Personality Disruption as Mental Torture: The CIA, Interrogational Abuse, and the U.S. Torture Act

This Article is a contribution to the torture debate. It argues that the abusive interrogation tactics used by the United States in what was then called the “global war on terrorism” are, unequivocally, torture under U.S. law. To some readers, this might sound like déjà vu all over again. Hasn’t this issue been picked over for nearly fifteen years? It has, but we think the legal analysis we offer has been mostly overlooked. We argue that the basic character of the CIA’s interrogation of so-called “high-value detainees” has been misunderstood: both lawyers and commentators have placed far too much emphasis on the dozen or so “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) short-listed in government “torture memos,” and far too little emphasis on other forms of physical violence, psychological stressors, environmental manipulations, and abusive conditions of confinement that are crucial to the question of whether the detainees were tortured. Furthermore, we dispute one of the standard narratives about the origins of the program: that it was the brainchild of civilian contractor psychologists because— in the CIA’s words—“[n]on-standard interrogation methodologies were not an area of expertise of CIA officers or of the US Government generally.” This narrative ignores the CIA’s role in devising these methods, in spite of the decades of prior CIA research and doctrine about forcing interrogation subjects into a state of extreme psychological debilitation, and about how to do so—by making them physically weak, intensely fearful and anxious, and helplessly dependent. By neglecting this history and focusing on the contractors and the EITs they devised, this narrative contributes to the misunderstanding that the torture debate is about EITs and nothing else. In effect, a “torture debate” about EITs and the torture memos neglects the purloined letter in front of our eyes: the abusive conditions the CIA inflicted on prisoners even when they were not subject to EITs, including abuses that the torture memos never bothered to discuss. Unpacking what this debate is really about turns out to be crucial to understanding that such interrogation methods are torture under existing U.S. law. The U.S. Torture Act includes a clause in its definition of mental torture that was intended to ban exactly the kind of interrogation methods the CIA had researched, out of concern that our Cold War adversaries were using them: mind-altering procedures “calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.” That is precisely the “non-standard interrogation methodology” the CIA employed after 9/11

Can student mental health nurses be prepared for medicines management?

Aim This paper reports on an evaluation of the Medicines with Respect project, which implemented a stepped approach to education and training in medicines management (MM) for mental health nurses (MHNs). Method In the retrospective qualitative study, nine MHNs were interviewed to gain their perceptions of the MM training they received at university and to find out if it still had relevance. Results Content analysis of the interview data revealed that overall the participants valued the theoretical and practical learning strategies they experienced, although criticisms relating to all aspects of the education and training were reported. The participants also reported that the approach prepared them for clinical practice as registered nurses. Such an approach may also build the capacity of MHNs to develop as prescribers

Comments on the superluminal motion in Cygnus X-3

Following the recent discovery that Cyg X-3 exhibits superluminal motion, the implications of superluminal expansion and contraction are investigated. We propose that the effect is due to either a propagating photon pattern or to outwardly moving shells illuminated by an intense beam of radiation.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS; 5 pages, 3 figure

A weak turbulence theory for incompressible magnetohydrodynamics

We derive a weak turbulence formalism for incompressible magnetohydrodynamics. Three-wave interactions lead to a system of kinetic equations for the spectral densities of energy and helicity. The kinetic equations conserve energy in all wavevector planes normal to the applied magnetic field B0ê[parallel R: parallel]. Numerically and analytically, we find energy spectra E± [similar] kn±[bot bottom], such that n+ + n− = −4, where E± are the spectra of the Elsässer variables z± = v ± b in the two-dimensional case (k[parallel R: parallel] = 0). The constants of the spectra are computed exactly and found to depend on the amount of correlation between the velocity and the magnetic field. Comparison with several numerical simulations and models is also made

A Case of Urticaria Factitia Observed in the Coe College Psychological Laboratory

Record of an unusual affection which appeared in experimental work in tactual space. In submitting the following record upon a case of Urticaria, the writer has intentionally observed two restrictions, (1) to leave the technical discussion of the disease in question to medical treatises, (2) to avoid unwarrantable generalization from a single case under observation. While conforming with these limitations, it has seemed that a record of the case, giving such concrete details of the appearance, the progress and the peculiarities of the disease as it was studied in our laboratory, might leave deductions and generalizations to await the discovery of new cases

An Experiment in Mental Rehabilitation

The report presents the case of Mr. H., a student in Coe College who volunteered for service in the World War and suffered a serious injury by fall of an air-plane. Mr. H. recovered consciousness but had no memory and attempts to restore his lost holdings by showing him pictures of home scenes and by bringing him back to his college environment were only partially successful. The report gives something of Mr. H.\u27s background High school and College record prior to his injury

Hamara Healthy Living Centre - an evaluation

Hamara is a Healthy Living Centre which aims to improve health and well-being through providing a range of culturally appropriate activities and services. Hamara has a vision of 'bringing communities together' and since it was established in 2004, the Centre has provided a valuable community resource in South Leeds. Partnership work between Hamara and Leeds Met goes back to 2002. In 2007, the Centre for Health Promotion Research carried out an evaluation of Hamara in partnership with Hamara staff and Leeds Met Community Partnerships and Volunteering. This was followed by a highly successful community cohesion conference 'One Community' which was held at Hamara on 10th October 2008, and was supported through a Leeds Met public engagement grant. The event attracted over a hundred people from diverse communities and organisations across Leeds. A packed audience heard Hilary Benn, local MP and Patron of Hamara, talk about the importance of working in collaboration around community cohesion. Jane South, Centre for Health Promotion Research, presented the main evaluation results and set out the some challenges for the future. The proceedings concluded with the presentation of awards to a number of for local community champions who work to bring people together and make a real difference in the city of Leeds

Material properties of the heel fat pad across strain rates

The complex structural and material behaviour of the human heel fat pad determines the transmission of plantar loading to the lower limb across a wide range of loading scenarios; from locomotion to injurious incidents. The aim of this study was to quantify the hyper-viscoelastic material properties of the human heel fat pad across strains and strain rates. An inverse finite element (FE) optimisation algorithm was developed and used, in conjunction with quasi-static and dynamic tests performed to five cadaveric heel specimens, to derive specimen-specific and mean hyper-viscoelastic material models able to predict accurately the response of the tissue at compressive loading of strain rates up to 150 s−1. The mean behaviour was expressed by the quasi-linear viscoelastic (QLV) material formulation, combining the Yeoh material model (C10=0.1MPa, C30=7MPa, K=2GPa) and Prony׳s terms (A1=0.06, A2=0.77, A3=0.02 for τ1=1ms, τ2=10ms, τ3=10s). These new data help to understand better the functional anatomy and pathophysiology of the foot and ankle, develop biomimetic materials for tissue reconstruction, design of shoe, insole, and foot and ankle orthoses, and improve the predictive ability of computational models of the foot and ankle used to simulate daily activities or predict injuries at high rate injurious incidents such as road traffic accidents and underbody blast