"Lifelong torture turns you into something like that?"

The Psychology of Surviving Hell



"It wasn't four months, you know. It was four months up here. But down there…I don't know. Time's different. It was more like forty years. They, uh, they sliced. Carved. They tore at me in ways that you…. Until there was nothing left. And then suddenly, I would be whole again. Like magic. Just so they could start in all over. And Alistair. At the end of every day. Every one. He would come over, and he would make me an offer. To take me off the rack, if I put souls on. If I started the torturing. And every day I told him to stick it where the sun shines. For thirty years I told him. But then I couldn't do it any more, Sammy. I couldn't. And I got off that rack. God help me, I got right off it. And I started ripping them apart. I lost count of how many souls. The things that I did to them…. […] How I feel. This…inside me. I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing."

Dean Winchester, Heaven and Hell

"You know, I felt for those sons of bitches back there. Lifelong torture turns you into something like that?"
"You were in hell, Dean. Maybe you…did what you did there. But you're not them. They were barely human."
"No, you're right. I wasn't like them. I was worse. They were animals, Sam. Defending territory. Me? I did it for the sheer pleasure."
"What?"
"I enjoyed it, Sam. It took me off the rack and I tortured souls and I liked it. All those years. All that pain. Finally getting to deal some out yourself? I didn't care who they put in front of me. Because that…that pain I felt? It just slipped away. No matter how many people I save, I can't change that. I can't fill this hole. Not ever."

Dean and Sam Winchester, Family Remains

Following his dramatic return from hell this season, in emotional post-script scenes to two consecutive episodes now, Dean has begun to relate something of what he experienced during his four months in the pit. The details he has revealed have been shocking, perhaps, given our understanding of the character…but not really all that surprising, when we think about it, given what we already knew about hell and the process by which demons are formed.

We already knew that hell is a place where human souls are turned into demons. This is a process that takes hundreds of years – hundreds of human years, that is, topside. But it makes sense that the breaking down of those souls would start almost at once: relentless pressure on each individual to let go of their humanity and embrace demonic depravity, each soul for itself, self-preservation at the expense of others.

Essentially, then, what Dean tells us in Heaven and Hell is that while he was in hell he broke under torture. This is something he has in common with every single other soul that has ever ended up in hell in the Supernatural universe, however little comfort he derives from that fact. The final scene in Family Remains then provides still greater insight into just what happened to Dean and the impact this is having on him now that he has been restored to life, complementing and expanding on his initial confession.

Dean clearly doesn't understand it, but what he describes in that closing scene in Family Remains is actually a variation on a fairly common psychological reaction to extreme trauma. This is popularly known as 'Stockholm Syndrome', an expression most commonly understood as emotional bonding between a hostage and his or her captor, forged during a time of tremendous emotional and often physical duress. Captives begin to identify with their captors as a defence mechanism, out of fear of violence, and small acts of kindness by the captor are magnified, since finding perspective in a hostage situation is impossible. The behaviour is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse, and has also been observed in battered spouses, abused children, prisoners of war, and concentration camp survivors.

Many studies into the phenomenon have been published. Dr J.M. Carver writes that, 'in the final analysis, emotionally bonding with an abuser is actually a strategy for survival for victims of abuse and intimidation […] It has been found that four situations or conditions are present that serve as a foundation for the development of Stockholm Syndrome. These four situations can be found in hostage, severe abuse, and abusive relationships:

• The presence of a perceived threat to one's physical or psychological survival and the belief that the abuser would carry out the threat
  
• The presence of a perceived small kindness from the abuser to the victim
  
• Isolation from perspectives other than those of the abuser
  
• The perceived inability to escape the situation' (Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser)

All four of these conditions can be found in Dean's situation in hell. His inability to escape the situation, ever, was not merely a perception but harsh reality. Far beyond mere threat of potential abuse, he suffered the subjective equivalent of thirty years of unimaginable torture before agreeing to begin torturing others in turn. He was completely isolated from any perception or reality beyond that of pain and suffering, both the receipt and delivery thereof. And the perceived small kindness from abuser to victim? That would be the offer of ending his pain, on condition that he took up the role of torturer himself.

According to psychologists, Stockholm Syndrome goes hand-in-hand with another well documented psychological phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance. This is most simply defined as an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance either by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviour.

Dissonance normally occurs when a person perceives a logical inconsistency among his or her cognitions – when one idea implies the opposite of another – and explains how and why people change their ideas and opinions to support situations that do not appear to be healthy, positive, or normal. For example, a belief in animal rights could be interpreted as inconsistent with eating meat or wearing fur, or for a smoker the desire to live a long life is dissonant with the activity of doing something that is likely to shorten one's life. A powerful cause of dissonance is when an idea conflicts with a fundamental element of one's sense of self, such as I am a good person or I made the right decision. This can lead to rationalisation when a person is presented with evidence of a bad choice, or to confirmation bias – a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoids information and interpretations that contradict prior beliefs. It also leads to the denial of disconfirming evidence, and other ego defence mechanisms. (Wikipedia)

'I didn't care who they put in front of me,' Dean tells us. 'Because that pain I felt? It just slipped away.' After those thirty years of unimaginable torture, the sudden absence of pain once he was off the rack would have felt exquisite. But agreeing to torture others in exchange for an end to his own suffering brought him up against an inherent contradiction: harming others is a direct violation of one of the most basic tenets of his life. Cognitive dissonance.

Finally released from the torment he had endured for so long, the desire not to return to that pain was stronger than Dean's conviction that harming others was wrong, but he had to justify making that choice to himself. Trapped as he was inside the situation with absolutely no hope of salvation, lacking any objectivity and identifying strongly with the role of torturer because torture and torturers were all he had known for so very long, he reasoned that if he had chosen to inflict pain on others then he must have wanted to do it. 'I did it for the sheer pleasure,' he says, not understanding that the pleasure he felt came not from the act of torture but from the euphoria of no longer being on the receiving end of it.

Both Stockholm Syndrome and cognitive dissonance develop on an involuntary basis: the victim does not purposely invent this attitude, but both develop as an attempt to survive in a threatening and controlling environment. Studies tell us that we are more loyal and committed to something that is difficult, uncomfortable, and even humiliating – this simple fact forms the basis of every 'hazing' ritual. Investment and an ordeal are ingredients for a strong bonding, even if the bonding is unhealthy. Dr Carver writes further that all of us have developed attitudes and feelings that help us accept and survive situations we find uncomfortable or unpleasant. We have these attitudes or feelings about our jobs, our community, and other aspects of our life, and history has demonstrated time and again that the more dysfunctional the situation, the more dysfunctional our adaptation and thoughts to survive.

For all of these reasons, we must bear in mind that although Dean is our only source of information regarding what happened to him in hell, he is also an extremely unreliable narrator. Despite everything he has said about having total recall, there is undoubtedly still a great deal he doesn't understand about his time in hell or his own actions and reactions while he was there.

Whether objective or subjective, forty years is an extremely long time for all details to remain clear, especially given the transition between different planes of existence. Most people would struggle to offer a full and frank account of everything they did, thought and felt a year ago, never mind ten, twenty or forty years ago. It is likely that the memories Dean is experiencing are still rather more fragmentary than complete, and not necessarily in their proper order, like scrambled pieces of a massive jigsaw – thoughts, feelings and impressions, all removed from their context and crashing hard against the reinstated reality of his human existence. No wonder he can't cope – in fact, Dean's struggle to reconcile the memories of what he did in hell with the ethical code he lives by here in the world stems from the same basic psychological reaction as another well-documented phenomenon: shellshock.

The term 'shellshock' was first coined in 1917, at the height of the First World War. It is also known as combat stress reaction, or battle fatigue, and is closely related to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). By the end of the First World War the British Army had dealt with 80,000 cases of shellshock, as large numbers of combatants could not cope with the strain of warfare. What medical officers quickly realised was that everyone had a breaking point, whether weak or strong, courageous or cowardly.

Shellshock victims often couldn't eat or sleep, whilst others suffered physical symptoms ranging from uncontrollable diarrhoea to unrelenting anxiety. Soldiers who had bayoneted men in the face developed hysterical tics of their own facial muscles. Stomach cramps seized men who knifed their foes in the abdomen. Snipers lost their sight. Terrifying nightmares of being unable to withdraw bayonets from the enemies' bodies persisted long after the slaughter. Four-fifths of these men were never able to return to military duty, although breakdowns did not always occur during the war. Many soldiers did not suffer until after the armistice when, in the words of one veteran, they 'cracked up', deliriously re-living their experiences of combat long after the war had ended.

As Ernest Jones, the president of the British Psycho-Analytic Association, explained: war constituted 'an official abrogation of civilised standards' in which men were not only allowed, but encouraged 'to indulge in behaviour of a kind that is throughout abhorrent to the civilised mind.' Consequently, the 'return to the mental attitude of civilian life' could spark off severe psychological trauma. The authors of one of the standard books on shellshock went so far as to point out that a soldier who suffered a neurosis had not lost his reason but was labouring under the weight of too much reason: his senses were 'functioning with painful efficiency'. (BBC)

Essentially, then, for a soldier in the midst of such carnage, no matter how gentle and compassionate he might ordinarily be, the only way he can survive – and help his comrades survive – is if he completely surrenders his usual code of ethics and allows bloodlust to consume him. It is the only thing that will allow him to do what he has to do to stay alive. But these actions are completely at odds with the civilised standards of everyday life and moral values by which he was raised. Cognitive dissonance. Therefore once that soldier returns to civilian life, if he cannot find some way to reconcile the memory of his brutal battlefield actions with the standards and principles of his day-to-day life, he will suffer terrible trauma. Shellshock, or PTSD.

Dean might not be experiencing the severe physical symptoms of some shellshock sufferers, but it is clear that, like those war veterans, the struggle to reconcile the memory of his actions in a brutal environment with the person he has always believed himself to be is causing considerable trauma. There are three main symptoms of PTSD: 1) flashbacks and nightmares, 2) avoidance and numbing, and 3) hyper-vigilance. Dean is very clearly displaying at least two of these symptoms, and a case could be made for all three, although a discussion of how these symptoms have played out and the impact on his storyline of the narrative style of the season is not the purpose of this meta.

At this point, Dean is simply not prepared to cut himself any slack whatsoever. For all that he identified strongly with the cellar-dwellers in Family Remains and saw them as victims of their circumstances, he hasn't taken the next step and acknowledged or internalised the fact that he was a victim himself. Rather he sees his similarity to their situation as cause for further self-condemnation, regarding himself now on a par with the monsters he has always fought. He is seeing himself as an unforgivable aggressor, focusing intently on what he did and the fact that he chose to do it, while barely acknowledging what was done to him, to bring him to that end. When describing his actions, he can barely bring himself to mention his own pain, deeply reluctant to recall that agony to mind and clearly considering it no excuse for what came later – for the choice that he made.

Convincing himself that he did what he did because he wanted to do it is a subconscious defence mechanism, an attempt to regain some semblance of control after having it taken away from him so completely. However, the ability of a human being to choose to do either right or wrong has always been central to Dean's philosophy of life, and what he is struggling to reconcile with now is the fact that he made a choice he considers so horribly wrong, unable to see that the choice he made wasn't really a choice at all.

Dean knows where his breaking point is now. He knows with painful clarity how fine the line is between human and inhuman – human and demon. He knows what he would have turned into and how, and how easily it could still happen. What he hasn't yet acknowledged or appreciated is the fact that what happened to him was inevitable and unavoidable, once he was in the Pit, rather than a sign of weakness that he should be ashamed of. Sam might not have really known what he was talking about when in Heaven and Hell he tried to reassure his brother that he had held out 'longer than anyone would have', but he was thinking along the right lines.

Throughout history, searching questions have been asked as to how ordinary people can commit acts of brutality, a topic that has been researched and debated at length. Disturbingly, psychologists who study torture say that most of us could behave this way in the right – or wrong – circumstances.

According to Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, a psychiatry professor at Harvard Medical School who has studied Nazi doctors and Vietnam veterans, everyone has the potential for sadism. He describes sadism as a reaction to the atrocities occurring in one's environment: 'the foot soldiers, MPs and civilian contractors are all caught up in the atrocity-producing situation. They end up adapting to the group and joining in.'

Sociological research such as the Milgram experiments of 1961 or the Stanford prison study of 1971 demonstrate that a majority of people will obey and conform to rules in a new situation. Moreover, in some cases, otherwise compassionate people will perform cruel acts at the behest of an authority figure. Professor Zimbardo, who conducted the Stanford experiment, explained that in an environment where the balance of power is strikingly unequal, even normal people without any apparent prior psychological problems can become brutal and abusive. Similarly, the Milgram study shows that some powerful situations can make anyone perpetrate a cruel act.

Professor Zimbardo says that everyone has the potential to be good or evil. The human mind can guide us toward anything imaginable, to create heavens or hells on earth, depending entirely on the particular situations in which we might become enmeshed. And according to Professor Milgram, ordinary people, simply doing their jobs and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in terribly destructive processes. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority. (www.apa.org)

And if all this is true here on earth, then how much more so in hell?

Relatively little is known of the process by which a human soul is turned into a demon in the Supernatural universe, but Dean's experience suggests that the earliest stages involve brutal mental conditioning, making use of the psychological reactions described above to full and awful effect. This process effectively brainwashes each individual to value their own survival above all else, and to not only willingly inflict pain on others but also derive pleasure from the act.

Presumably, then, over the centuries or even millennia that follow, subjectively, all residual traces of self and conscience are gradually stripped away. 'That's what hell is,' Ruby told Dean in Malleus Maleficarum: 'Forgetting what you were. […] Might take centuries, but sooner or later hell will burn away your humanity. Every hellbound soul, every one turns into something else. Turns into us.'

What we don't know is how long it takes to reach the point of no return. Demonstrably, such a point must exist, but we have never met any 'half-formed' demons to provide fuller information. We have seen that many demons retain certain human characteristics, such as the ability to form emotional attachments or loyalty to a chosen cause, and, further, Ruby claims to remember how it felt to be human, but each of these examples is nonetheless a demon, with all the non-human characteristics and powers that status entails.

John Winchester escaped through the open hellgate in All Hell Breaks Loose after he'd been in hell for almost a year – a full six months longer than Dean's incarceration. Clearly he had been in a position where he was able to take advantage of the open gate and scramble for the exit along with countless other spirits, not to mention the escaping demons. And just as clearly he remained himself, human soul intact and able then to move on, rather than having begun to take on demonic traits. Where the turning point might lie we may never know, but what does seem clear is that it is a very, very long process, even in human terms – longer still from the perspective of the individual burning in the fires of hell.

It is clear, then, that although at the time of his rescue Dean was already well into the early stages of the process that would eventually lead to demonic transformation, he was still a long, long way from reaching the point of no return. What he is experiencing is therefore completely unique, having tasted the fires of hell and come back from it, human life and mortal body restored.

Of course, the fact that Dean was still a long way from hitting the point of no return is also the reason he is so traumatised by the experience, having received such very unexpected salvation. No demon, transformation complete, will ever know what it is like to be restored to human life and then have to live with the horrors they have experienced and perpetrated, that immense disconnect between who they are and what they did. The same is true of those still-human spirits able to escape hell when the gate opened.

In Family Remains Dean identified strongly with the abused and murderous siblings because he was able to relate their experience to his own. Unable to take the next step of recognising that he, like them, was a victim of his circumstances – or that, unlike them, he had not reached the point of no return – he interpreted their fate as further evidence of his own crushing guilt.

It could also no doubt be argued that Dean has always been a man of violence, forged that way by the course of his life, has always been prone to lashing out when in pain, and that the fact that hell took that innate tendency and exaggerated it beyond all recognition is forcing him to face up to uncomfortable home truths about himself. However, the fact remains that even if he had been the gentlest soul on the planet, the fires of hell would have led him inexorably to the same end.

As hopefully demonstrated, although Dean is castigating himself for his perceived weakness, what he has told us about his time in hell and the effect this had on him is in fact indicative of a very common psychological reaction to extreme trauma – with the fires of hell itself being the most extreme trauma imaginable! Given the situation he was in, he could not have behaved or reacted any differently. Sam tried to reassure him that he held out 'longer than anyone would have', but his emphasis was wrong. The crucial point is not how long any given individual may or may not manage to hold out, but the fact that holding out in that situation is, ultimately, impossible.

Essentially, then, Dean did what he did and reacted the way he did in order to survive the situation he was in, both physically and emotionally – he took on the role of torturer in order to spare himself pain and he learned to enjoy that role because it was the only way he could endure it.

Now that Dean has been retrieved from that situation he needs to find a way of coming to terms both with what happened to him and with his own actions and reactions in order to move forward with his life – but it is clear that this process is not going to be either quick or easy, and nor should it be. The lasting impact of this experience upon Dean's psyche is, ultimately, the cost of his death, the price that was paid for Sam's salvation – and a mighty price it is, too.

January 2009

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