PART B – Interview – ethical and clinical considerations For all these and other similar perceptions, the subject may experience distress, fear, mistrust, forced submission, anger, rage, shame, worry or suspicion, or he/she may become too trusting and expectant. (See § 265 and § 268 in the Istanbul Protocol.) 15 expert on trauma or the last hope of the survivor • Feelings of insecurity • Feelings of guilt • Excessive rage toward torturers and persecutors or toward the individual. During the interview, all these factors may lead the evaluator: 2. COUNTER-TRANSFERENCE “[...]The clinician’s emotional response to the torture survivor, known as countertransference, may affect the psychological evaluation” (Istanbul Protocol, § 265). If a clinician is unaware of counter-transference, it may cause some additional problems, barriers during the interviews and also may diminish the clinician’s effectivity and ability to evaluate and document the consequences of torture. Common counter-transference reactions include: • Avoidance, withdrawal, defensive indifference • Disillusionment, helplessness, hopelessness and over-identification • Omnipotence and grandiosity in the form of feeling like a saviour, the great • to underestimate the severity of the consequences of torture • to forget some details • to have ungrounded doubts about the truth of the alleged torture • to fail to establish needed empathic approach • to experience difficulty in maintaining objectivity • to experience over-identification with the torture survivor • not to be able to obtain the history • not to be able to formulate the case and to prepare the report on time and properly. Torture can also lead to vicarious traumatisation, secondary traumatization and/or burn-out reactions on the side of the interviewer. (See §§ 148-149 and §§ 263-273 in the Istanbul Protocol and Bustos, 1990; Herman, 1992; Smith et al., 1996; Steele et al., 2001 ) VIII. FACTORS LEADING TO INCONSISTENCIES AND DIFFICULTIES IN RECALLING AND RECOUNTING THE STORY OF TORTURE Torture survivors may have difficulties in recalling and recounting the specific details of the torture experience and other parts of the history for several important reasons. There might also be other factors which make it difficult to obtain sufficient information during an interview. Impaired attention and memory disorders are part of PTSD, but these symptoms may also be present in other disorders such as depression, anxiety, brain injury or electrolyte imbalance. Memory impairment might also be a symptom of dissociation, which often can be a protective coping strategy in