Table 2.

Analysis of function: Nuances of severity and response characterization among sample of 11 participants.

Participant	Torture Classification	Perceived Severity*	Reference to Severity	Characterization
Control
14	Primary torture	Very negative	Sometimes they come and burn the house or village down.	Out of your control/Acts of violence
54	War Trauma	Very negative	You’re hiding in the jungle. If they catch you they will kill you. [Or] They would take people half way, then leave them and tell them to walk back on their own. But people didn’t know the way.	Out of your control/Acts of violence
Surrender
16	Primary torture	Very negative	If you kill me, it would be better for everybody.	Surrender
76	Primary torture	Very negative	People can’t go back and do things anymore. They Burmese Army is still there.	Surrender
21	War trauma	Very negative	The Burmese Army is trying to kill you while your dad is doing that.	Surrender
Ordering
32	Primary torture	Very negative	The worst experience anyone could have. You don’t sleep well, you don’t eat well. You have nowhere to stay.	Sorting/ranking
35	Primary torture	Very negative	I can’t even explain how scary that was. I was in fear. Running with them. You don’t have food. You’re starving out there.	Sorting/ranking
69	Primary torture	Very negative	It was the worst experience. I was starving.	Sorting/ranking
Defined by choices
44	Secondary torture	Very negative	It was a really terrible experience. Moving to Thailand helped a little bit. Moving to America made it easier. You have to pay bills but you don’t worry about them coming to kill you.	Tradeoff/Hard choices
52	War Trauma	Very negative	I remember running away, hiding. If people say they are coming and we have time, then we run away. If we don’t have time, we stay.	Tradeoff/Hard choices
Separate from consciousness
80	Primary torture	Very negative	With my dad, it is really hard to talk about.	Avoidance

^*Perceived severity was measured with a 5-pt Likert type response scale ranging from 1 (very positive) to 5 (very negative).