It is important to distinguish physical torture from psychological torture, although in practice these distinctions often become blurred. … She is President Elect of the European Association of Counselling and Honorary President of the Rehabilitation Centre for Torture Victims in Thessalonica. The psychology of torture refers to the psychological processes underlying all aspects of torture including the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, the immediate and long-term effects, and the political and social institutions that influence its use. COPYRIGHT©Marta Sytniewski 2011. The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum. Psychology of torture Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture; Everyone Is a Potential torturer, New Scientist, 25 November 2004, reporting on Fiske et al., SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisoners, Science 2004 306: 1482-1483; Ethical arguments regarding torture "When Doctors Go to War" The Truth About Torture - A defense of government torture. The Trauma of Psychological Torture (Disaster and Trauma Psychology) | Ojeda, Almerindo | ISBN: 9780313345142 | Kostenloser Versand für alle Bücher mit Versand und Verkauf duch Amazon. “Political ponerology” was coined by Andrew M. Łobaczewski and extends the theory to the Torture entails at the same time all the Author Edward Peters quotes the father of Alexander Lavranros, a defendant in the 1975 Greek torture trials thus: "We are a poor family...and now I see him in the dock as a torturer. Torture is the ultimate act of perverted intimacy. The APA Ethics Committee has stated, “Torture in any form, at any time, in any place, and for any reason is unethical for psychologists and wholly inconsistent with membership in the American Psychological Association.” Our association’s policies incorporate language taken directly from The United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which states that, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”. These are a very profound platform for growth; if it is removed or damaged, a person's entire ability to know what and who they are in relationship to the world can be devastated. COVID-19. Their strong feelings of hate, rage, terror, guilt, shame, and sorrow are also typical of subjects of childhood abuse, domestic violence, domestic vice, rape and incest, all contexts which contain chronic torture too. Love: What Really Matters. The APA will continue to speak out against torture and other forms of cruel or inhuman treatment for as long as necessary. Wikipedia photo src: www.therichest.com . . They feel anxious because the perpetrator's behavior is seemingly arbitrary and unpredictable—or mechanically and inhumanly regular. Most common sense dictates that a person being tortured will say anything to stop the pain. February 22, 2004 . The torturer invades the subject's body, pervades his psyche, and possesses his mind. Even the subject's normal bodily needs and functions (e.g., sleep, sustenance, excretion, etc.) Torture is carried out to physically and psychologically "break" someone. Bystanders resent the tortured because the tortured make the bystanders feel guilty and ashamed for having done nothing to prevent the atrocity. Psychological torture is a type of torture that relies primarily on psychological effects, and only secondarily on any physical harm inflicted. Language cannot communicate such an intensely private experience as pain. Subjects typically oscillate between emotional numbing and highly sensitive arousal: insomnia, irritability, restlessness, and attention deficits. The subject'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. Horror in the Mind – The Psychological Effects of Torture. They can lose their mental resilience and sense of freedom. SoCal 20:58, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC) The Psychology of Torture. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. Torturers often inflict both types of torture in combination to compound the associated effects. The psychology of torture refers to the psychological processes underlying all aspects of torture including the relationship between the perpetrator and the victim, the immediate and long-term effects, and the political and social institutions that influence its use. Victimhood is a stage, not a destination. The tortured often have nothing familiar to hold on to: family, home, personal belongings, loved ones, language, name. Book. Torture, whether physical or psychological or both, depends on complicated interpersonal relationships between those who torture, those tortured, bystanders and others.Torture also involves deeply personal processes in those tortured, in those who torture and in others. Our Liverpool Psychology hub is a creative arena that can be utilised to share innovative ideas and opinions with regards to contemporary issues in psychology. Many of these torture techniques are popularized in films or crime shows. Who morally destroyed my home and my family?" This affirms our capacity to move beyond the boundaries of our body into the external, sharable world. The Psychology of Torture By: Sam Vaknin There is one place in which one's privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed – one's body, a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. The 15 Craziest Forms of Psychological Torture 15 Sleep Deprivation. Venue: University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. As the subject regresses, his learned personality traits fall away in reverse chronological order. To understand the full psychological effects of torture it is essential that its impact on the torturer be studied as well. It draws us into the boundaries of our body.". There is one place in which one's privacy, intimacy, integrity and inviolability are guaranteed - one's body, a unique temple and a familiar territory of sensa and personal history. These are forms and manifestations of self-directed aggression. First, regardless of whether torture is effective (which I personally don’t believe it is), it is wrong. The subject that, under torture, was forced into the position of pure object has lost his or her sense of interiority, intimacy, and privacy. Although torture, indeed, seems forever, it is possible to transform such terrible suffering. Sadly, it is highly likely that psychological torture is committed by governments worldwide and yet, notwithstanding the serious moral questions that this disturbing and elusive concept raises, and research in the area so limited, there is no operational or legal definition. The Psychology of Torture. When torture is committed it becomes an undeniable reality. Therefore, this article discusses the psychological effects of torture on those who are tortured and on those who torture too. Other psychological consequences include cognitive impairment, reduced capacity to learn, memory disorders, sexual dysfunction, social withdrawal, inability to maintain long-term relationships, or even mere intimacy, phobias, ideas of reference and superstitions, delusions, hallucinations, psychotic microepisodes, and emotional flatness. Psychology of torture: | |Torture|, whether physical, psychological, or both, depends on complicated interper... World Heritage Encyclopedia, the aggregation of the largest online encyclopedias available, and the most definitive collection ever assembled. It is less well known in social contexts such as domestic abuse, child abuse and elder abuse. Psychological torture also includes torment not normally considered torturous, such as mock execution, violation of social/sexual taboos, and extended solitary confinement. Authors; Authors and affiliations; Jessica Wolfendale; Chapter. Deprived of contact with others and starved for human interactions, the prey bonds with the predator. Torture combines complete humiliating exposure with utter devastating isolation. 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 be forced to choose between two evils named by the torturer). 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. Shirley Spitz is a psychologist. The biggest puzzle for me had always been the creativity piece, the brutality with zest, murderers in Rwanda who take great creativity in how cruelly they can torture someone or how quickly they can kill someone, with one machete stroke or two, and who begin to keep count of how quickly and how many we can kill. Date: 17 May 1989. It is about reprogramming the subject to succumb to an alternative exegesis of the world, proffered by the abuser or user. Torture, whether physical or psychological or both, depends on complicated interpersonal relationships between those who torture, those tortured, bystanders and others. Most common sense dictates that a person being tortured will say anything to stop the pain. Although torture induces both physiological and psychological effects, the psychological impact is often greater and tends to remain with the subject long after the actual activity is discontinued. These interacting psychological relationships, processes and dynamics form the basis for the psychology of torture. Independence that is offered in return for "betrayal" is a lie. Instead of helping him, a Police Officer is running up to beat him with a flashlight. For example, they come to understand that there are people and authorities who will support them, they psychologically become independent and individual from their peer group (individuation), they believe they have validity purpose and "a place" simply by virtue of being a human being and that they are not simply an "object", they have many life-experiences which give them pride and self-confidence, and so on. Torture can rob the subject of the most basic modes of relating to reality, and thus can be the equivalent of cognitive death. Torture also involves deeply personal processes in those tortured, in those who torture and in others. Ponerology, derived from the Greek ponēros, is the study of evil. For more on the stages of the torture mentality by which torture becomes acceptable to its practitioners see the 'Motivation to torture' section of the Torture article. Torture (from Latin tortus: to twist, to torment) is the act of deliberately inflicting severe physical or psychological suffering on someone by another as a punishment or in order to fulfill some desire of the torturer or force some action from the victim. The Psychology of Torture. 63 Downloads; Abstract. UpLink - Take Action for the SDGs. French author Alec Mellor writing, in 1972, about French General Jacques Massu's use of torture in Algeria quotes a former French career soldier, now a priest, Pere Gilbert, SJ, thus: "But let us admit for a moment that it might be possible to justify torture for the 'noble motives': have they (those who justify torture) thought for one moment of the individual who does it, that is, of the man whom, whether he wishes or not, one is going to turn into a torturer? The abuser or user becomes the black hole at the center of the victim's surrealistic galaxy, sucking in the sufferer's universal need for solace.