Sensory Deprivation And Psychiatry

Sensory Deprivation and Psychiatry A Tract Book Essay By Anthony J. Fejfar, J.D., Esq., Coif © Copyright 2007 by Anthony J. Fejfar If one happens to be a well read person, one has encountered the concept of “sensory deprivation.” Sensory deprivation is a kind of torture used to break the will of the person or to cause the person to have a nervous breakdown or hallucinate. A classical example of sensory deprivation is in a prisoner of war camp where prisoners are place in “the hole” or “the cage” or “the cooler.” Similarly, in ordinary civilian prisons, “solitary confinement” is used to torture or punish prisoners who disobey authority. Perhaps the most common form of sensory deprivation in our country is found in a psychiatric ward. Patients often spend most of their days in a day room with no distraction other than a television set which play bland crap. Visits from family or friends are often not very often. I suspect that if a normal person ended up on a psychiatric ward that he or she would soon become psychotic because of sensory deprivation. Perhaps it is too much to say that patient’s are being tortured, but in the end it may be that the result is the same.

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