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Affective-intellectual modifications and mental disorders after torture. In this series we will group together patients in a fairly serious condition whose disorders appeared immediately after or during the tortures. We shall describe various different groups in this category, because we realize that the characteristic morbidity groups correspond to different methods of torture employed, quite independently of its evil effects, whether glaring or hidden, upon the personality.Category No. 1: After so-called preventive tortures of an indiscriminate nature. We here refer to brutal methods which are directed toward getting prisoners to speak, rather than to actual torture. The principle that over and above a certain threshold pain becomes intolerable here takes on singular importance. The aim is to arrive as quickly as possible at that threshold. There is no finicking about. There is a mass attack taking several forms: several policemen striking the prisoner at the same time; four policemen standing around the prisoner and hitting him backward and forward to each other, while another burns his chest with a cigarette and still another hits the soles of his feet with a stick. Certain methods of torture used in Algeria seemed to us to be particularly atrocious; the confidences of those who had been tortured are our reference.
A. Injection of water by the mouth accompanied by an enema of soapy water given at high pressure. *
*This type of torture is the cause of a very large number of deaths. After these enemas given at high pressure, the mucous membrane of the intestine becomes in fact the seat of numerous lesions which provoke minute perforations of the intestine. Gaseous embolisms and cases of peritonitis are thus very frequently caused.
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B. Introduction of a bottle into the anus.
Two forms of torture called "motionless torture":
C. The prisoner is placed on his knees, with his arms parallel to the ground, the palms of his hands turned upward, his torso and head straight. No movement is allowed. Behind the prisoner a policeman sitting on a chair keeps him motionless by blows of his truncheon.
D. The prisoner is placed standing with his face to the wall, his arms lifted and his hands against the wall. Here too if he makes the slightest movement or shows the slightest sign of relaxing the blows rain down.
We must now point out that there are two categories of people who undergo torture:
1. Those who know something.
2. Those who know nothing.
1. Those who know something are very rarely seen in, hospital centers. Evidently, it may be common knowledge that such-and-such a patriot has been tortured in the French prisons, but you never meet him as a patient. *
2. On the contrary, those who know nothing come very frequently to consult us. We are not here speaking of Algerians taken prisoner during a general arresting or a round- up: they do not come to see us as patients either. We are speaking expressly of those Algerians who do not belong to any organization, who are arrested and brought to
police quarters or to farms used as centers of interrogation in order to be tortured there.
Symptoms of psychiatric cases encountered:
A. Agitated nervous depressions: four cases. These are patients who are sad, without really being anxious. They are depressed and spend most of their time
*We are here speaking of course of those Algerians who, knowing something, have not confessed under torture; for it is well known that an Algerian who confesses is killed immediately afterward.
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in bed; they shun contact, and are liable to suddenly show signs of very violent agitation the significance of which is always difficult to grasp.
B. Loss of appetite arising from mental causes: five cases.
These patients present serious problems, for every mental anorexia is accompanied by a phobia against all physical contact with another. The nurse who comes near the patient and tries to touch him, to take his hand, for example, is at once pushed stiffly away. It is not possible to carry out artificial feeding or to administer medicine. *
C. Motor instability: eleven cases.
Here we have to deal with patients who will not keep still. They insist on being alone and it is difficult to get them to allow themselves to be shut up with the doctor in his consulting room.
Two feelings seemed to us to be frequent in the first category of tortured people:
First that of suffering injustice. Being tortured night and day for nothing seemed to have broken something in these men. One of these sufferers had a particularly painful experience. After some days of useless torturing, the police came to realize that they were dealing with a peaceable man who knew nothing whatever about anybody in an FLN network. In spite of being convinced of this, a police inspector had said: "Don't let him go like that. Give him a bit more, so that when he gets out he'll keep quiet. †
*The medical attendants are obliged to sit by the patient night and day working to explain matters to him. We can understand that the formula of "treating him a bit rough" is of no possible value here.
†This preventive torture becomes in certain districts "preventive repression." Thus at Rivet, though peace reigned, the settlers did not want to be taken unawares (the neighboring districts were beginning to stir)and decided purely and simply to do away with all eventual members of the FLN. Over forty Algerians were killed in a single day.
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Secondly, there was indifference to all moral arguments. For these patients, there is no just cause. A cause which entrains torture is a weak cause. Therefore the fighting strength of the cause must at all costs be increased; its justness must not be questioned. Force is the only thing that counts.Category No. 2: After tortures by electricity. In this category we have placed the Algerian patriots who were mainly tortured by electricity. In fact, although previously electricity was used as one of the general methods of torture, from September, 1956, on certain questionings were carried on exclusively by electricity.Descriptions of psychiatric cases encountered :
A. Localized or generalized coenesthopathies: three cases.
These patients felt "pins and needles" throughout their bodies; their hands seemed to be torn off, their heads seemed to be bursting, and their tongues felt as if they were being swallowed.
B. Apathy, aboulia, and lack of interest: seven cases.
These are patients who are inert, who cannot make plans, who have no resources, who live from day to day.
C. Electricity phobia.
Fear of touching a switch, of turning on the radio, fear of the telephone. Completely impossible for the doctor to even mention the eventual possibility of electric shock treatment.
Category No. 3: After the "truth serum."
The basic principles of this treatment are well known. When dealing with a patient who seems to suffer from an unconscious inner conflict which consultations do not manage to externalize, the doctor has recourse to chemical methods of exploration. Pentothal, given by intravenous injections, is the most common serum used to liberate the
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patient from a conflict which seems to go beyond his powers of adaptation. The doctor intervenes in order to liberate the patient from this "foreign body." *
It has been generally observed that it is difficult to control the progressive disintegration of psychical processes when using this method. Very often a spectacular worsening of the illness was observed, or new and quite inexplicable symptoms appeared. Thus, generally speaking, this technique has been more or less abandoned.
In Algeria, military doctors and psychiatrists have found a wide field for experiment in police quarters. For if in cases of neurosis pentothal sweeps away the barriers which bar the way to bringing to light an interior conflict, it ought equally in the case of Algerian patriots to serve to break down the political barrier and make confession easier for the prisoner without having recourse to electricity; medical tradition lays down that suffering should be avoided. This is the medical form that "subversive war" takes.
The scenario is as follows. First, "I am a doctor, I am not a policeman. I am here to help you." In this way after a few days the confidence of the prisoner is won. †
After that, "I'm going to give you a few injections, for you're badly shaken." For a few days, treatment of any
*In fact, it is not "foreign" at all. A conflict is only the result of the dynamic evolution of the personality, and here there can be no "foreign body." We ought rather to say that the problem is one of a "badly integrated body."
†We can cite in the same way the case of psychiatrists who were prime movers in "Présence française," who when they were called in to give an expert opinion on a prisoner had the habit from the very first of proclaiming their great friendship with the defending lawyer, and of assuring the prisoner that the two of them (the barrister and the psychiatrist) would get him out of there. All the prisoners who had the benefit of expert opinions were guillotined. These psychiatrists boasted in front of us of their elegant method of overcoming "resistance."
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kind at all is given--vitamins, treatment for heart disease, sugar serums. On the fourth or fifth day the intravenous injection of pentothal is given. The interrogation begins.Psychiatric symptoms.
A. Verbal stereotypy:
The patient continually repeats sentences of the type of "I didn't tell them anything. You must believe me; I didn't talk." Such stereotypies are accompanied by a permanent anxiety state. In fact the patient does not even know whether he has given any information away. The sense of culpability toward the cause he was fighting for and his brothers in arms whose names and addresses he may have given here weighs so heavily as to be dramatic. No assurance can bring peace to these broken consciences.
B. Intellectual or sensory perception clouded.
The patient cannot affirm the existence of a given visible object. Reasoning is assimilated but in undifferentiated fashion. There is a fundamental inability to distinguish between true and false. Everything is true and everything is false at the same time.
C. Fear, amounting to phobia, of all private conversations.
This fear is derived from the acute impression that at any moment a fresh interrogation may take place.
D. Inhibition.
The patient is on his guard; he registers each word of the question that is put to him and elaborates every word of his projected reply. From this comes the impression of
a quasi-inhibition, with psychical slowing down, interrupted sentences, repetition, and faltering, etc.
It is obvious that these patients obstinately refuse all intravenous injections.
Category No. 4: After brainwashing.
Recently much has been said about "psychological
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action" in Algeria. We do not wish to proceed to a critical study of these methods. We are content to bring to mind here their psychiatric consequences. There are two categories of centers where torture by brainwashing is carried on in Algeria.1. For intellectuals. The principle here is to lead the prisoner on to play a part. We can see that this is a throwback to a particular school of psycho-sociology. *
A. Playing the game of collaboration
The intellectual is invited to collaborate and at the same time reasons for collaboration are brought forward. He is thus obliged to lead a double life: he is a man well known for his patriotism who is imprisoned for preventive reasons. The task undertaken is to attack from the inside those elements which constitute national consciousness. Not only is the intellectual in question expected to collaborate, but he is given orders to discuss matters "freely" with those opposed to his viewpoint or those who hold back, and to convince them. This is an elegant way of bringing him to focus attention on other patriots, and thus to serve as informer. If by chance he says that he cannot find any opponents, these latter are pointed out to him,
*We know that in the United States of America a trend toward psycho-sociology has developed. Supporters of this school think that the tragedy of the contemporary individual is contained in the fact that he has no longer any part to play, and that present-day social conditions force him to exist only as a cog in the machine. From this comes the proposal of a therapeutic which will allow a man to take various roles in a veritable game of activity. Anyone can play any role; it even happens that in a single day a person's role may be changed; symbolically you may put yourself in the place of anyone you please. The factory psychiatrists in the United States are, it seems, making huge strides in group psychotherapy among workers. The latter are in fact able to identify themselves with heroes. Strained relations between employers and workers are considerably diminished.
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or else he is told to behave as if he was dealing with such.
B. Making
public statements on
the value of the French heritage and on the merits of colonization.
In order to carry out this task as well as possible, the intellectual is surrounded by "political advisers": officers for Native Affairs, or, better still, psychologists, social psychiatrists, sociologists, etc.
C. Taking the
arguments for the Algerian revolution and overthrowing them one by one.
Algeria is not a nation; it has never been a nation; it will never be a nation.
There is no such thing as the "Algerian people."
Algerian patriotism is nonsense.
The fellaghas are ambitious peasants, criminals, and poor mistaken creatures.
Taking each theme in turn, the intellectual is expected to make a reasoned statement on it, and the statement must be convincing.
Marks (the well-known "rewards") are given and counted up at the end of every month. They serve as a means of deciding whether or not the intellectual will be allowed out.
D. Leading a
totally pathological communal life.
To be alone is an act of
rebellion: so the intellectual is always with somebody.
Silence is also forbidden; thinking must be done aloud.
Evidence of brainwashing.
The case was that of a person with a university education who was interned and subjected to brainwashing which lasted for months on end. One day the camp officials congratulated him on the progress he had made and announced that he would soon be set free.
He knew about the enemy's maneuvers, and took care not to take this news too seriously. Their technique was in fact to announce to the prisoners that they were going to be freed, and then a few days before the date fixed to
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not taken as the starting point for modifying the attitude of the individual. On the contrary, the body is dealt with: it is broken in the hope that national consciousness will thus be demolished. It is a thorough breaking-in. "Rewards" are taken to mean the absence of torture or the possibility of getting food to eat.
A. You must declare that you do not belong to the FLN. You must shout this out in groups. You must repeat it for hours on end.
B. After that, you must recognize that you were once in the FLN and that you have come to realize that it was a bad thing. Thus, down with the FLN.
After this stage, we come to another: the future of Algeria is French; it can be nothing other than French. Without France, Algeria will go back to the Middle Ages.
Finally, you are French. Long live France.
Here, the disorders met with are not serious. It is the painful, suffering body that calls for rest and peace.