narcissism|narcissistic]] fantasies of uniqueness, omnipotence,
invulnerability, and impenetrability. But it enhances the fantasy of
merger with an idealized and omnipotent (though not benign)
other?the inflicter of agony. The twin processes of
individuation and separation are reversed.

==Interpersonal Relationships==

Torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The torturer
invades the victim's body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his
mind. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human
interactions, the prey bonds with the predator. "Traumatic bonding",
akin to the [[Stockholm syndrome]], is about hope and the search for
meaning in the brutal and indifferent and nightmarish universe of the
torture cell.

The abuser becomes the [[black hole]] at the center of the victim's
surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer's universal need for
solace. The victim tries to "control" his tormentor by becoming one
with him (introjecting him) and by appealing to the monster's
presumably dormant humanity and empathy.

This bonding is especially strong when the torturer and the tortured
form a dyad and "collaborate" in the rituals and acts of torture (for
instance, when the victim is coerced into selecting the torture
implements and the types of torment to be inflicted, or to choose
between two evils).

The psychologist Shirley Spitz offers this powerful overview of the
contradictory nature of torture in a seminar titled "The Psychology
of Torture" (1989):

:"Torture is an obscenity in that it joins what is most private with
what is most public. Torture entails all the isolation and extreme
solitude of privacy with none of the usual security embodied
therein ... Torture entails at the same time all the self exposure of
the utterly public with none of its possibilities for camaraderie or
shared experience. (The presence of an all powerful other with whom
to merge, without the security of the other's benign intentions.)

A further obscenity of torture is the inversion it makes of intimate
human relationships. The interrogation is a form of social encounter
in which the normal rules of communicating, of relating, of intimacy
are manipulated. Dependency needs are elicited by the interrogator,
but not so they may be met as in close relationships, but to weaken
and confuse. Independence that is offered in return for "betrayal" is
a lie. Silence is intentionally misinterpreted either as confirmation
of information or as guilt for 'complicity'.

Torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating
isolation. The final products and outcome of torture are a scarred
and often shattered victim and an empty display of the fiction of
power."

Obsessed by endless ruminations, demented by pain and a continuum of
sleeplessness?the victim regresses, shedding all but the most
primitive defense mechanisms: splitting, narcissism, dissociation,
projective identification, introjection, and cognitive dissonance.
The victim constructs an alternative world, often suffering from
depersonalization and derealization, hallucinations, ideas of
reference, delusions, and psychotic episodes.

Sometimes the victim comes to crave pain?very much as self-
mutilators do?because it is a proof and a reminder of his
individuated existence otherwise blurred by the incessant torture.
Pain shields the sufferer from disintegration and capitulation. It
preserves the veracity of his unthinkable and unspeakable experiences.

This dual process of the victim's alienation and addiction to anguish
complements the perpetrator's view of his quarry as "inhuman",
or "subhuman". The torturer assumes the position of the sole
authority, the exclusive fount of meaning and interpretation, the
source of both evil and good.

Torture is about reprogramming the victim to succumb to an
alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser. It is an
act of deep, indelible, traumatic indoctrination. The abused also
swallows whole and assimilates the torturer's negative view of him
and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or
self-defeating.

Thus, torture has no cutoff date. The sounds, the voices, the smells,
the sensations reverberate long after the episode has
ended?both in nightmares and in waking moments. The victim's
ability to trust other people?i.e., to assume that their
motives are at least rational, if not necessarily benign?has
been irrevocably undermined. Social institutions are perceived as
precariously poised on the verge of an ominous, Kafkaesque mutation.
Nothing is either safe, or credible anymore.

Victims typically react by undulating between emotional numbing and
increased arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and
attention deficits. Recollections of the traumatic events intrude in
the form of dreams, night terrors, flashbacks, and distressing
associations.

The tortured develop compulsive rituals to fend off obsessive
thoughts. Other psychological sequelae reported include cognitive
impairment, reduced capacity to learn, [[memory disorder]]s, [[sexual
dysfunction]], [[social withdrawal]], inability to maintain long-term
relationships, or even mere intimacy, [[phobia]]s, ideas of reference
and [[superstition]]s, [[delusion]]s, [[hallucination]]s, [[psychotic
microepisode]]s, and [[emotional flatness]].

==Results of Torture==

[[clinical depression|Depression]] and [[anxiety]] are very common.
These are forms and manifestations of self-directed aggression. The
sufferer rages at his own victimhood and resulting multiple
dysfunction. He feels shamed by his new disabilities and responsible,
or even guilty, somehow, for his predicament and the dire
consequences borne by his nearest and dearest. His sense of self-
worth and self-esteem are crippled.

In summary, torture victims suffer from a [[post-traumatic stress
disorder]] (PTSD). Their strong feelings of anxiety, guilt, and shame
are also typical of victims of childhood abuse, domestic violence,
and rape. They feel anxious because the perpetrator's behavior is
seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable?or mechanically and
inhumanly regular.

They feel guilty and disgraced because, to restore a semblance of
order to their shattered world and a modicum of dominion over their
chaotic life, they need to transform themselves into the cause of
their own degradation and the accomplices of their tormentors.

The CIA, in its "[[Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual -
1983|Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual ? 1983]]"
(reprinted in the April 1997 issue of Harper's Magazine), summed up
the theory of coercion thus:

:"The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological
regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to
bear on his will to resist. Regression is basically a loss of
autonomy, a reversion to an earlier behavioral level. As the subject
regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse
chronological order. He begins to lose the capacity to carry out the
highest creative activities, to deal with complex situations, or to
cope with stressful interpersonal relationships or repeated
frustrations."

Inevitably, in the aftermath of torture, its victims feel helpless
and powerless. This loss of control over one's life and body is
manifested physically in impotence, attention deficits, and insomnia.
This is often exacerbated by the disbelief many torture victims
encounter, especially if they are unable to produce scars, or
other "objective" proof of their ordeal. Language cannot communicate
such an intensely private experience as pain.

Spitz makes the following observation:

:"Pain is also unsharable in that it is resistant to language ... All
our interior states of consciousness: emotional, perceptual,
cognitive and somatic can be described as having an object in the
external world ... This affirms our capacity to move beyond the
boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. This is the
space in which we interact and communicate with our environment. But
when we explore the interior state of physical pain we find that
there is no object "out there"?no external, referential
content. Pain is not of, or for, anything. Pain is. And it draws us
away from the space of interaction, the sharable world, inwards. It
draws us into the boundaries of our body."

[[Bystander]]s resent the tortured because they make them feel guilty
and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. The
victims threaten their sense of security and their much-needed belief
in predictability, justice, and rule of law. The victims, on their
part, do not believe that it is possible to effectively communicate
to "outsiders" what they have been through. The torture chambers
are "another galaxy". This is how [[Auschwitz]] was described by the
author [[Yehiel Dinur|K. Zetnik]] in his testimony in the [[Eichmann
trial]] in [[Jerusalem]] in 1961.

Kenneth Pope in "Torture", a chapter he wrote for the "Encyclopedia
of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact
of Society on Gender", quotes Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman:

:"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the
perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the
universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the
contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim
demands action, engagement, and remembering."

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories
result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The victim wishes to
forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life
threatening abuse and to shield his human environment from the
horrors. In conjunction with the victim's pervasive distrust, this is
frequently interpreted as hypervigilance, or even paranoia. It seems
that the victims can't win. Torture is forever.

== References ==
* CIA, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, July 1963
* CIA, Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1983

* [ The
Psychology of Torture]

[[Category:Psychology]]
[[Category:Torture]]

[Anonymous]

Intimacy used as a weapon, many parents pay top dollar to have their children treated this way. This is not a hidden fact. The ideology behind these programs is plain to see. The curtain of ignorance is bought and paid for by these program parents.

[Oz girl]

Can you please list the Source for that Anne?

[Anonymous]

The source can be found in a link on the thread of this same name on the survivor forum.

[Anonymous]

But, more often, continued attempts to repress fearful memories
result in psychosomatic illnesses (conversion). The victim wishes to
forget the torture, to avoid re-experiencing the often life
threatening abuse and to shield his human environment from the
horrors. In conjunction with the victim's pervasive distrust, this is
frequently interpreted as hypervigilance, or even paranoia. It seems
that the victims can't win. Torture is forever.

Kind of hits you right in between the eyes, doesn't it?

[Anonymous]

I came accross that posting before.
It describes what happened to me after program exactly
Especially the change in perception of time- that is the weirdest thing that happened to me.........MONSTERS

[Anonymous]

I Feel "degraded" all the time. Its very intense. Something similar to the feeling one has if one has been raped. Its unbearable

[Anonymous]

I feel if I admit my "feelings" they will inevitably be used against me in an emotional attack to try and degrade me so I don't share or when I do I lie.  I might even be lying now.

[try another castle]

The abused also swallows whole and assimilates the torturer's negative view of him and often, as a result, is rendered suicidal, self-destructive, or self-defeating.

That's scary, and can definitely relate. I hated who I was at CEDU. Blownaway said something very interesting to me. He said "I wonder if we remember ourselves accurately at CEDU, or rather, we remember ourselves based on what was said to us in raps?" He said that my description of myself while I was there was identical to things he remembers people yelling at me about in raps and the propheet we were in together.

I am so violently opposed to this concept it scares me. No. There was no way I'm remembering it because of the raps. I really was that much of a loser. That's what's scary. Intellectually, I can entertain the possibility, but on a gut level, I was what they told me I was. They wouldn't have said that to me in a rap if I hadn't been acting that way beforehand.

Chilling.

Ultimately...whatever. All I know is, I'm not like that anymore, so who cares? At least I managed to regain my identity. It took a lot of work and fighting, though.

The self-loathing is still an issue, to an extent. It just manifests itself in new ways.

[69]

As the gap between the 'I' and the 'me' deepens, dissociation and
alienation increase. The subject that, under torture, was forced into
the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority,
intimacy, and privacy. Time is experienced now, in the present only,
and perspective?that which allows for a sense of
relativity?is foreclosed. Thoughts and dreams attack the mind
and invade the body as if the protective skin that normally contains
our thoughts, gives us space to breathe in between the thought and
the thing being thought about, and separates between inside and
outside, past and present, me and you, was lost."

Torture robs the victim of the most basic modes of relating to
reality and, thus, is the equivalent of cognitive death. Space and
time are warped by [[sleep deprivation]]. The self ("I") is
shattered. The tortured have nothing familiar to hold on to: family,
home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Gradually,
they lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. They feel
alien?unable to communicate, relate, attach, or empathize with
others.

Interesting stuff. ::ftard::

[Anonymous]

Having been up and unable to sleep lately, THAT information seems to be kinda useful. I do not wish to believe that the tortured can never recover though. The science is good therapy.

[try another castle]

Having been up and unable to sleep lately, THAT information seems to be kinda useful. I do not wish to believe that the tortured can never recover though. The science is good therapy.

I believe people can and do recover. But "it" never goes away completely. It's a part of your past, so it just won't. That's how it is.

My great aunt survived Bergen-Belsen. I often wonder what it was that she did which enabled her to move on from that experience and become a fully functional, well-balanced, adult. (Without therapy.) For that matter, I wonder how any of the survivors of the holocaust managed to pull themselves together. It seems like a monumental task, because the experience was so horrific and inhuman.

[Anonymous]

OK even hearing about the holocaust when i am trying to cope just makes me look like a whiner hunh?. Let me ask one thing of you.     We all got our buttons pushed and our feelings hurt, but does your survivor have any unexplained physical symptoms? (and I really hope not).

[try another castle]

Why would it make you feel like a whiner?

Just because there are varying degrees of abuse doesn't make any of them excusable. Nor does it make a survivor's experience and suffering any less valid. Abuse is abuse. (I seem to have to keep repeating that statement in this forum, for some reason.)

I wasn't trying to compare my great aunt's experience with any of ours. I was simply wondering what it was that she did to recover to the point of being able to function.

I don't know if she had any unexplained physical symptoms. I have no idea what she did that enabled her to move on. She refused to talk about her experience, until late in life, when she started doing holocaust awareness seminars with my aunt. I never got a chance to talk about it with her.

[Anonymous]

I am sorry. Your family should be proud and so should you. Those Nazi monsters... good night.