As increasing numbers of people worldwide suffer the effects of torture and other war trauma, practitioners are challenged to adapt their theoretical backgrounds to their treatment.
John R. Van Eenwyk, STB, PhDThe University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle
The International Trauma Treatment Program, Olympia
The Pacific Northwest Society of Jungian Analysts
Abstract
As increasing numbers of people worldwide suffer the effects of torture and other war trauma, practitioners are challenged to adapt their theoretical backgrounds to their treatment. One such school of thought, Analytical Psychology, contains several premises that can help to decipher the causes of violence and oppression and provides potentially useful techniques for treating those who have suffered their effects. Practitioners who find themselves in a position to treat survivors of torture and other war trauma can draw upon the basic principles of Analytical Psychology outlined in this article to enhance their treatment modalities.
Jungian Perspectives on the Etiology and Treatment of Torture
The doctor can only look on and try to understand the attempts at restitution and cure which nature herself is making. Experience has long shown that between conscious and unconscious there exists a compensatory relationship, and that the unconscious always tries to make whole the conscious part of the psyche by adding to it the parts that are missing, and so prevent a dangerous loss of balance. In our own case, as might be expected, the unconscious produces compensating symbols which are meant to replace the broken bridges, but which can only do so with the active co-operation of consciousness. In other words, these symbols must, if they are to be effective, be "understood" by the conscious mind; they must be assimilated and integrated. (Jung, 1951, par. 252)
Torture has become so widespread that Amnesty International no longer estimates numbers of people tortured, but simply the number of countries in which it is occurring. Add those who are traumatized by organized violence (war, oppression, ethnic cleansing, and so on) and a problem of major proportion reveals itself. Increasingly, torture survivors are finding their way to our consulting rooms. Can we adapt our theoretical orientations to this new challenge? This essay proposes that we can, and outlines how one school of thought, Analytical Psychology, may provide some options.
Where To Begin
The emotional responses of torture survivors range from rage to humiliation, righteousness to guilt, assertiveness to shame. Different survivors respond differently. Much depends on their pre-morbid personalities; much on the cultures in which they were raised. Consequently, integrating survivors' responses to torture with their lives before and after the event can be a formidable challenge.
The primary goal of torture is to disrupt, if not destroy, the continuity of life (loved ones are killed, cultures destroyed, relationships damaged, livelihoods eliminated) to such a degree that remediation is either extremely costly (in terms of money, time, and effort) or simply impossible. It effectively eradicates whatever trust survivors had in their ability to control the vagaries of life. Further complicating the healing of torture survivors is the fact that most are treated in nations where, as refugees, they struggle to adapt themselves to newly-adopted cultures that are foreign, confusing, and intimidating.
Survivors might have an easier time getting back on board with life, so to speak, if they could make sense of what happened to them. It might help to restore their sense of destiny and mission. Understanding (in the sense of verstehen: to find a standpoint that grounds them in the maelstrom of their lives) what happened and why could facilitate the process of venturing back into the flow of life.
Jung's Model of Psychological Development
Analytical Psychology locates the etiology of torture in the psychodynamics of oppression and attributes its healing to restoring a healthy relationship between ego and unconscious. Etiology is based on a topography of the psyche that posits interacting dimensions that generate perceptions and behaviors. Healing involves openness to the image-making dynamics of the psyche.
The quotation that begins this essay is grounded in four assumptions:
- the psyche is a self-regulating mechanism (Jung, 1934b, par. 330; Jung, 1916, par. 275)
- the psyche functions through images (Jung, 1934a, par 82; Jung, 1917, 169n)
- what is unbalanced in consciousness is balanced by the unconscious (Jung,1916, par. 274; Jung, 1947, par. 409)
- the psyche regulates itself through tensions of opposites (Jung, CW 8, pars. 143,145; Jung, 1947, par. 407)
Virtually everything Jung elaborated derives from these four premises. From the etiology of torture to its healing, they offer explanations of how things go wrong and how to set them right.
ETIOLOGY
The ego, that to which one generally refers when saying "I," is that which experiences consciousness. Other dimensions of the psyche that are particularly relevant to treating torture survivors are the persona and the shadow. The former facilitates relationships between individuals and groups. The latter comprises all that which conflicts withand is, therefore, excluded fromthe persona. While these three categoriesego, persona, shadowform only part of Jung's model of the psyche, they are sufficient for grasping the nature of the relationship between torturer and survivor, and survivor and society.
Right after being born children begin the life-long process of discerning what they need to do in order to have their needs met by their environments. That some behaviors are reinforced and others are not gives external factors a powerful influence on their self-images, which then become based as much on the values of the environment as on genetic potential. Thus, children's personalities reflect only to a degree what they could become were the influence of the environment either less powerful or completely absent. What does develop, according to Jung, is a persona, which is a complicated system of relations between the individual consciousness and society, fittingly enough a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definite impression upon others, and, on the other, to conceal the true nature of the individual. (Jung, 1916, par. 305)
All that which children exclude from the persona is relegated to the shadow, or the "negative" side of the personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide, together with the insufficiently developed functions and the contents of the personal unconscious. (Jung, 1917, par.103n)
The personal unconscious, according to Jung, is comprised of all that which derives from the individual's personal experience but is denied inclusion in conscious identity.
Jung's model of the psyche assumes that the ego selects from its nearly infinite potentials for development those it feels are most consistent with its surroundings. As this public side of the personality develops, all the refuse of the personality that is considered maladaptive is filtered out. Thus, the ego constructs a persona and rejects the shadow.
The ego rarely, if ever, identifies with the shadow, for it constitutes all that the ego feels it is not ("negative" and "unpleasant"). Instead, it attributes them to others. When that happens, one's response to the other will be consistent with one's feelings toward that which one has suppressed in oneself. If one feels positively toward that which is suppressed, one responds to the other positively. If the suppressed content is felt to be negative, one responds negatively, usually by suppressing in others that which one suppresses in oneself.
Thus, the shadow has a powerful influence on interpersonal relations. It also plays a crucial role in the self-regulation and growth of the psyche, both of which occur through tensions of opposites that balance the one-sidedness of consciousness (Jung, 1951, par. 252). Tension between opposites is the precondition for psychological growth, for it provides an alternative to the status quo. Thus, "...the shadow and the opposing will are the necessary conditions for all actualization." (Jung, 1948, par. 290) Just what direction the psyche will take when confronted with this tension, however, is rarely predictable, for it depends on what the individual chooses to do.
If Jung is correct that the psyche is a self-regulating mechanism and that it does so through tensions of opposites, then whenever consciousness becomes too one-sided, the ego's attention will be drawn to whatever in the environment corresponds with the shadow. (Jung, 1951, par. 252) If the ego cannot, or will not, embrace the complexity of tensions of opposites, preferring instead to embrace simplistic views of itself and reality, then development stalls until it can be shaken from its one-sided perspective.
The ego with a one-sided perspective finds itself continually in the presence of perspectives that seem other than its own. If it fails to understand how these perspectives are congruent with its own unconscious, it will be forced to shrink into its own limited world view, where to defend itself it must attack the validity of anything that fails to reinforce it. When this dynamic involves individuals and groups, the potential for those who attract images of the shadow to become scapegoats is very high. (Jung, 1945, par. 433)
For example, Jung pointed out that eruptions of the shadow often accompany "some violent and destructive intervention of fate." (Jung, 1916, par. 254) When the economy falters, the crops fail, disease erupts, or anything occurs that shakes people's confidence, then the collective persona may collapse. At that point, individuals "...as a result of [their] fright [slip] back to an earlier phase of [their] personalit[ies]...pretending that [the are] as [they were] before the crucial experience..." (Jung, 1916, par. 254) Longing for the good old days before the crisis (economic, political, social, religious), the group seeks someone to blame for what is essentially an "adverse turn of fortune." (Jung, 1916, par. 254)
In summary, group personas are subject to the same unconscious interventions as are individual personas. That is, when the group persona becomes sufficiently rigid that it interferes with the individuation of either its members or of the group itself, the unconscious intervenes in ways that destabilize it. The more the group clings to its persona, the more severely erupts the shadow. The more group members try to reassure one another that the problem is not with them, but with others, the more they fall into that which Jung described as 'regressive restoration of the persona' (Jung, 1916, par. 254-9). Massive amounts of energy are mobilized to reinforce the persona. Whoever or whatever is seen as jeopardizing the group's identity must be suppressed.
When the psychodynamics of development become political
What happens next has been nicely elaborated by the political philosopher Hanna Arendt. The relationship between oppressor and oppressed is relatively straightforward. With regard to suppression of the shadow, groups behave much as individuals. That which oppressive groups cannot tolerate in themselves, project onto others, and then attempt to suppress is quite clear, says Arendt. In words reminiscent of Jung's, she said: "The chief obsession of the totalitarian mind lies in its need for the world to be clear-cut and orderly. Any subtlety, contradiction, or complexity upsets and confuses this nature and becomes intolerable." (Arendt, 95)
In other words, oppressors possess an inadequate weltanschauung. Unsure of the resilience of their world views, they feel compelled to control people and events to assure at least their survival, if not their dominance. They are threatened by any person or event that fails to support their assumptions.
The totalitarian mind fears the autonomous ego. Arendt says that "It has often been noticed that the effectiveness of terror depends almost entirely on the degree of social atomization. Every kind of organized opposition must disappear before the full force of terror can be let loose." (Arendt, 154) It is an undeniable fact that oppressive regimes cannot tolerate free and open discussion of either their policies or the principles on which those policies are based.
Those tortured are those perceived to pose the greatest threat. They need not actively challenge the oppressors' world-view. Simply counseling openness to other points of view sets the oppressor's brutality in motion. Flexibility, open-mindedness, respect for the rights of othersall can comprise enough of a threat to activate the response of the oppressors.
The severity of their response is directly proportional to the magnitude of the perceived threat, and justified thereby. But it doesn't work, for violence and power are not synonymous. Says Arendt:
Nowhere is the self-defeating factor in the victory of violence over power more evident than in the use of terror to maintain domination, about whose weird successes and eventual failures we know perhaps more than any generation before us. Terror is not the same as violence; it is, rather, the form of government that comes into being when violence, having destroyed all power, does not abdicate but, on the contrary, remains in full control. (Arendt, 153-4)
Totalitarians are by nature extremists. They believe that control is essential to security, be that security economic, military, or cultural. In seeking to control their environment, they are like an ego that needs a persona to manage its relations with the surround. Yet this persona is a collective one. While individual personas allow a certain degree of autonomy to surface, collective personas rigidly force individuals into a set mold.
Rigidity characterizes extremist groups. As Jung said: "...a man is distinguished from his fellows more by his virtues than by his negative qualities." (Jung, 1951, par. 254) The key to this similarity lies in that which all extremists must suppress, namely, flexibility, ambiguity, and openness to another's point of view. Thus, totalitarian governments are always persona-based. Uniforms, slogans, parades of military might, pageantry, hierarchical ranking, and outright intimidation are all in the service of suppressing their cultural shadows.
They abhor openness and flexibility. Those who practice these qualities immediately become associated with their (the extremists') suppressed shadows and must, in turn, be suppressed. Yet, psychoanalysis has long known that suppression empowers that which is suppressed. Ironically, extremists often find that their attempts to stifle dissent ensure the breakdown of society and the establishment of anarchy.
Those who cannot tolerate challenge must either abdicate or oppress. Either way, they succumb to their own weakness. As Jung put it, "The healthy man does not torture othersgenerally it is the tortured who turn into torturers." (Jung, 1951, par. 56) By trying to suppress others, however, oppressors suppress themselves. As Arendt put it: "To substitute violence for power can bring victory, but the price is very high; for it is not only paid by the vanquished, it is also paid by the victor in terms of his own power." (Arendt, 152) Violence is not synonymous with power. Power demands consensus and the capacity to appreciate complexity. While violence may be a means to power, in the absence of power it is simply a trap. Rather than eliminating threat, it guarantees it.
Societies that fall prey to violence become increasingly unstable. They simply cannot survive the challenges to their assumptions generated by the unconscious in the name of balance and growth. Terrified by the instability that comes from within, they project it onto others, whereupon to preserve their mental health they must suppress any individual or group who reminds them of it.
Psychological antidotes to the culture of terrorism
Those who are violent habitually blame their victims for provoking them to the very violence through which they also preach their superiority, for "a man's hatred is concentrated on the thing that makes him conscious of his bad qualities." (Jung, 1920, par. 453) Nevertheless, while some survivors perceive the fragility of their torturers, most believe they were tortured because of some offense they had committedthe torturer's usual allegation. They are generally surprised to find that torture is illegal everywhere (except in Israel) and that their torturers were wrong. (Stover & Nightengale, 75)
Once survivors grasp that they symbolized something that their torturers were unable to accept within themselves, treatment reaches the level of paradox. Now the torturer is seen as an unwitting victim of the very elements within the process that were previously viewed as victimizing only the survivor (Arendt's price of victory, above). Understanding this helps to mitigate survivors' feelings of shame and inferiority.
HEALING
The etiology of torture helps to explain how torture conditions survivors' perceptions of the events leading up to it. The analytic experience deals with its sequelae. While there are many excellent interventions for the treatment of torture survivorsmedication can dull the horror, cognitive-behavioral therapy can reinforce that the torture is over, body therapy can soothe the painit is essential also to address alienation from imagination.
Torture colonizes the imagination. By holding them against their will, controlling every aspect of their lives, and linking everything to the infliction of pain, torturers train their victims to conjure up horrors that were previously unimaginable. Mock executions, hearing others being tortured, threats to family and friends, and disruptions of sleep are all forms of operant conditioning that increase victims' vigilance. It becomes impossible to keep the mind from imagining what will happen nextwhat type and how much pain and horror, how hopeless the situation, the fate of loved ones, and so on.
Imagining abhorrent outcomes becomes a conditioned reflex. It also persists long after the torture has ended. Life without imaginationthrough which we visualize possibilities, play with images and ideas, and monitor their developmentis difficult to imagine. Imagination is where we engage that-which-is-not-yet, where ideas are born. It is the realm of pure possibility.
When imagination leads only to pain, however, we prefer possibilities to disappear and the future to cease to exist. Precisely the intent of torture, this is how torture survivors typically feel. Hopelessness, depression, and suicidal impulses all relate to the enduring pain of life's possibilities lost.
Analytical Psychology employs some useful tools that may be useful for liberating survivors' imagination from the power of their torturers. The first is the analytic encounter itself, which has the potential to provide in vitro desensitization to the torture experience. The second is the spontaneous image-making capacity of the psyche, which can be very helpful both during and after torture.
The Phenomenology of Healing
As Jung describes it, the analytic encounter appears to offer an opportunity to re-do the torture experience. For example, Jung insisted that analysis provide a secure environment that encourages trust. Sometimes referring to such an environment as a temenos, or sacred space, he maintained that it must be protected from contamination with the outside world. (Jung, 1944, par. 219) Ensuring that nothing gets in or out allows patients to establish whatever environment they wish. To a large degree, it belongs to them.
Patients are not alone, however. The analyst helps to create the temenos by offering support, encouragement, and balance for the patient's point of view. Through the analyst-patient dialogue, both sides learn about one another and explore the nuances of relationship. In the beginning, the analyst knows very little about the patient. Thus, the patient is the expert who must educate the analyst. Through success and failure, patients develop and refine their own narratives, learning how to adapt their descriptions and explanations to the analyst's inevitable lack of understanding.
It all sounds quite civilized. No account of analysis would be complete, however, without a nod to Jung's concept of the shadow. As we saw above, the shadow is the other side of what we do. For all the security the analytic setting may offer, it can bear a surprising resemblance to the torture experience, which takes place away from public scrutiny, in a private setting, where nothing gets in and nothing gets out. Like torturers, analysts are in control; patients are not. Analysts are powerful; patients are not. At least, that is how it can seem.
Perhaps analysis can provide an opportunity to constellate and to explore survivors' hypervigilance. If so, the most likely place it will show up is in the transference and countertransference. At first, survivors are probably too grateful (treatment is generally offered pro bono) to notice the similarities between analysis and torture. As time goes on, however, they often find themselves resisting the analysis. Far from problematic, this can be an important step in their liberation from the torturer. In fact, Jungian analysis seems to encourage precisely this kind of control by the survivor.
The patient as expert
That patients hold the key to interpretation is fundamental to Jungian analysis. (Jung, 1934b, par. 318-323) As analysis progresses and patients become more adept at articulating their perceptions and experiences, they can enter more fully into the analyst-patient dialogue. This attitude translates well into learning about survivors' cultural backgrounds.
For example, analysts' interest in survivors' cultural backgrounds reverses the usual situation in which refugees find themselves. Instead of being at the usual disadvantage in learning about their new culture of residence, they can demonstrate to the analyst their superior knowledge. As survivors become more adept at articulation, they become experts in their own, as well as their culture's, perceptions and experiences.
During this time, analysts can model appropriate ways of being open to the influence of another. This is an essential ingredient in the rehabilitation of torture survivors, for torture makes openness a liability. The analyst's vulnerability reverses the relationship between torturer and survivor: now it is the survivor who is in control. If Jung's idea of the temenos is accurate, here is where it may really show its merit. Resembling the 'chamber' in which torture takes place, the temenos could allow a kind of in vitro desensitization to occur through which the survivor would have the opportunity to 'get back at' the torturer through manipulating the analyst.
Analysts know well how patients exploit the analyst's vulnerability through resisting the therapy. With regard to torture survivors, missed appointments, nothing to say, even an overly cooperative attitude bordering on obsequiousness, can all be ways of taking control of the therapy. Paradoxically, this can be enormously healing. Whereas before, they were captive; now, they can leave. They may even have resisted the torture by having nothing to say or by being overly cooperative. As in all analyses, analysts must be aware of their countertransference. They must resist the impulse to restore control, for particularly in therapy with torture survivors, analysts' vulnerability honors something that survivors have usually banished from their own personalities.
The symptom as attempt at cure
Once survivors know that they are firmly in control of the analytic setting, what were previously viewed as disruptive symptoms deriving from their torture experience (missing appointments, etc) can now be interpreted as symbolic liberations from the torture experience. Thusly can the symptom be seen as attempting a cure. (Jung, 1939, par. 68) Transference, countertransference, dreams, and everyday life events all provide material for similar interpretation. Essential to the cure are patient's attitudes toward their symptoms. Negative attitudes generate negative prognoses; positive attitudes generate positive prognoses.
When symptoms are seen as problems, patients feel burdened, often to the point of hopelessness. For torture survivors, symptoms can reinforce the fear that torturers continue to determine their health and potential for healing. The typical symptoms of torture ("severe anxiety; insomnia with nightmares about persecution, violence, or other torture experiences; somatic symptoms of anxiety; phobias; suspiciousness; and fearfulness;'"(Stover & Nightengale, 15)) continually reconstitute the torture experience. Consequently, torturers' control of survivors essentially inserts itself into their psyches along with the symptoms. Understanding this begins the process by which survivors can neutralize that control and take back their lives.
As with dreams, analysts can encourage survivors to see their behavior as symbolic. Obviously, survivors have difficulty trusting. Surrendering any information at all can remind them of torture. Teaching survivors a symbolic attitude gives them a certain distance from, and an accompanying measure of control over, their behavior and symptoms. To understand that their need to control derives from and perpetuates the influence of their tortures is to begin a process of liberation grounded in the therapeutic alliance.
If symptoms can be seen as evidence of the psyche's ongoing attempts to heal, suffering becomes infused with possibility and hope. James Hillman, referring to Jung's theories, says, 'the soul sees by means of affliction...the wound and the eye are one and the same.' (Hillman, 170) From this perspective, symptoms contribute to consciousness, which can not only liberate survivors from the enduring grip of the torturers, but can even offer the possibility of a greater wholeness than before the torture occurred.
Thus, survivors' wounds can reveal much. Firstly, they reflect the pathologies of the torturers, essentially saying more about them than about the survivors. Secondly, they communicate much about survivors' cultures, for they bear the scars of their society's attempts regressively to restore their personas (the etiology of torture). Finally, they reveal something about how the psyche works. If Hillman is correct, wounds are pathways to transformation. Whatever connection may exist among torture, suffering, and transformation, it is certainly a recurring theme of the religious and cultural motifs found in folktales, myths, and art. The psyche of the torture survivor gives a first-hand view of how this process works.
The Image-Making Capacity of the Psyche
In order to understand how symptoms symbolize self-healing, survivors must learn to appreciate the image-making capacity of the psyche. Jung believed that our minds process events and entertain new possibilities by constructing and manipulating images (Jung, 1934a, par. 68). Perhaps most familiar are dreams. When we sleep, our minds generate a wealth of images, some of which correspond with waking reality, some of which do not. Examples of waking images are perceptions, insights, intuitions, projections, illusions, delusions, and hallucinations.
If Jung is correct, this spontaneous and naturally occurring generation of images by which our minds process themselves and the world provides a clue to retrieving the imagination from the power of the torturer. But first, survivors' alienation from the disturbing images produced by their minds (nightmares, unpleasant affects, and disturbing memories) must be addressed.
That unpleasant images can appear against survivors' will often leads them to believe that their minds have turned against them. What is not under their control, however, is not necessarily under anyone else's either. To begin the process of utilizing the mind's capacity to generate images for healing, survivors must begin to understand that if their minds have an autonomy that even they cannot control, neither could their torturers. At least part of their minds was and is free.
The first step is to encourage survivors to allow images to elaborate. According to Jung, the psyche loves to elaborate images into narratives. (Jung, 1947, 400-404) Survivors can interact with the images however they wish. In this manner, according to Jung, consciousness and the unconscious mutually affect one another. As a result of dialogues between them, both are transformed.
Example 1
In 1991, while I was conducting training and research at the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme on the symptoms and treatment of torture, a family consulted us about their eleven-year-old son who was having nightmares. Every night the family would be jolted from sleep, whereupon they would spend several hours calming each other down. The content of the nightmares was always the same: Israeli soldiers were breaking into the house and killing the family.
This was a violent time in Gaza. The Intifada was raging and the Israeli Defense Force was utilizing increasingly brutal means of suppressing it, among which were nighttime home demolitions. Soldiers would arrive unexpectedly, order everyone out, and drive a large truck with twin "I" beams affixed in a "V" in front into the home. The suddenness and severity of the invasion, coupled with the destruction of the family's security, produced deep and enduring trauma.
Nevertheless, even though many of the younger members of the IDF were refusing to serve in Gaza because of the unacceptably brutal acts they were being ordered to carry out (Harper's Magazine, 20-21), breaking into houses and murdering innocent civilians rarely occurred. The boy's imagination was moving beyond reality and fabricating that which he feared.
We decided to try to move the boy's imagination beyond the nightmares. When the boy awakened in terror, could the family work together to move the story forward? What would they like to see happen when the soldiers burst through the door? As this exercise was one of imagination, which is consistent with dreams, virtually anything was possible.
The boy was the first to answer. He wanted the family to be invisible. The soldiers would enter, look around in confusion, and leave. We advised the family to apply this outcome to the boy's next nightmare.
It came that night. The family awoke, gathered together, and elaborated an image of the soldiers coming through the door and, thinking no one was there (because they were invisible), leaving in frustration. Everyone went back to bed and, after a time, fell asleep. There were no more nightmares that night. Nor were there any the next night.
The following night, however, the nightmare returned. This time, the family gathered and imagined a scenario in which the soldiers came into the house, fired their weapons, but the bullets had no effect. They went right through people. Terrified by this spooky turn of events, the soldiers would again depart.
This time, the nightmares ceased for several nights. Whenever they returned, the family would again imagine fortuitous outcomes. As the nightmares began to taper off, the family felt stronger, healthier and empowered.
Analysis
Nightmares are dreams that shock us from sleep before they can fully elaborate. At first glance, nightmares perpetuate the experience of torture, namely, being subjected to a terrifying experience beyond one's control. From a symbolic perspective, however, they are quite the opposite. The nightmare's power, which usually feels ego-dystonic, derives not from the torturer, but from the unconscious. Nightmares following torture are one way in which the psyche attempts to work through the trauma.
The imagination loves narratives, however disjoint or confusing they may seem. Thus, whatever the psyche proposes that may be perceived as problematic it can also solve. We simply need to suspend our fear until it moves beyond the frightening image.
Difficult as this may be during sleep, it can be accomplished while awake. No matter how terrifying a nightmare may seem, to the psyche it is just another narrative that continues to unfoldif we allow it. Simply to ask "what happens next?" moves the imagination beyond those images that distress us. No matter how troubling an image may be, there are always more ready to appear.
This can be very useful for torture survivors, for virtually all the problems associated with trauma involve getting stuck in it. Allowing images to elaborate addresses a number of these. Firstly, it helps survivors to move beyond where they are stuck. Secondly, they gain a measure of control over what is happening to them. Rather than struggling as helpless victims, they are empowered. Finally, it overcomes their alienation from themselves andas with the family in Gazaone another. By recovering their imaginations from the control of the torturer, they no longer have to live with an alien and hostile element within their own psyches. In this manner, working together on the elaboration of images can overcome fear and alienation.
Example 2
Dreams can also propose their own solutions to torture. For example:
I dreamed I was in a big house with my few friends. (They were killed by the government). We were discussing about conditions in our country and they had automatic guns and I had pistols. We couldn't agree. I thought: "They will kill me. And before they kill me I will kill them," and I shot them and they were dead. One of them was my best friend's brother. They fell on the ground. I let one of them lie down on a stretcher and light came out around the stretcher. At that time I got scared. I walked to the door. The house was dark. The light came through the door and someone says: "[the dreamer's name], go this way through the forest. I will show you. Don't be afraid." I walk through the light and the man said "Now you can go. Don't worry. No one disturb you." And I woke up.
Analysis
The dream had occurred just before he was imprisoned and tortured for five years. As we discussed the dream, I asked him who he thought was the man who showed him the way to escape. He replied "God." He felt that he was still in God's hands and that God would lead him to a better life.
But what about killing his best friend's brother, and the scary light coming from under the stretcher? He had no feelings about that. He felt only that the dream was confirming that God loved him and would take care of him.
Should the analyst attempt to explore the more troubling aspects of the dream? Probably not. As a result of his torture, this man had no family, was living in a foreign culture, was unemployed, and torn between factions from his homeland that had carried their conflict to their country of asylum. Why confront him further with disturbing aspects of his life? The dream was a blessing in its reassurance of supernatural protection.
As his treatment progressed, he had the following dream:
I don't remember the day. But I think it is two months ago. I was playing jackpot machine. I put some quarters and I got plenty of coins. I put all coins in my pocket. I play two, three times and I won big money, but I don't know how much it was.
This time he saw the dream as both optimistic and painful. It was optimistic because it suggested that he would have good fortune and painful because it reminded him that he was not able to send money to his family back in the home country. This led to a discussion of his guilt feelings and suggestions of how he might apply himself to his studies so that eventually he could make a financial contribution to his family's welfare. He began to appreciate the insights he gained from his dreams and believed that they had a guiding influence on his life. He also recognized that throughout his experience of imprisonment and torture his dreams had remained uncontrollable, signifying thereby his freedom and independence from his persecutors.
Example 3
Survivors have amazingly detailed memories of their trauma. They usually remember the time and date of every event they experienced. Yet, as they rarely discuss these with one other, they inhabit individual cells of social isolation. Again, their torture experience conditions their lives after the torture.
By helping them to recall together times and events, they can discuss what happened without being required to share how they feel about it. Insulated from the demand that they get in touch with their feelings, they can elaborate only that which gave rise to their feelings. This kind of collaboration on history consolidates them as a community and helps to relieve their isolation.
In Chicago, at the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture, a psychologist was working with a group of Cambodian women who had survived the days of Pol Pot and the Kmer Rouge. While the women were very cooperative and attended their group sessions faithfully, little was ever said about the Cambodian holocaust.
One day, the psychologist invited a survivor of the Nazi holocaust to address the group. After he left, one woman turned to another and said: "I never knew this had happened anywhere else." Horrified that Cambodians could treat one another so ruthlessly, they had refused to talk about it. After the presentation by the survivor of the Nazi holocaust, they were able to share times, dates, and places of their own holocaust. The decided to assemble a scrapbook of stories and images. No longer alienated from history, they were no longer alienated from each other.
Catharsis through symbolic expression
Jung's emphasis on the symbolic expression of fragmented dimensions of the psyche makes it possible to treat survivors' symptoms without exposing them to the full power of affect. As outlined above with regard to nightmares and other troublesome images, working with troublesome images empowers the imagination to move beyond the torture experience simply by letting them unfold. Likewise, familiarity with Jung's analysis of symbols can insert some objective space between survivor and torture. As imagination becomes less threatening, survivors regain confidence in that which occurs naturally within themselves.
Mitigation of anxiety is increased when the images produced by the psyche do not recapitulate the torture experience. Consider the following dream:
L comes to my place for a meeting or something. Her sister is with her. Silent she leaves the room. L says her sister can't stand being enclosed, finds my place stuffy and has to look for fresh air. Dream melts into a scene of a meeting.
"Enclosed...stuffy...fresh air" could all be linked to the confinement of torture. But here it refers to the kinds of meetings this man regularly attended. So, the dream led to a discussion of his social withdrawal and fear of women. A week later, he had another dream:
A girl is with me. She seems to be my girl-friend. Something tells me she was interested in me first then I also got to like her. Her nationality is not clear. But she seems to be non-[his native country].
Does this image suggest progress? Instead of a woman leaving his home, a woman has connected with him. Has his acknowledgement of his withdrawel brought him closer to a symptom of torture, one that is fairly common among survivors? After a political meeting one month later, he had another dream:
I'm swimming in the open sea and suddenly I'm caught by a strong current that leads to an underground river. I fight the current in the beginning but later give in. I keep swimming in the underground river.
Again, there is no mention of torture. "Suddenly...caught...underground...fight...give in," however, could certainly describe it. Thus, the dream gives him an opportunity to connect with sequelae without having to recall the torture directly. Moreover, it points out his strength. After he gives in, he keeps swimming. Like then, he is currently able to survive in the underground river.
By working with the dream images as they applied to his present-day life, it was possible to work with his affects and perspectives without having to deal directly with the torture experience. Like the example of transference cited above, treating images, behaviors, and perceptions as symbolic gives survivors a measure of control over them. Little by little, they become liberated from the control of the torturer through learning how to participate in the psyche's processes of healing. Where previously their brokenness alienated them from themselves, making sense of their symptoms now begins the process of restoring wholeness.
Empowerment
To summarize: in the security of the temenos, patients are the sources of insight into their own psychological dynamics. It is their own insights that provide the key for unlocking the meaning of symbols. By locating the capacity to interpret symbols in their own associations, a process of empowerment is initiated that helps them to rediscover their own capacities to deal with life. A critical component of these capacities is the psyche's inherent knowledge of what it needs for health.
That the psyche as a whole concerns itself with adaptation and growth means that every individual has an inner strength that cannot be broken. Consciousness may be dissolved, the ego may be shattered, the body can be broken, but through it all the healing power of the unconscious remains intact.
Because such power resides in the unconscious, it can feel frighteningly foreign. Consequently, interpretation is essential to rehabilitation. Once the healing power of the psyche is understood symbolically, practitioners and survivors can align their efforts with those of the unconscious. Restoring balance to the psyche increases self-efficacy, for observing the healing powers of the psyche at work generates hope and encouragement.
Survivors routinely place themselves in the hands of those they perceive as helpers, for the exigencies of refugee life are powerful conditioners of dependency. Combine those with the total powerlessness they experienced when being tortured and the result is a strong momentum against autonomy and independence. What little exists lives in the shadow, where it tends to express itself negatively, often through passive-aggressive behavior.
Survivors seek money, shelter, food, employmentthe material things that torture has taken from them and that they feel powerless to attain. These are real needs that any successful treatment program must try to meet. Nevertheless, they pose a dilemma, for solving survivors' problems does little to reassure them of their own capabilities. Empowerment cannot occur if the power to heal lies in the practitioner and not in the survivor.
A better approach, which also addresses survivors' psychological wounds, would be to encourage them to come up with their own solutions, to support them in their efforts, to applaud their successes, and to help them examine their failures. Of course, if their need for material things is desperate, and we can help, we would be wrong to refuse. People who are starving need food, not psychotherapy. There will be ample opportunity for that later.
Nevertheless, to build self-efficacy requires that survivors gain access to their own capacity for self-help, which analysts can facilitate. For example, upon attempting to hypnotize a survivor for the relief of chronic shoulder pain, I noticed that his eyes were wide open and he was watching me intently. Having told him that he could go into an open-eye trance if it felt more comfortable, this came as no surprise. When I brought the induction and hypnotic work to a close, however, he looked at me and asked, "Should I do it now?"
Clearly, he wanted to be in control. I answered that he could now hypnotize himself, and for the next fifteen minutes, he did. When he was finished, I assured him that he could repeat the procedure any time he wished to gain relief from the pain. A week later, he reported that the hypnosis was very successful and demonstrated the nearly full use of his left arm that he had regained.
Of all the techniques for empowerment at our disposal, perhaps most important is listening. Encouraging survivors to share their stories not only helps them to be heard, it empowers them, as well. They have our attention. They matter. By listening, we also teach them to listen. By listening to others, they empower others to tell their stories. They begin to feel that not only the teller, but also the listener, is important.
The social atomization that Arendt says is essential for the flourishing of terror alienates torture survivors from one another and from their communities. This is the primary goal of all forms of torture and organized violence: to breed such fear among people that their communities self-destruct. Sharing stories rebuilds the community. Survivors cannot rejoin their old communities, for those no longer exist, having ceased to be effective milieu for personal growth due to the regressive restoration of the community's persona. But they can become part of a new kind of community that is struggling to emerge worldwide.
These communities recognize that no group is monolithic, that blaming others for one's ills is simply delusional. Whether or not these new communities are familiar with projection of the shadow, they seem to grasp the basic idea. They understand that there are others just like them in all communities who know that oppressing others never guarantees security. As these groups-within-groups discover one another and share this common bond, meta-communities emerge comprised of all those who have a closer bond with each other than with their own societies. They may be humankind's best hope for peace in the future.
Conclusion
There can be little doubt about the benefit to survivors of understanding the etiology and healing of torture. Whether or not Analytical Psychology is the best theory to explain this is rightfully open to dispute. No theory or technique works for all patients.
The quotation that begins this essay is one of the most succinct summaries of how Analytical Psychology views the healing process. If it is accurate (the only reliable proof of which is found in the consulting room), then it may be able to assist survivors to transform their perceptions of the torture experience and recover their imaginations. If so, their mental states should be similarly transformed. It might be worth a try.
© John R. Van Eenwyk 2002.
E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
REFERENCES
Books
Arendt, Hanna. (1972) Crises of the Republic. New York. Harcourt, Brace, Janovich, Inc.
Hillman, J. (1975). Re-visioning psychology. San Francisco. Harper and Row.
Jung, C. G. (1916/1978). The relations between the ego and the unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 7, pars. 202-406). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1917/1978). On the psychology of the unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 7, pars. 1-201). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1920/1977). Psychological types: the type problem in poetry. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 6, pars. 275-460). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1934a/1977). Archetypes of the collective unconscious. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 9i, pars. 1-86). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1934b/1977). The psychology of the transference. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol.16, pars. 294-352). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1939/1978). In memory of Sigmund Freud. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol.15, pars. 60-73). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1944/1977). Individual dream symbolism in relation to alchemy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol.12, pars. 44-331). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1945/1977). After the Catastrophe. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol.10, pars. 400-443). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1947/1978). On the nature of the psyche. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 8, pars. 343-442). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1948/1977). A psychological approach to the trinity. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 11, pars. 169-308). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1951/1977). Fundamental questions of psychotherapy. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol.16, pars. 230-254). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (1957/1978). The transcendent function. In H. Read, M. Fordham, G. Adler, W. McGuire, (Eds.), >The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Bollingen Series XX (Vol. 8, pars. 131-193). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Stover, Eric and Nightengale, Elena O., eds. (1985) The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions. New York. W. W. Freeman and Company.
Magazines
"The Uprising's Hidden Toll." Harper's Magazine, August 1989, pp. 20-21
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