What are the experimental results of isolation? How do people deal with extreme isolation?
A difficulty in answering this question is dealing with there being so many possible conditions of isolation. The isolation of a child locked in a closet would be something very different from the isolation of a scientist who chose to work as a lone occupant of a space station. The isolation of a person who lives alone out in the country but spends most of the day interacting on the internet … would that person really be isolated? Since you are asking about “extreme isolation,” I’ll look primary at studies that involve sensory deprivation and/or loss of control over sensory input as experimental conditions… RE: experiments studying the effects of isolation … it’s no surprise we might find some insight on this from the CIA Training Manual: “Solitary confinement acts on most persons as a powerful stressor. A person cut off from external stimuli turns his awareness inward and projects his unconsious outward. The symptoms most commonly produced by solitary confinement are superstitio
