{"id":51108,"date":"2014-12-15T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-15T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=51108"},"modified":"2017-05-28T11:09:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T10:09:00","slug":"learned-helplessness-the-chilling-psychological-concept-behind-the-cias-interrogation-methods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/12\/learned-helplessness-the-chilling-psychological-concept-behind-the-cias-interrogation-methods\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Learned Helplessness\u2019: The Chilling Psychological Concept behind the CIA\u2019s Interrogation Methods"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Abu<\/a>

Abu Zubaydah. (AP Photo\/U.S. Central Command, File)<\/p><\/div>\n

[The qualification ‘torture’ is not used one single time in this piece. –TMS editor]<\/em><\/p>\n

11 Dec 2014 – <\/em>Of all the\u00a0harrowing accounts and chilling examples in the U.S. Senate report on CIA interrogation practices, among the most striking was that of Abu Zubaydah.<\/a>\u00a0One of the first detainees in the war on terror, he was also one of the most vital. Lying in a bed in Thailand, he told FBI interrogators all about Khalid Sheik Mohammed \u2014 the mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks.<\/p>\n

But then the CIA showed up. Its team was accompanied by a psychologist. And he wanted to conduct a test that would get \u201cZubaydah to reveal everything by severing his sense of personality and scaring him almost to death,\u201d reported Vanity Fair in 2007 in a groundbreaking\u00a0story<\/a>.\u00a0So interrogators\u00a0built a coffin and stuffed him inside it, the Senate report said, for 300 hours<\/a>. He was waterboarded 83 times in\u00a017 days. He was absolutely broken by the procedures \u2014 but not one significant plot was foiled as a result of his confessions.<\/p>\n

Despite the failure of the interrogation methods, the psychological concept guiding them \u2014 called \u201clearned helplessness\u201d \u2014 lived on. With the guidance of two psychologists on contract to the CIA for $1,800 per day<\/a>, the technique of stripping someone of their will would be applied to numerous additional prisoners in the coming years. Media reports have<\/a> named<\/a> the two psychologists: Jim\u00a0Mitchell and Bruce\u00a0Jessen, who in all earned $81 million in payment. They derived their approach from a well-known 1967 research paper<\/a> by University of Pennsylvania psychologists.<\/p>\n

The concept:\u00a0\u201cexposing organisms to aversive events which they cannot control,\u201d according to a later paper<\/a> in the Journal of Experimental Psychology co-authored by Martin E. Seligman, who studied what happens\u00a0when someone loses control over their life. One definition of the result<\/a>:\u00a0\u201can apathetic attitude stemming from the conviction that one\u2019s actions do not have the power to affect one\u2019s situation.\u201d But it\u2019s also more than that.\u00a0Learned helplessness occurs when a subject is so broken he will not even attempt escape if the opportunity presents itself.<\/p>\n

The original tests were designed for dogs as part of a search for treatment of depression in humans. Seligman subjected two groups of dogs to electric shocks. One had an escape: If they moved to one area, they could stop the shocks. The other had none, and soon realized that they no matter what they did, their torment would continue. The result \u201cseemed related to the concept of learned \u2018helplessness\u2019 or \u2018hopelessness,\u2019\u201d the paper said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Decades later, the psychologist Mitchell became\u00a0enamored with the idea. And in 2001, he approached Seligman at a small gathering at Seligman\u2019s house, the New York Times reported. Mitchell was so effusive in his praise of \u201clearned helplessness\u201d that Seligman recalled it years later. He even told his wife of the strange encounter that night. But Seligman was unaware of the uses to which it would be put.<\/p>\n

When he later learned through media accounts how it was employed\u2013 for enhanced interrogation\u2013he issued a statement:<\/a>\u00a0\u201cI am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression, may have been used for such bad purposes.\u201d<\/p>\n

That may have been because he knew what the principle could do to a distressed person, as mentioned in later\u00a0accounts<\/a> of the treatment. In people, it \u201cdisrupts normal development and learning and leads to emotional disturbances, especially depression.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is exactly what appeared to happen to Abu Zabaydah. With the backing of the CIA, he was\u00a0stripped and exposed to loud rock music. Then, after weeks of psychological interrogation, the Senate report said Zabaydah\u00a0became<\/a> \u201ccompliant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the interrogator \u2018raised his eyebrow,\u2019 without instructions, Abu Zabaydah \u2018slowly walked on his own to the water table and sat down,\u2019\u201d one account\u00a0said. \u201c\u2026 When the interrogator snapped his fingers twice, Abu Zabaydah would lie flat on the waterboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had been trained. Like\u00a0one\u00a0of Seligman\u2019s dogs.<\/p>\n

Now, reached for comment by Bloomberg News<\/a>, Mitchell would not confirm or deny his role. But he took issue with the report\u2019s description of the treatment. The psychologist said the Senate report \u201ccherry picks things\u201d and others are taken out of context: \u201cIt looks like what they did was get some facts wrong. It is easy looking back in hindsight and say you could have done it better.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear from his comment whether he was referring to the efficacy of \u201clearned helplessness\u201d in exposing secrets \u2014 or the decision to use it at all. He declined to elaborate.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 washingtonpost.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[The qualification ‘torture’ is not used one single time in this piece. –TMS editor] The concept: \u201cexposing organisms to aversive events which they cannot control,\u201d according to a later paper in the Journal of Experimental Psychology co-authored by Martin E. Seligman. Learned helplessness occurs when a subject is so broken he will not even attempt escape if the opportunity presents itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,242,145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anglo-america","category-exposures","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51108\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}