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Psychological Sequelae of Torture

A Descriptive Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Stuart Turner  and
Caroline Gorst-Unsworth
Stuart Turner*
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine, Wolfson Building, Middlesex Hospital, London W1N 8AA, and Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture
Caroline Gorst-Unsworth
Affiliation:
Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, 96–98 Grafton Road, London NW5 3EJ, and University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
*
∗Correspondence
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Extract

Torture is one of the most important preventable causes of psychological morbidity. Amnesty International (1987) has reported the use of “brutal torture and ill-treatment” in over 90 countries in the 1980s. In some countries torture has been applied on such a widespread scale and in such an arbitrary manner that whole populations are affected. In Kampuchea under the Pol Pot regime, for example, genocide and torture took place on a massive scale; indeed, merely wearing spectacles became for many a capital offence (Amnesty International, 1983). Similar reports abound from many other countries and regions.

Type
Annotation
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 157 , Issue 4 , October 1990 , pp. 475 - 480
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990 

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