I'm thinking for a long time about the change. I'm sure many of people are thinking about it. However, I think it isn't possible under normal condition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_deprivation Extremely hard condition are used in past. For example, nazi's used to torture for brainwashing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment I also follow the anime named "Tokyo Ghoul", there is guy who want to protect friends he closed to, however, many times he is failed. When he was tortured extremely hard, the pressure is created new man who is more powerful and destroy his fears. I know it is fiction, but it influenced me deeply. And, I think the change in personality should be so deeply that we can create new personality. To achive that point, extremely condition is must like torture. What about you, I want to know other's opinion.
I think torture definitely changes a person. More often than not I would think that change is negative. As Messiah Decoy said, they could end up with PTSD and lose themselves, but they could also become stronger for it.
In Tokyo Ghoul, the dude was pretty messed up mentally after being tortured and forced to eat himself numerous times over.. lol, not really the best example.. but torture is like any injury. It can make you stronger if you let it or cripple you.. and even if you feel like it cripples you, I am sure there is at least one aspect of yourself that was strengthened through it all. As for me, I am a glutton for punishment.. but never been tortured. I think I'd come out on top though cause very little phases me.. and use the experience to my advantage. Maybe give me the push I need to become a serial killer of serial killers.
Is psychology an exact science. If not, then people should avoid trying to break down and build people back up like robots.
Also, are people volunteering for this torture. Because most people don't want to be changed against their will.
It is true that you need to go deep to see a real change in personality...perhaps torture could accomplish that, although I would think that wouldn't bring about too much positive change... There are, chemicals, which can be ingested, which throw you deep into your psyche and can thus be used for a legitimate change in personality...these are, however, illegal and 'unmentionable.'
I agree with what others have already said, it would most likely cause a person psychological harm and possibly make them become mentally ill. I can't be certain though because I have never read of any research done on the topic. It might not even be legal to do research like this. I found an article about CIA interrogation techniques. James E. Mitchell, an American psychologist who was paid millions to work with them, said this. The report said Mitchell “had reviewed research on ‘learned helplessness,' in which individuals might become passive and depressed in response to adverse or uncontrollable events. He theorized that inducing such a state could encourage a detainee to cooperate and provide information.†http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/12/11/cia-torture-report-a-sad-day-for-psychologists/ But how reliable might this information be? The only torture research I have ever read deals with the reliability of information obtained from people who have been tortured. They found that interrogation methods involving no torture tended to result in the most truthful information being obtained from those being interrogated.
I believe a change would occur, though in behavior rather than personality. Speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has experienced heavy abuse throughout their childhood, I feel like I may have a bit of a glimpse into the psychology of how it works. When 'torture' tactics were implied, I simply changed the way I behaved under the accordance of the authority's mindset. For instance, before the experience, I cried when I was sad, laughed when I was happy, and talked out my feelings with my mom when I was angry. When my experience began, life changed. Crying was for "wimps", and wimps got beaten. Laughing was annoying, and "annoying" people got beaten. Talking about your feelings was "gay", and of course, gays got beaten. After a long enough time under those circumstances, it came to be that when I was sad, I did nothing. When I was happy, I did nothing. And when I was upset, nothing. That translated into a lot of people thinking that I was some really shy, stoic kid who was always just staring into space. My point, however, is that even though I behaved differently, my personality remained intact. All of that time I spent just staring into space and saying nothing, I was simply going to the only place in which I could escape my problems: my mind. In my mind, I still felt happiness, sadness, and anger, regardless of my outward behavior. Having been away from that environment for over a decade now, when I feel things, I do what I did before anything happened, no longer what I was once forced to do. Therefore, I suppose I would say that my personality was merely dormant within myself, masked by forced behavior. Or something like that. But yeah, I would also say that in many ways I have gained insight and the capacity to withstand a lot of stuff from my experience. So I guess it made me a lot stronger, and influenced me to do better things in the world than what was done to me. But I wouldn't recommend anyone purposefully enduring torture for a gain. There are other ways to make a "better" person out of yourself, many of which come pretty easily with a blunt in your hand.
Our personality is a survival mechanism based off of our life experiences, and our biology. (Life experience encompassing environment.) Any type of traumatic event in a persons life will have some sort of effect on their personality. An example would be the common trend between PTSD and armed service, or prostitutes and sexual abuse as children. Torture almost always has a negative long term/permanent impact on a person, with few exceptions.
Well, they get touchy with discussion of stuff other than weed, I always just say 'visionary' ones, so you know what I mean without technically using the term. Those ones, can be an effective tool for any number of mental changes. Because it throws you deep into your psyche, which is where transformation is possible. They said, when they did that sort of sort of thing in psychotherapy, that in one session they could see greater transformative effect than years of traditional therapy. So, to see those kinds of results, and then outlaw it, is to me absurd. Then there was another one, where they did a study on prisoners. Normally there's like an 80% return rate within some rate of time. Well, they attempted a psychological transformation of these individuals, such that they would be positively transformed. And they reversed that percentage, only 20% returned within that time-frame. And then they make it illegal . Then it comes out that the government was using those same things for attempts at brain-washing, torture, making people unconsciously commit acts for them, etc. But then the general population started getting out of control! Allowance for psychological transformation, even such that it can rehabilitate criminals and cure drug addiction, and inducing of spiritual experience...just unacceptable, gotta outlaw it! Clearly they just have our best interests at heart!