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Power

Power and Psychology - The East German secret police

The secret police of East Germany, known as the Stasi, adopted a number of psychological torture methods that have only officially been recognised by the German Society for Psychology very recently. This method of ‘white torture’ is in a sense untraceable in that the signs of it are not immediately obvious unlike physical torture methods. The practices were taught at the Department of Operative Psychology at the Academy of the Ministry for State Security - the university for Stasi. This ‘Operative Psychology’ is also referred to as ‘’Zersetzung’’ which means decomposition, a term more commonly used in chemistry and biology; the method involved heavy manipulation to mental destabilise and was based on the idea that individuals are not free in their cognitions and emotions. A sense of trust was developed between the interrogator, known as the ‘informal collaborator’, and the person being interrogated with a specific distinction that on one side there is complete trust whereas on the other it is more the illusion of trust. On acquisition of this trust kompromat (compromising material) specific to an individual would be used as a form of blackmail. It is suggested that up to 10,000 ‘’Zersetzung’’ measures were implemented with 5,000 people developing serious mental health issues in consequence.

As a misuse of power, psychological manipulation is often difficult to recognise; there are no physical signs and due to the interpretivistic nature of mental health studies it cannot be easily proved that there is an indisputable connection between the experience of ‘’Zersetzung’’ techniques and the development of neuroticism.

Many ethical concerns are raised with the study of psychology due to the power of methods developed by it.