Date: August 1, 2004
Contact: David Partenheimer
Public Affairs Office
(202) 336-5706 (until 7/24)
(808) 943-5774(between 7/28-8/1)

TORTURE VICTIMS MORE RESILIENT THAN OTHER TRAUMA VICTIMS, BUT CUMULATIVE EFFECTS TAKE THEIR TOLL, ACCORDING TO NEW RESEARCH

HONOLULU — Torture survivors are often more resilient and tolerant to adversity than victims of other traumatic experiences, according to new research involving torture victims who have immigrated to the United States. However, when trauma accumulates beyond the person’s threshold of resilience, an added mild or moderate trauma can become “the last straw that broke the camel’s back,” causing all previous trauma to come to the forefront. The research will be presented at the 112th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) in Honolulu.

Psychologist Ibrahim A. Kira, Ph.D., of the ACCESS Community Mental Health and Research Center in Dearborn, Michigan conducted two studies. The first study involved 286 tortured and non-tortured people from Iraq and other countries who sought services from ACCESS’ Michigan clinic in 2002. The other study involved a community sample (those not seeking treatment) of 365 Iraqi refugees living in Michigan, of which 40 percent had experienced torture before coming to the United States. Participants in both studies answered survey questions about torture and other trauma experiences, how they coped with the trauma and how they faired on other mental health measures. All those in the Iraqi refugee sample suffered from multiple traumas, both before coming to the

United States, and after arriving in the U.S. as they tried to learn a new language and adapt to a new culture. Homeland experiences of trauma included experiences from various wars in the 1980’s and 1990’s, including the first Gulf War, and torture in Iraqi prisons.

Results of the studies show that those who had experienced torture – while less healthy physically – had stronger post-traumatic positive growth attitudes than their refugee counterparts, were less anxious, had less violent attitudes toward women and children, were less traditional in parenting attitudes, felt more supported and were more socio-culturally adjusted. “Tortured individuals mostly attribute their torture to collective causes or belief system or simply to their collective identity of belonging and the collective cause they fight for that makes them more resilient and tolerant to adversity,” explains Dr. Kira. “Torture can prime their collective identity and their collective belief system that buffers against fear of death and fear of elimination or annihilation of their identity or groups. This kind of buffer does not exist in most of the other kinds of traumas,” he adds.

However, results of the studies indicate that under the effects of cumulative trauma, torture can increase the severity of symptoms, especially those related to depressive and psychosis related disorders. “The resilient person can survive severe traumas. But when trauma accumulates beyond the thresholds of his or her resilience, an added potentially mild or moderate trauma is the final straw that broke the camel’s back,” says Dr. Kira. “When he or she collapses, the collapse brings all previous traumas into the forefront. At this point, he or she presents more severe symptoms.”

Traditional definitions of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) do a poor job of explaining how torture affects people, according to the study. “Torture is a complex cumulative trauma that can yield, in the vulnerable, complex effects that may go beyond the PTSD diagnosis,” says Dr. Kira. “Results of the current
research support a cumulative trauma disorder (CTD) model in which accumulated trauma from before, during and after torture predicts both the positive and negative symptoms of torture.”

Presentation: “The Effects of Torture: Two Studies," Ibrahim A. Kira, Ph.D., ACCESS Community Mental Health and Research Center; Session 5086, 10:00 - 10:50 AM, Sunday, August 1, Hilton Hawaiian Village Beach Resort and Spa, Seventh Floor – Mid-Pacific Conference Center, South Pacific Ballroom II.

Full text of this article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office.

Reporters: Dr. Ibrahim Kira can be reached before and after the convention at (313) 945-8132 or by Email.

The American Psychological Association (APA), in Washington, DC, is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States and is the world’s largest association of psychologists. APA’s membership includes more than 150,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 53 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance psychology as a science, as a profession and as a means of promoting health, education and human welfare.

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