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Reading 1. Lone Jacobsen and Edith Montgomery, "Treatment of Victims of Torture"
- University of Pennsylvania Press
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Chapter VII, Reading 1 Treating Torture Victims It seems like a simple enough idea, really. Almost obvious. If victims of torture survive their ordeals, they do so with manifold scars, both physical and psychological, and, if they are to be healed, they need help. But it was not until 1982 that such help took institutional form in one of the earliest torture treatment centers-perhaps the first-the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims (RCT) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Today there are more than 150 of them. In the first reading, from "Treatment of Victims of Torture," Lone Jacobsen and Edith Montgomery give a straightforward account of the effects of torture on the victims and their families and how the Copenhagen center helps victims to heal. The after-effects of torture are mental, physical, and social. [...] The whole family, not only the torture victim, is severely affected when one or more members have been tortured. [...] Mental Reactions The victims describe the mental reactions after torture as the most disabling by giving them a feeling ofhaving changed their personality. Before the torture, many of the victims were extrovert and active persons, but afterwards they prefer to isolate themselves from their surroundings. They have lost their self-respect and confidence in other people, and they avoid contact. The feeling ofhaving a changed identity is one of the most characteristic effects of torture. Other serious symptoms include anxiety, sleep disturbances, and nightmares, often combined. The anxiety is often chronic, and may be present even during sleep. Torture victims try to suppress their anxiety, but they are seldom successful; it is easily aroused and increased by associations with torture. People who have been isolated in small rooms during torture become very anxious and afraid when they are enclosed in small spaces, such as hospital examination rooms, lifts, and so on. The same anxiety is provoked when they have to meet authorities, especially uniformed ones, to the extent that they fail to come for appointments because of fear. Their very low self-respect and their suspicion, coupled with fear, make it almost impossible for them to explain themselves vis-a-vis the authorities . In particularly stressful situations, their fear may lead to panic so that they suddenly have to leave the room. 286 Chapter VII Torture victims usually only sleep for a few hours at a time. They wake up because of nightmares about torture that make them relive their extreme anxiety, and several hours may pass before they dare to go back to sleep. Their sleep is thus superficial, adding to the tiredness and irritability . When awake, victims may relate how memories of the torture can overwhelm them in the form of flashbacks,1 and that they can do nothing to prevent them. A flashback is often provoked by everyday events that produce associations with their torture experiences (the sight of medical equipment, personnel in uniforms, etc.). [...] Torture victims do not share their painful memories with others. They are alone with them and afraid of becoming insane. Nightmares and flashbacks, however , are normal reactions to what they have gone through. Torture victims almost always suffer from a severe feeling ofguilt, such as the so-called survivor- or death-guilt, in which they blame themselves for having survived while others died. Torture victims have often been forced to witness the execution ofcomrades, friends and family members. In this meeting with death, they were not capable even of feeling appropriate emotions (overwhelming rage against the torturers, profound compassion for victims). Their feeling of guilt may also have been provoked by situations in which the torturers have forced them to perform unacceptable acts or express opinions contrary to their own convictions and ideals-possibly even in public (on television). Family members of victims are often at great risk ofbeing harassed and arrested-even tortured or killed-because of the torture victims' ideological views. This is, of course, a great burden on the victim and gives him a feeling of guilt, which can be increased if family members are forced into exile against their will. Many torture victims have a negative self-image, characterized by shame, feelings of guilt and loss of dignity. This self-image often stems from deep humiliation, for example during sexual torture, which is very common , but often not mentioned by the victims. On top of that, there is decreased memory and lack of concentration. All this makes the victims afraid that their brains have been destroyed by the torturers, as they were told...