Effects of sensory deprivation in psychiatric seclusion and solitary confinement.

Laboratory research has demonstrated that sensory deprivation can produce major psychological effects on man (Brownfield, 1965; Solomon, 1961). At the same time, there has been a growing awareness that a variety of unusual human experiences share in common the features of sensory deprivation. Major psychological reactions have, for example, been described among high altitude jet pilots (Solomon, Kubzansky, Letterman, Mendelson, Trumbull, & Wexler, 1961), solo explorers (Byrd, 1938), survivors of prolonged solitary confinement in war (Burney, 1952), in certain medical situations (Mendelson, Solomon, & Lindemann, 1958), and among patients suffering various impairments of their sensory apparatus (Ziskind, Jones, Filante, & Goldberg, 1960). Such phenomena have at times elicited widespread public concern; indeed, the experimental interest in profound sensory deprivation was actually precipitated by the fearful and dramatic reports of "brain washing" of American prisoners of war in Korea-repor ts that alterations in the sensory environment were being intentionally imposed upon these prisoners in a seemingly Orwellian attempt to profoundly disrupt their psychological equilibrium (Biderman & Zimmer, 1961). More recently two situations involving the intentional imposition of sensory deprivation became the subjects of headline-making adjudication in the Massachusetts courts. These lawsuits have challenged the legality and moral propriety of the use of seclusion rooms in inpatient psychiatric settings and have questioned the use of solitary confinement in the maximum security state prison at Walpole. The emotions around both issues run high. The plaintiffs in the seclusion room litigation harked back to images captured by Greenblatt's depiction of the seclusion of another era: