TOK- Sensory
Perception
Lesson 2- Shock Therapy (Chapter 2, The Shock
Doctrine by Naomi Klein

CIA Funded Project
• In the late 1950s the CIA funded a
psychological experiment conducted by a
Canadian psychiatrist by the name of Ewen
Cameron at the Allan Memorial Institute .
• MKUltra (CIA secret experiment) was a
project designed to see how far the human
mind could be wiped clean before
‘reconstruction.’

Cameron’s Methods
• ‘Patients’ unaware they are ‘human guinea
pigs’
• Dramatically increased dosages of
elctroshock
• Addition of mind-altering drugs like LSD &
PCP
• Sensory deprivation
• Addition of drug curare (induces paralysis)

Sensory Deprivation
• Soundproof room & white noise
• No lights and ‘patients’ forced to wear
goggles
• The use of rubber eardrums
• The use of cardboard tubing on the hands
and arms thereby starving the sense of
touch

...subsequently
• Cameron’s ‘patients’ subsequently suffered
from schizophrenia, hallucinations, intense
anxiety and a loss of touch with reality.

Kubark
• The CIA produced a handbook entitled
‘Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation’
based strongly on Cameron’s research
methods
• These methods are designed as forms of
torture aimed at eliciting information from
subjects but are also illegal! (Geneva
Conventions)

Kubark Sensory
Deprivation
• Keeping windows high in wall to limit light
• Breaking the subject’s sense of space and
time continuum, such as serving soup at
breakfast to entirely disrupt any sense of
routine which relates to the real world.
• This resulted in regression leading to
childish behaviour

Wiping the slate clean
• Known as ‘erasing structured personalities’
• In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld, empowered by
George W Bush, decreed that prisoners
captured in Afghanistan were not covered
by the Geneva Conventions because they
were ‘enemy combatants,’ not POW’s
• The U.S. government was now free to use
the techniques of the 50s, without fear of
prosecution.

Guantanamo Bay
• Cameron’s methods have been employed in
Guantanamo Bay
• After periods of isolation and ‘sensory
deprivation,’ the senses are then
bombarded with barking dogs, strobe lights
and endless tape loops of babies crying
• A declassified letter from the FBI to the
Pentagon described a prisoner who was
‘talking to nonexistent people, reported
hearing voices and in extreme regression.’

Conclusions
• Cameron’s techniques were exceptional
ways of destroying the established
personality and memories of individuals.
• He had hoped to also reconstruct new
personalities but left his ‘patients’ smashed,
confused with fragmented memories and
flashbacks galore.

TOK Questions
• What do we need to know about Naomi
Klein in order to assess her work? Does
she have a political agenda?
• Do Cameron’s techniques conflict ethically
with the ‘Hippocratic Oath?’
• Why do you think ‘sensory deprivation’
was so important to this process?
• What do YOU think. Is this form of torture
appropriate for use with ‘enemy
combatants?’