Public Employee Press

Program puts torture survivors on the road to recovery

Carol Pepper helps gay and lesbian victims

Psychologist Carol Pepper, a 10-year veteran of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, has specialized in working with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims of torture.

The group is often targeted by paramilitary organizations and the police because of the stigma of homosexuality and HIV/AIDS, according to. Pepper, who has treated many of the victims in her private practice.

While a government itself might not officially sanction persecution, its failure to intervene gives a green light to the abuse, Pepper said in an interview with Public Employee Press.

“In many countries, the government doesn’t actively prosecute these cases, so paramilitary groups, the police and vigilantes can go after these people,” she said.

Victims of torture undergoing therapy are generally treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, a severe anxiety brought on by a horrific experience involving physical or psychological pain or the threat of a violent assault. By linking the abuse to sexual orientation, interrogators compound the trauma that afflicts lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims.

“It’s similar to religious persecution or the experience of Jews during the Holocaust,” Pepper said. “You are put under tremendous stress when your identify is targeted. You are being signaled out for a personal quality. You are being told you must change.”

Pepper discussed her work with 18 gay men in a 2005 article in Contemporary Psychoanalysis. All told, over the years, she has worked with nearly 150 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender patients from 27 countries.

Imprisonment and execution
Besides being tortured, the victims suffered other abuses, such as being uprooted from their families, kicked out of their towns or denied access to education.

In some countries, homosexuality is illegal. So gays and lesbians can be imprisoned and even executed.

The gay men treated by Pepper reflect how extensive torture and oppression are in the world as they came from Latin America, the Caribbean, South Asia, the Pacific Rim and Eastern Europe. Their ages ranged from 21 to 45.

The men experienced torture and persecution that included kidnappings, harsh interrogations, beatings, oral and anal rape, death threats, arrest, intimidation and gay bashing.

Scarred psychologically, the men suffered from such maladies as recurring nightmares, anxiety, mistrust of other people, sleeplessness, sexual dysfunction, a lack of energy, a loss of hope in the future and a deficit in concentration, attention and memory. The therapy helps the patients control their stress so they experience fewer nightmares and flashbacks, become calmer and sleep better.

Pepper seeks to integrate psychotherapy with the political asylum process. She regards her help with asylum as a natural extension of her work as a therapist.

Since 1994, the United States has granted asylum to people who can show they have a reasonable fear that they will be subject to persecution for their sexual orientation or HIV status if they return to their country.

Pepper appeals to judges to allow patients to hold off from the potential trauma of testifying in court before learning to better control their feelings and anxiety. And she works with attorneys so that the psychotherapy helps build the case for asylum.

When she started out, Pepper, who is fluent in Spanish, devoted much of her time to helping patients from Latin America cope with the trauma of being tortured under authoritarian regimes and ­assisting them to apply for political asylum.

Today, she primarily supervises pre-doctoral students and recent graduates of psychology at the Bellevue program. An ordained minister, Pepper is also a registered nurse, and she has worked as a volunteer with the Red Cross and other groups in Central America.