Script Shrink

Hi, and thanks for all you do here! I was wondering if you could clarify what you mean in your master post on solitary confinement when you say a person would be "unable to interact in socially acceptable ways". I want to incorporate that into my character's story, but it seems to encompass a lot of things (or possibly I'm misunderstanding). Thanks again!

You’re notmisunderstanding at all; it does encompass a lot of things. I understand thatcan make it difficult to be sure what….’fits’ but I couldn’t think of a betterway to put it without either listing a lot of examples or leaving somethingout.

I suppose the simplestway to think about it is that social interaction is learned. It’s a skill weneed to practice in order to maintain it otherwise we lose the skill. That’swhat I was trying to describe, the loss of that skill.

That can manifest in a lot of different ways depending on theperson and their symptom profile.

Picking throughaccounts, both from victims and doctors who’ve treated them, is the best way tofind examples. I doubt I’m going to be able to give an absolute list of allpossibilities but here are some examples of the kind of thing I meant.

Nervousness

·        I think we can probably all relate to how difficult it can beto talk when you feel nervous or slightly anxious. Magnify that feeling andimagine it affecting every social interaction so that buying food has the kindof emotional/social cost of: giving a presentation in front of 200 people,asking someone out in front of your peers etc. Think about how easy it is toverbally trip up in those situations and say things that are ‘inappropriate’.Imagine that happening all the time.

Talking to themselves

·        Not really a symptom but it seems to be a subconscious strategysome people use to relieve some of their symptoms while confined. And it canbecome a more long term habit. Usually leads to some sort of social stigmatisation.

Sudden and irrationalanger

·        This doesn’t necessarily mean a predisposition to violencebut it makes smooth social interaction much harder. Think about how difficultit is to talk to someone when you’re really furious, even if they aren’t what you’re angry with. Nowadd to that a tendency to become suddenly furious during normal conversationsso that shouting at people, snapping, glaring etc are- well tempting, easy todo. It’s extremely common for victims to lackinsight into this behaviour: most of the time they don’t realise it’shappening or why they’re doing it.

Increased sensitivityto stimuli

·        Light, colour and noise especially can be unbearablyoverstimulating. If you’ve ever tried to hold a conversation while a thumpingpiece of music is giving you a headache you’ll have a good idea what this canbe like.

Confusion and confusedthought processes

·        This might manifest as repetitive conversation, going overthe same ground repeatedly. It might also show up as difficulty grasping ‘simple’concepts or difficulty following the logic of a conversation. The best metaphorI can think of is a language barrier. Think about how much more difficult communicationis when you’ve got an ‘OK’ grasp of a language but you aren’t fluent.Conversation with someone who isfluent tends to be slow, halting, contain a lot of requests to explain orrepeat things.

Withdrawal

·        Symptoms generally combine to make it harder for a victim ofsolitary confinement to interact with other people. A ‘normal’ conversation canrequire more thought and energy. And that in turn can lead to avoidance ofother people and social interaction.

Fantasising

·        One of the methods people use to cope with extremely longterm isolation is basically encouraging hallucinations or constructingridiculously detailed fantasy worlds. More pleasant examples I read include awoman who imagined flying over places she used to live and another person whosaw faces in the walls and had long philosophical debates with them. The peoplewho did this reported that it helped them deal with solitary, but they alsofelt it left them detached from reality. They weren’t sure what was real. Thehallucinations may stop on release, but that feeling doesn’t necessarily goaway. Combined with general anxiety and paranoia this can make interacting withpeople difficult. How do you respond in socially ‘correct’ ways when you’reunsure what’s real?

There’s more, ofcourse. A lot of it essentially boils down to the behaviour of mentally ill peopleand the way society tends to stigmatise their interactions.

Sometimes it’s about ‘normal’social interaction being that much more difficult. Sometimes it’s about overtdiscrimination. The sad fact is that if you are obviously physically stimmingin public (head banging, hand flapping etc-) people are more likely to treatyou poorly when you try to access services. And if you’re lucky enough not to show any obvious outward signsyou’re mentally ill there’s still no allowance for how difficult socialinteraction can be.

Depression and anxietyseem to come out as the most common symptoms of solitary confinement. Lookingup how they affect interaction and common ways people with these conditions ‘tripup’ socially could help, but be aware that it’s going to be a little differentfor a solitary survivor.

Even in the ‘best’circumstances we’re talking about something that exacerbates and causesmultiple mental health problems. Each of these problems by itself makes socialinteraction difficult. And those conditions then interact with each other.

Let’s take three commonsolitary effects as an example, anxiety, anger and sensitivity to stimuli.

Imagine a train stationwith a queue to get tickets. Potential things that could ‘trigger’ thischaracter include: the lighting, the close proximity of people in the queue,the noise of the station, the length of time they have to wait, the anxietyassociated with talking to a stranger, the anxiety associated with spendingmoney, fear of having their money stolen by one of the people close by-

And so forth.

If the character doesn’thave good methods to cope with their symptoms, or if for whatever reason theycan’t use them at that time- Well that character might be visibly agitated bythe time they reach the end of the queue. They might also be extremely angry.

Going through it likethat it’s easy to see how this character might be rude to the ticket seller.How they might snap or shout or swear. At the low end of response the character‘just’ looks like a complete asshole. At the high end they get thrown out ofthe station by security and don’t get that train ticket. They might also giveup and walk out when they’re halfway down the line if the stress is too much.

Our ability to interactsmoothly with others and ‘acceptably’ is nebulous and difficult to define. Itchanges depending on who we are and where we are.

One of the things I’vefound difficult with my own illness is judging when I’ve gone wrong. Because when I’m ill I usually lack theinsight to judge that correctly. I apologise for things other people didn’tnotice and fail to pick up on things other people have taken offense at. Fromwhat I’ve read that’s something a lot of people who’ve come out of solitaryexperience as well.

Generally speaking Ithink using this means considering potential points of difficult for yourcharacter and how you’d like these difficulties to affect the plot.

Going back to thattrain station example: whether the character can get on the train or not affects the story. But showing theirdifficulty just trying to get the ticket (and following through so that thesedifficulties are shown consistently) that’s establishing the character and howtheir mental health affects their daily life.

I hope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

So, I have a plotbunny where what happens to the MC functionally = partial(?) Solitary Confinement, but it's a little odd so I'd like your thoughts to see if I'm on a realistic track? MC (16yo girl) voluntarily agrees to "give her life" to a supernatural being to save her mother. However, classic Fairy Logic applies - she THINKS she'll die or disappear, but it's actually "you must devotedly guard this isolated magical place". What this amounts to is a situation I'll detail in more Asks...?(1/7)

2/7) So, MC thinks then that she’ll be obligated to do this forever/rest of her life, in order to save/protect her mother. She’s compassionate/strongly attached to her loved ones, so keeping BOTH her parents from suffering from what would happen to Mom is “worth it” to her (note: effectively there is also another “her” who is their kid. The parents don’t realize a “version” of her is doing this, so they’re blissfully ignorant too). This gives her a Purpose automatically, but it definitely (…)(3/7) changes what she thought she was resigned to. The (humanoid) entity she’s serving does spend time with her each day, including gentle touch, and leaves its familiars (two very friendly big cats) with her always, but it does leave her by herself for long periods (hours at a time), and she is forbidden from leaving without permission and even when one of her friends winds up finding the place, she’s not allowed to admit to them it’s really her/have proper contact with them. However (…)(4/7) Shortly after that, she is told that it was never intended to be permanent - it was for “a year and a day” - a test, which she’s just passed. So, she is abruptly told she can/should “go home”, when she thought she would be there indefinitely. She winds up with a version of her family who have lost their version of her. They know she’s an alt-universe version, but to them, she’s so similar to their kid, and anyway, “biologically her twin”, that they feel emotionally attached to her (…)(5/7) + they empathize with/feel responsible for her, especially as she’s still so young + they’re horrified to learn she was apparently “alone” (or at least without her loved ones/normal contact) for so long. They immediately accept her as their kid, and she can’t help but see them as the “same” people, so she’s drawn to the idea of being adopted/with them but, obviously the whole thing is kind of traumatic and weird for her - and this is what I’m wanting to run by you? So far, I have her (…)(6/7) struggling to adjust to the sudden shift in routines (they try to send her back to normal school, which feels “noisy” and “chaotic” to her; she puts up with it b/c she “has to”, but winds up “spacey and distracted” [dissociating] during some of her classes, and struggles with focus on academic material); being twitchy/hypervigilant (she reduces her anxiety by always plotting physical exits and practicing kata every morning/evening); having poor sleep/trouble falling asleep/nightmares (…)(7/7) + suffering anxiety/self-doubt, questioning whether these versions of her loved ones really accept her or if they just feel obligated to pretend/secretly internally reject her or worse, see her as a daily reminder of the girl they lost and feeling pain that they’re hiding from her. She also tries to pretend nothing is wrong when they ask how she’s doing out of worry, b/c she doesn’t want to “burden” anybody. Plausible - yes/no/maybe? (Also - sorry for the length of this, wow)

I actually really likelong asks. They tend to mean I have all the detail I need to give a proper,helpful answer. (They are a little intimidating but so satisfying once answered).Sorry it took so long to get this answered.

You’ve got a reallyinteresting scenario here and I think generally speaking it’s really plausible.

I always link to Shalev’sSourcebook when solitary comes up because it’s a brilliant free resource.

All of the thingsyou’ve hit on are possible symptoms of prolonged (ie over a week) solitaryconfinement. And they’re symptoms that can persist for a very long time afterrelease.

She should also showthese symptoms while she’s insolitary. You could write it asthough she had these symptoms but didn’t consciously notice most of them whileshe was acting as a guard. If she was spending most of her time alone or withanimals she might not necessarily have processed her dissociation, anxiety orhypervigilance as unusual.

People aren’t alwaysaware of the symptoms they have. Sometimes it takes interaction with others torealise that what’s happening isn’t ‘normal’. She may also have seen her symptoms as normal for her situation and expected them to stop instantly if she ever got out.

If the only human-likeinteraction she has is with a mythological creature (that from the sound ofthings doesn’t think or act like a human) well then she could potentially go ayear without realising these are symptoms. She’d feel them and she’d feel‘bad’, but she might not have the words to express them or think of them assomething that’s caused by her circumstances.

The interaction she haswith her ‘captor’ sounds as though it’s mostly positive and never violent. Thatwould help her hugely.

The main negative factor is her going throughthis thinking that she’ll be stuck there forever. It sounds as though she madepeace with that and accepted her fate. So suddenly being jerked out of thatsituation would be a helluva shock. And that would impact her symptoms.

Overall I think you’vegot a very solid scenario here, but there are two things I’d suggest adding toit.

The first is physicalsymptoms. Solitary does have a set of physical symptoms some of which may becaused by prison conditions but some are harder to pin down. The eye sightproblems Shalev lists may be causedby the conditions in the average solitary cell, which isn’t similar to her situation. But the headaches, joint aches and insomniaare harder to pin down. They could be applicable to her situation and thephysical symptoms of solitary confinement/isolation are rarely discussed infiction.

The second thing ismemory problems. Difficulty concentrating and learning are common in torturevictims and can persist for years after torture. I’d expect a noticeable dropin her grades if she returned to school. I’d also expect her to find learningand remembering information from her classes more difficult, and for that to befrustrating and perhaps stressful.

It’s the kind of thingthat feeds into a victim’s negative feelings about themselves, whether they‘belong’ in their community and their self worth. And since you seem to befocusing on that through her other mental health problems I think includingmemory problems could add to your story.

It sounds a lot likeyou’re exploring the social isolation victims can feel, or at least as thoughthe story could be heading there. I think that’s great because it’s notsomething we generally see in fiction. At least not from theinside. 

Instead social isolation tends to be something victims are blamed for:either because their symptoms are deemed socially unacceptable (and thereforetheir fault) or because they’re not ‘trying hard enough’ to interact. The wayyou’ve used her symptoms to show whyshe feels out of place and how that can lead to further isolation is reallyvery good. And probably true to a lot of people’s experiences.

Some further points youmight want to consider-

How well known is thissort of magic in your setting? If your character doesn’t have to constantlyexplain what happened to her and if this sort of situation happens often enoughthat she’s believed that will helpher recovery a lot. But it will probably also affect how the people around herinteract with her. Do kids at school pester her, point her out in thecorridors, or want her to recount every detail of her ordeal?

Would the kind ofsacrifice you character made be regarded as exceptional, or would it be anexpected/proper show of familial devotion?

Would the people aroundher make any kind of allowances for her behaviour/experience? For example ifshe finds school noisy and chaotic would the other children talk more quietlyif she asked? If they do makeallowances would she be grateful or resent them as a reminder that she’s‘different’ and doesn’t fit in.

Arethere any other people who might have experienced something similar? Could shecommunicate with them? Mental illness is usually pretty scary but it’s a LOTscarier if you can’t recognise what’s happening to you. Being able tocommunicate with someone who could tell her that the anxiety, the hypervigilance,the (possible) memory problems are normalwould help her immensely. It would put these symptoms into context and enableher to recognise them as symptomsrather than something fundamentally ‘broken’ about herself.

Beingable to exchange coping strategies can also be hugely beneficial.

This is also going tobe hugely stressful for her parents who are probably trying very hard tosupport her, but may not know exactly what to do. My own family has generallybeen pretty shit about mental health so I have rather more examples of thingsthat don’t help than things that do.

One ‘normal’ thing thatstands out which could potentially have a huge negative effect is how theyrespond to her falling grades and the way she’s struggling at school.Approaching it as though she’s not working hard or trying could be hugelydamaging and feed into her doubts and anxiety.

I hope that helps.Generally I think it sounds like you’re doing really well. :)

Disclaimer

I presume there's been research done on ways to keep people mentally healthy while in isolation for non-torture reasons, like I don't know, quarantine or a space program or doing science in remote areas. Do you know what terms or keywords one would search for about that?

There has been research; I’ll admit I haven’tread much of it yet.

I think the way spaceprograms and artic research etc chose people is essentially by self-selectingpeople who are particularly resistant to the effects of isolation.

They do exist. I thinkI mentioned lone sailors making round the world trips once before and how theyvery rarely experience the extreme effects of solitary, despite being confined to a smallspace alone for a very long period. I’ve also mentioned how political prisonersseem to be more resistant to solitary.

We know having a causeand a purpose helps people deal with the effects of solitary confinement, itmakes them more resistant to symptoms. And it gives us outliers like NelsonMandela who spent years in solitarywithout having a massive mental breakdown.

I know NASA (and Iassume other space agencies do this too) keeps potential candidates inisolation and confined spaces for prolonged periods to test how they’d dealwith conditions in space. Which is part of what I meant by it beingself-selecting. I don’t think they have a way to reduce the effects of solitaryso instead they look for people who areparticularly resistant to the effects.

Anyway here are somelinks I found that might serve as a starting point for research on voluntaryisolation.

Nasa:behavioural issues associated with confinement. This seems to concentrateon behaviour and psychological problems.

Polar Researchfacilities: living in isolation. This seems to be about design of livingspaces to try and minimise negative effects.

Thisisn’t a scientific paper but this BBC article on isolation is interesting andreadable.

Oh and while Iremember, if this feeds into an story set in an artic-like environment many ofthe symptoms described in the journals of early explorers may not have beenisolation but vitamin D poisoning. Artic animals store vitamin D in theirlivers, an adaption to the long periods of darkness during the winter. As aresult eating the livers of artic animals poisons humans and can cause symptomsincluding hallucinations, paranoia and aggression.

So treat any first handaccounts of isolation in the arctic particularly with care.

Disclaimer

The question about minimum human contact made me wonder if a person could suffer any of the effects if they saw people outside of their cell /constantly/ but was never interacted with. even with an animal(s), plenty of room to move, entertainment like books and things, decent or even high quality necessities (food, drink, bathroom, etc), but no one talking to them even even though (they think) they can be seen and heard by all people outside.

They would definitelysuffer the effects of solitary confinement.

It’s a question of when. The factors you mention might delaythe onset of symptoms for a few days (at best) but…it’s not getting rid of thecause.

Perhaps there are some real statistical outliers who wouldn’tshow any severe effects for as long as a month. But I’d expect most people inthe circumstances you describe to start showing some sort of symptoms within twoweeks, more likely within a week. Probably starting with depression.

The saying that a gilded cage is still a cage: that’s true.There isn’t really a substitute for human interaction. The antidote toloneliness is company not amenities.

I think the character you have, locked away in their lovelytower, would probably envy the people they see outside. If they talk to themand the people outside don’t respond they would feel rejected, ignored, castaside. I think that would feed depression, feelings of helplessness andpossibly rage. It would exacerbate the symptoms of solitary confinement.

A person in the conditions you describe would suffer.

Severely.

They would probably suffer severe effects in the long term(months to years) if they could interactin meaningful ways with the people outside.

Being confined is not good for human beings. Being isolatedis extremely bad for human beings.

Your scenario is extremely damaging. Your character wouldmanifest the symptoms of severe solitary confinement. Depression, helplessness,self harm, suicidal thoughts, aggression and hallucinations are all possible.There are also physical symptoms which include headaches, joint pain, insomniaand heart problems.

I suggest taking a look at Shalev’s Sourcebook onSolitary Confinement, particularly the second chapter which deals withsymptoms. Read a few of the survivors’ accounts, look at the symptoms Shalevlists and how common they are percentage wise. Decide based on that and whatworks for your character which symptoms they’d manifest. I would suggest aminimum of three severe symptoms, though what these are may change over time.

Keep in mind that if the character becomes suicidal all thoseluxuries in their tower can probably be used as weapons. As with the ask abouta character kept in solitary save for gladiatorial fights, this character wouldbe at high risk of self harm and suicide becausethey are surrounded by things they could use.

If they have no prospect of escape, no chance of release, norescue coming and no cause they’re locked up for then I think this character would try to kill themselves and Ithink that they would probably eventually be successful.

From the sound of your story that’s probably not what youwant to hear. I’d suggest drastically reducing the time the character is held,something in the range of 1-3 months would be survivable. There would still beserious long term consequences for the character in that time range and theywould still manifest severe symptoms.

I hope that helps.

Disclaimer

I read the solitary confinement post and that's helpful, but mine's a little different: he's put in a White Room, and he's 10 years old. He's there for 4/5 days. What mental effects would that have on him whole he's there and afterwards?

Thesolitary confinement sources I have are mostly from prisons or cases of seriousneglect. So the victims are either a lot older or considerably younger thanyour character (toddlers and babies). The prison sources are much better and they generally only go downto age 15-17 for children.

I imaginethat the effects on a younger child would be different.

The WhiteRoom scenario (I’m assuming this means sensory deprivation, a blank room withsound proofing and no outside stimulation-) is different again. The sources I have for that are unethical experimentsconducted on adults.

Mostadults would not be able to tolerate that sort of environment for a day. So 4or 5 days (am I reading that correctly or is it 4/5 of a day?) is aconsiderable period of time.

I thinkthe best I can do is tell you what an adult would probably go through and addthat studies of juvenile prisoners suggest the effects on children are much worse.

If thelights are dim or out (they usually are in sensory deprivationenvironments/experiments) the first thing people tend to do is sleep. Usuallyfor a few hours. Once they’re rested and they wake up things start to go downhill.

They veryquickly start to panic. In the most extreme sensory deprivation environments(no light, no sound, little movement/tactic sensation) people quickly start tohallucinate. Usually within hours.Hallucinations can be auditory, visual, tactile or a combination.

I thinkhe’d probably panic faster, but if there’s some lighting it would take longerthan the experimental studies before he started to hallucinate. That’s becauseof light level, not his age.

Overlonger periods (over 24 hours sometimes sooner), driven by panic, people tendto both self harm and attack the walls. They can become intensely violent.

If he’sthere four days I would expect him to be hallucinating and to have self-harmed(scratching and biting, as well as tearing off chunks of flesh arepossibilities) by the time he comes out. He might have had a complete mentalbreakdown and be suffering from some kind of psychosis and/or dissociativedisorder.

Even in ashorter time frame this would be an intensely traumatic experience for a child.He’s going to need a lot of concerted help over a period of years to recover,if he does at all.

He’slikely to spend a lot of time after he comes out terrified. He might be full onparanoid. He will probably be afraid of ending up in the room again and mightnot want to be left alone. He might alsofind it difficult to interact positively with people, be afraid of people or beaggressive towards them.

Thosethings can happen at the same time.

He mightcontinue to hallucinate after he’s out of the room. This doesn’t always happenbut in some cases it continues for the rest of a person’s life.

Selfmutilation at least usually stops immediately on release.

He mightfind normal sensory stimulation difficult to bear. Lights might be too bright,noises too loud. He might want to do ‘normal’ things but find they overwhelmhim, making him anxious, afraid and possibly violent.

Basically-this kid is going to have a lot of long term problems.

You mightwant to consult ScriptShrink’s blog and look through some tags on treatingchildhood abuse/neglect to get a better idea of how to handle the aftermathwith this character.

(The people to look up for sensory deprivation experiments are John Lilly and the notorious Donald Hebb.)

Disclaimer

I want to say your blog is amazing. I apologize if this is more ScriptShrink's thing; from what I've researched the effects of this are more mental than physical. My book is set in the middle ages, and characters are thrown into a dungeon, ie solitary confinement. They are around 19, so I assume they have developed nessescary social skills, so it might not set back growth as much. What effects does solitary confinement have in short term, a month or less? How would he react when rescued? Thanks!

Aww thankyou. :)

Forstarters a month of solitary confinement isnot short term. Short term solitary confinement is probably around 3-5 days.Negative effects are apparent after 10days in all studies and get worse as it goes on.

Resultsof tests using volunteers vary. People who are told how long they’re likely tobe in solitary appear able to endure it with fewer negative effects. A 1964study (Zukerman) showed two thirds of volunteers were willing to stay isolated for3-14 days. However another study in 1959(Smith and Lewty) using a silent roomgave an average stay of 29 hours for men and 48 hours for women. The longest time was 4 days.

There aresome very good online resources onsolitary confinement. Shalev’s2008 sourcebook is available for free here. P S Smith’s2006 review article is available for a small fee here. I found them bothvery helpful.

I’llsummarise the main points.

Physical Effects

Headaches(over 80%)

Appetiteloss

Weightloss

Heartpalpitations (over 50%)

Visualdisturbances

Insomnia(over 80%)

Lethargy(over 80%)

Dizziness(over 50%)

Jointpain

Shaking

Psychological Effects

Depersonalisation

Hallucinations(41%)

Delusions

Depression(77%)

Withdrawal

Apathy

Irrationalanger

Poorimpulse control

Memoryproblems

Difficultyconcentrating and thinking

Confusion(over 80%)

Anxiety(91%)

Nightmares(over 50%)

Paranoia

Psychosis

Self harm

Suicidalinclinations/actions

Thepercentages are all from one study the Shalev quotes but it’s worth mentioningthat other studies in his report quoted hallucinations in 100% of cases studied.

Theeffects aren’t in any particular order and your character wouldn’t necessarilysuffer all of them. In a prison context self harm, irrational anger andincreased violence all seem to be quite common.

Shalev’ssourcebook is peppered with accounts from prisoners and I personally found itreally helpful for my writing. Thiscampaign group also has some personal accounts, which might be helpful.

As forhow he’d respond to rescue-

In amonth it’s unlikely he’d be suffering from the most extreme effects. Heprobably wouldn’t be catatonic, attack the rescuer or completely unable to tellfantasy from reality.

Some ofhis response is also going to depend on which symptoms you think he should show.The last time I wrote solitary confinement I used a mixture of symptoms thatworked with the narrative and those that were most common. I made a point ofstressing some of the physical effects since they’re less well known.

He’dalmost certainly be dazed and confused. The sudden rush of sensory input mightmake his headaches worse and give him vertigo, the same way it would with anormal migraine. He’s also likely to be nervous, skittish and jumpy.

Theredoesn’t seem to be a clear consensus on which (if any) symptoms persist and howlong in solitary it takes for that to start being a major risk. I’d suggestthat it would be unusual for him to have the most extreme symptoms persistingafter, say, a month’s recovery. But he might well still be depressed, anxiousand have nightmares.

I think areasonable response would be for him to follow his rescuers lead at first. Hemight be too out of it to think of anything else to do and he might also thinkit’s a hallucination or fantasy. In that case later he’d have questions for his rescuer.

He’d needsome time to recover, which in this case generally seems to mean a few quietdays getting used to being in the world again. Being able to make his owndecisions about his life is probably going to be incredibly important to him.

Hopefullythat’s given you an idea of the sort of condition he’ll be in and what he’sbeen through. Let me know if you’ve got any further questions. :)

Disclaimer

What kind of torture methods would be used to change one's way of thinking? Like if you want to "reprogram" them to act differently then they normally do, or to trick them into thinking that they enjoy something when they actually don't (like tricking someone into becoming a serial killer) or say a certain phrase when faced with a certain situation? I need this for a book I'm writing and if you know the answer, it would really help.

I cancategorically and absolutely say that this is impossible.

Americaninstitutions actually sunk a fair amount of money into psychological‘treatments’ designed to do exactly this sort of thing. None of them worked.

There isno torture or psychological technique that can ‘reprogram’ a person or ‘force’them to respond a certain way to stimulus.

It doesnot exist.

There are types of torture that seem to bemore likely to give the victims mental health problems. But how those problemsmanifest and what exactly affects each individual is not something a torturercan control. It’s very much down to chance.

Sometortures that are more likely to cause serious mental health problems aresolitary confinement, sensory deprivation, long term sleep deprivation andabuses aimed at undermining the victim’s identity. None of these are guaranteedto cause mental illness and some people are remarkably resistant to them.Nelson Mandela survived extremely long periods of solitary confinement withlittle ill-effect, but he is the exception rather than the rule.

Atorturer might be able to give theirvictim PTSD, but what you’re asking is like trying to control what specificflashbacks the victim gets and when those flashbacks happen. It is, so far aswe know, not just unlikely but impossible.

Similarlyyou can’t trick a person into believing they enjoy something they don’t.

You can trick a person into believing theycommitted a crime when they didn’t and many false confessions are gained inthis way.

So, touse your serial killer example: your character could be tricked into believingthey murdered someone when they did not. But your character couldn’t be forcedby torture to become a serial killer. They also couldn’t be tortured intobelieving they enjoy killing if that’s not the case.

It’s alittle like expecting you can make someone like apples by hitting them on thehead. I’m sure if you hit them enough they might say they like apples to make you stop, but that’s not the same thingas actually suddenly liking apples.

Considerwhy it’s important to your story that the character is ‘reprogrammed’ ratherthan, for example, acting because someone they care about is threatened orbecause they believe that refusing to do what their torturers want would getthem killed. Why can’t your character be acting under duress? Why do they have to be ‘reprogrammed’?

I’m notsure what else to suggest for your story. Thisis something that torture just doesn’t do and I’d encourage you to reconsiderusing this trope. It’s got no basis in reality and it’s dangerous, it’s the sort of narrative device that getsused to justify torture.

Disclaimer