By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"
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 torturer
invades, defiles and desecrates this shrine. He does so publicly,
deliberately, repeatedly and, often, sadistically and sexually, with
undisguised pleasure. Hence the all-pervasive, long-lasting, and,
frequently, irreversible effects and outcomes of torture.
In a way, the torture victim's own body is rendered his worse enemy.
It is corporeal agony that compels the sufferer to mutate, his
identity to fragment, his ideals and principles to crumble. The body
becomes an accomplice of the tormentor, an uninterruptible channel
of communication, a treasonous, poisoned territory.
It fosters a humiliating dependency of the abused on the
perpetrator. Bodily needs denied - sleep, toilet, food, water - are
wrongly perceived by the victim as the direct causes of his
degradation and dehumanization. As he sees it, he is rendered
bestial not by the sadistic bullies around him but by his own flesh.
The concept of "body" can easily be extended to "family", or "home".
Torture is often applied to kin and kith, compatriots, or
colleagues. This intends to disrupt the continuity of "surroundings,
habits, appearance, relations with others", as the CIA put it in one
of its manuals. A sense of cohesive self-identity depends crucially
on the familiar and the continuous. By attacking both one's
biological body and one's "social body", the victim's psyche is
strained to the point of dissociation.
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 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.
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 cut-off 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 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.
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 a nutshell, 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"
(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."
Bystanders 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 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.
Note - Why Do People Torture?
We should distinguish functional torture from the sadistic variety.
The former is calculated to extract information from the tortured or
to punish them. It is measured, impersonal, efficient, and
disinterested.
The latter - the sadistic variety - fulfils the emotional needs of
the perpetrator.
People who find themselves caught up in anomic states - for
instance, soldiers in war or incarcerated inmates - tend to feel
helpless and alienated. They experience a partial or total loss of
control. They have been rendered vulnerable, powerless, and
defenseless by events and circumstances beyond their influence.
Torture amounts to exerting an absolute and all-pervasive domination
of the victim's existence. It is a coping strategy employed by
torturers who wish to reassert control over their lives and, thus,
to re-establish their mastery and superiority. By subjugating the
tortured - they regain their self-confidence and regulate their
sense of self-worth.
Other tormentors channel their negative emotions - pent up
aggression, humiliation, rage, envy, diffuse hatred - and displace
them. The victim becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong in the
torturer's life and the situation he finds himself caught in. The
act of torture amounts to misplaced and violent venting.
Many perpetrate heinous acts out of a wish to conform. Torturing
others is their way of demonstrating obsequious obeisance to
authority, group affiliation, colleagueship, and adherence to the
same ethical code of conduct and common values. They bask in the
praise that is heaped on them by their superiors, fellow workers,
associates, team mates, or collaborators. Their need to belong is so
strong that it overpowers ethical, moral, or legal considerations.
Many offenders derive pleasure and satisfaction from sadistic acts
of humiliation. To these, inflicting pain is fun. They lack empathy
and so their victim's agonized reactions are merely cause for much
hilarity.
Moreover, sadism is rooted in deviant sexuality. The torture
inflicted by sadists is bound to involve perverted sex (rape,
homosexual rape, voyeurism, exhibitionism, pedophilia, fetishism,
and other paraphilias). Aberrant sex, unlimited power, excruciating
pain - these are the intoxicating ingredients of the sadistic
variant of torture.
Still, torture rarely occurs where it does not have the sanction and
blessing of the authorities, whether local or national. A permissive
environment is sine qua non. The more abnormal the circumstances,
the less normative the milieu, the further the scene of the crime is
from public scrutiny - the more is egregious torture likely to
occur. This is especially true in totalitarian societies where the
use of physical force to discipline or eliminate dissent is an
acceptable practice.
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AUTHOR BIO (must be included with the article)
Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Central Europe Review,
PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and
Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com