Learned helplessness in the context of the CIA enhanced interrogation program refers to a deliberately induced psychological state in which a prisoner is broken to the point of total compliance. John Kiriakou described the concept as the CIA’s own framing for the purpose of techniques like waterboarding: “The idea is to instill the feeling of learned helplessness in the prisoner so that the prisoner is so terrified of you, so terrified of what you can do to him, that he’ll whimper as soon as you walk into the room and just confess everything that you want him to confess to.”[1]
Kiriakou identified the fundamental flaw in this doctrine: the confessions produced are calibrated to what the prisoner believes the interrogator wants to hear, not to what is actually true: “The prisoner will tell you what he thinks you want to know just to get you to stop torturing him.” He cited American POWs in North Vietnam who, under torture, recited sports rosters and invented names rather than provide real intelligence.[2]