Why People Torture and Abuse
Channel: Sam Vaknin's Musings
Date: 2012-01-25

People who find themselves caught up in anomic states -- for instance, soldiers in war or incarcerated inmates -- tend to feel helpless and alienated. They experience a partial or total loss of control. They have been rendered vulnerable, powerless, and defenseless by events and circumstances beyond their influence.

Torture amounts to exerting an absolute and all-pervasive domination of the victim's existence. It is a coping strategy employed by torturers who wish to reassert control over their lives and, thus, to re-establish their mastery and superiority. By subjugating the tortured -- they regain their self-confidence and regulate their sense of self-worth.

Other tormentors channel their negative emotions -- pent up aggression, humiliation, rage, envy, diffuse hatred -- and displace them. The victim becomes a symbol of everything that's wrong in the torturer's life and the situation he finds himself caught in. The act of torture amounts to misplaced and violent venting.