By:Â Kevin Pauley
Christopher Knight aka the North Pond Hermit went decades with no human contact with little to no effect cognitively speaking. Thomas Silverstein has been in solitary confinement for decades and, though he suffers from the experience, still seems to be in his right mind, as does Albert Woodfox.Â
I’ve been thinking recently about the possible ramifications of studying the survival skills of prisoners who have been placed in solitary for long periods of time. “Solitary” is a terrible thing for humans and the vast majority of prisoners break down physically and mentally in a relatively short time frame. The problem is that no study shows that this actually reforms them. Yet their horrible experience gives us a glimpse into the very basics of what is required for psychological health.Â
I’ve spent the last several weeks studying fifty examples of prisoners who successfully survived long periods in solitary confinement (some for decades). Their temperaments, personalities, IQs, and education were all over the map, so those were not what made the difference. I found in this admittedly small sampling that there were four major techniques that they all employed in some manner.
In order to not let their body and mind disintegrate, humans need to impose order and structure on every aspect of their lives. To counter the growing helplessness that solitary confinement brings, the prisoners need to build in ways to demonstrate the control they still have. In chronological order, or from easiest to hardest, the four steps are:
Take control of your space. Designate areas. Keep it as clean and organized as possible.
Take control of your time. Find ways to track time. Watch the sun and create a clock. Track the number of days; try to maintain a calendar. Establish daily routines. Develop a system.
Take control of your body. Keep clean. File down your nails. Exercise daily at the same time. Try to condition your body using what’s around you. Practice tai chi or perform katas.
Take control of your mind. The hippocampus of people who struggle with depression over a long period of time dramatically shrinks. The effect is likely the same for people in long term confined isolation. The hippocampus is critical to memory, geographic orientation, cognition and decision-making. So anything you can do to practice each of these will help long term. Find solace in routine. Develop equanimity. Don’t let yourself go to any emotional extreme. Meditate. Talk to yourself out loud if the silence is getting to you. Sing; either old songs you know or create some new ones. Pray out loud. Pretend to go places in your mind. One of the results of a shrinking hippocampus is an inability to deal with broader spaces or open terrain. If you can spend time in broad open places, even just in your mind, the hippocampus is still mildly stimulated and the effect can be delayed. Design and build things in your mind. Try to build lists (states, capitols, candy bars, cars etc.) Ask for photos of places you can “go” to mentally. Write and research if you can. Read voraciously and take copious notes. Try to take the information as raw material and create something new with it. Write poetry. Write haiku. Never stop fighting. In whatever manner you can.
Obviously there are some differences in how these four techniques would be enacted, depending on the person’s conditions, and there are vast differences on how a person who is free would use them. Yet I remain convinced that being mindful of these four techniques and deliberately providing for them in our lives will promote sound psychological health.