ABSTRACT
This chapter considers a practical challenge facing some applied psychologists when they are asked to assess people who report being tortured. In particular it illuminates the distinction between the actual and the empirical from critical realism. A useful social psychological process for understanding torture is that of dehumanisation or ‘infrahumanization’. Some psychologists are involved in the assessment of asylum seekers who report being tortured. The retroductive emphasis of case formulation in psychology is consistent with that of critical realism and in the case of considering torture, it is also consistent with forensic investigation in principle. Jon Cohen regretted that position when his own report on torture appeared in Israel and it was dismissed using his very own constructivist arguments. In the case of fairly assessing the likely truthfulness of a witness to a reported crime and the coherence of their narrative then some values are more facilitative than others.
