Psychological assistance is designed to help victims of torture to overcome the psychological trauma that they have experienced. This type of assistance is supported by various kinds of therapies. Individual therapy , whether based on clinical, psychoanalytical, behavioural or other care, is essentially designed to enable the victim to step back from the trauma, learn to identify and accept it and gradually become reintegrated into society and/or the working world. Psychiatric support, together with drug treatment, is frequently offered to patients suffering emotional collapse. Psychologists and psychiatrists are quite often specialists in the treatment of torture victims and post-traumatic stress management. That expertise enables them to gain the victims' trust and to respond appropriately to their particular symptoms. Alongside these forms of individual therapy, many organizations also offer family or group therapy on a case-by-case basis. Aside from their significant cathartic effect, by allowing victims to share their painful experiences with other people with a similar history, such therapies also serve a social purpose, enabling the victim to restore ties that are quite often severed by an array of clinical symptoms caused by being tortured.

One important aspect of any therapeutic work with victims of torture is that it is generally a long-term undertaking. Indeed, the psychological aftermath of the trauma continues to affect torture victims throughout their lives. A torture victim is never cured psychologically, however good the treatment he/she receives. It is more appropriate to speak of improving the victim's condition through the means that he/she is given to cope with the trauma and be able to live with it.