How the CIA Discovered the Shortest Path to Madness
Uncovering the three fundamental needs behind your (in)sanity
The CIA gets you in custody for questioning, and you have no idea what’s going on. The last thing you heard before they packed you into an empty room was a guard whispering to his colleague:
Will they use the good old torture that’s so popular on TV? You wait. Nothing happens. Days pass; nobody comes for a questioning. You smirk, “so this is their game.” Bored, you squint your eyes in the darkness to look around the murky room. Finally, you catch sight of a clock: it’s 4 p.m.
Without anything better to do, soon, you fall asleep. After this dreamless dream, you open your eyes which inexplicably land on the clock: it’s 2 p.m. Then you notice the environment got a bit brighter. “Huh?”–there’s no way you slept for a whole day, right?
Before you start doubting your sanity, the door opens. “Here we go,” you smile ironically. A while later. they are questioning you. Set on not giving them an upper hand, you curse at them for locking you up. Their fury is imminent, and it’s going to help you win.
“I compliment you on your taste–well done,” says the grinning officer. Suddenly, you had an alarming desire to leave the room. Who’s the mad one?! Don’t we all live in the same world? Nonetheless curious, you spit out some clues about the case. Or maybe the solitary confinement and need for social contact made you do it? No, that’s ridiculous.
As soon as he hears you cooperating, he stands up and puts his hand on the doorknob. You watch him go out and don’t say goodnight. Slowly, you put on that plastic smile people wear when they’re trying not to scream.
But you do hear it. Some weakling didn’t hold on and interrupted your damn peace with their shrieks. Soon after, you see a guard’s pained face hovering over you, bringing you back to consciousness. You’re hit with the realization that the screaming one was you.
The path to madness starts here
In 2014, changes in the information law forced the CIA to publicize its manuals. There’s a lot of psychologically intriguing information there, but one of the most crucial is finding out what makes the human psyche collapse.
A quick background on their method: first, the CIA makes the detainee lose their control/autonomy, so they start to spill out secrets. They achieve it by inducing regression–a reversion to an earlier behavioral level, in this case, to that of a child.
Following, I’ll disclose the techniques used in my little story and the three needs they were targeting. If not satisfied, they’ll act like stones tied to your ankles: slowly bringing you down until you address them. Therefore, if anything, satisfy these.
The answer lurks in a small dark room
Your brain won’t survive being unemployed. For a short time, a lack of stimuli is relaxing, pleasant, and quieting. However, its prolonged “unemployment” is pure torture that brings serious psychological damage. Therefore, it is no surprise that after continued presence in a single dull room, prisoners’ psyches started to crumble.
Remember Covid and lockdown? Wasn’t much fun, huh? Multiply this experience by 100, and you’ll grasp how it felt for the prisoners. However, today’s challenges are a bit different. Nowadays, the need for stimuli is reversed–we have too much of it! Yet, although the quantity is great, the quality part seems to be lacking. To save your brain, have control over how it’s stimulated.
For this purpose, you may find this helpful:
The answer lies in the COVID
“Social isolation is practically incompatible with high levels of happiness.”
—Roy Baumeister & Mark Leary, The Need to Belong
One of the most impactful ways Covid hit people was by social isolation. Yet, some people weren’t as affected as others. There are many reasons for that, however, to simply say that we need social interaction is a terribly broad claim.
Why? Consider the lonely-in-the-crowd phenomenon. Or the celebrities who, despite millions of fans, feel isolated and solitary. How do you explain that? Well, it’s because “the need for social contact” is more accurately described as “the need to belong.”
Consequently, any relationship won’t do–it must meet certain criteria to fill the need to belong. First, you must perceive the interpersonal bond as:
- Stable: not easily breakable
- Continued in the future
- Affectionate: the other person wants your happiness
Second, you need (ideally) positive and frequent interaction with that person. In short, “the need is for regular social contact with those to whom one feels connected.”
Now, I want you to notice something. Nowhere did I write that the relationship must be romantic or familial. Friends or even religious cults can also satisfy the need to belong. Consider the Buddhist monks; they live solely in their own company, yet it doesn’t prevent them from being happy. It leaves a lot of freedom, doesn’t it?
The answer lurks in the unreasonable
Playing with lights, manipulating clocks’ time, rewarding non-cooperation, and much more. All of these actions target the third (and last) fundamental need of the human psyche: the need for a coherent worldview.
It means that your beliefs, behavior, and experience aren’t in conflict with each other. By manipulating the surroundings of prisoners, or rewarding non-cooperation, the CIA crushes their sense of orientation. As in the text above, these actions lead to regression and the breakdown of the character.
The same thing happens to us, although not that extreme. Let’s say you try to boost your self-esteem by repeating affirmations like: “I am strong and confident.” Fair enough–at least until life hits in. Maybe you have a major failure, or someone close to you passes away.
Obviously, you aren’t at your greatest; but hey, you’re “strong and confident,” remember? Boom! Clash! Fireworks! Your actions and emotions aren’t compatible with what you believe. Result? Suffering.
This is why every non-pragmatic sentence beginning from “I am…” makes me cringe. Actually, let’s have a quote for that:
““I” affirms a separate and abiding me-substance; “am” denies the fact that all existence is relationship and change. “I am.” Two tiny words, but what an enormity of untruth!”
— Aldous Huxley, Island
Final thoughts
There are three psychological needs to take care of to be happy and sound:
- The need for an appropriate amount of stimuli.
- The need to belong (not equivalent to social contact).
- The need for a coherent world-view.
As shown in the CIA’s investigation, without these, people slowly lose their sanity, not to mention happiness. Although so fundamental, we often abuse them in one way or another. But, hey! It means there’s a lot of room for improvement with the highest ROI you could possibly imagine.
