


Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Learned Helplessness: Torture leaves long-term psychological scars

The Senate torture report released earlier this month describes how the CIA's harsh interrogation program sought to make detainees passive and powerless to resist, using techniques from sleep deprivation to stress positions to waterboarding to induce a state that psychologists call "learned helplessness." ''Compliant" was the interrogators' description of Zubaydah.

Whatever it's labeled, specialists say the brain clearly can become conditioned by extreme fear and stress, notwithstanding CIA assertions that what was done would not cause any permanent mental or physical harm.

In that Senate report are "dramatic examples that clearly indicate that people are going to be damaged psychologically for a very long time," said Dr. Vincent Iacopino, an adviser to the nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights who has long treated survivors of torture from around the world.

He ticked off a list: post-traumatic stress disorder, other anxiety disorders, depression, enduring personality changes.  - Yahoo News

