PTSD is torture.
The most obvious thing to say about the relationship between torture and severe psychic trauma is that psychic trauma is often the result of being tortured. That’s true, but the relationship is closer than that. Severe psychic trauma is torture. PTSD has many of the same features as the pain intentionally inflicted by torture. (PTSD is a narrower category than severe trauma. I use PTSD only for convenience, not as a diagnostic category.) In other words, the relationship between torture and PTSD is not simply sequential. In many respects, PTSD is torture.
My authority for the pain of torture is the well known work by Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of a World. All page references are to this work unless otherwise noted. Others have written thoughtful works on torture, including Jean Améry, who was himself tortured. I have written about Améry elsewhere (Trauma and Forgiveness), but Scarry’s description of the experience of torture seems more relevant.
