Psychologist: The Need for Control Can Trigger Confinement and Torture

Psychologist Samanta Clara Elsener, S.Psi, M.Psi, has stated that the need to fully control and dominate another person can be a factor driving someone to commit confinement and torture against a victim. According to Samanta, the urge for total power often arises from feelings of powerlessness, failure, or feeling small in the perpetrator’s real life or past experiences. “The need for control and power is the most classic trigger. Perpetrators often feel powerless, like failures, or small in their real lives or past experiences,” Samanta said, as quoted on Thursday (25/6). The central board member of the Indonesian Psychological Association (PP HIMPSI) explained that feelings of powerlessness can drive a person to seek extreme ways to gain control over others. In such situations, the perpetrator attempts to place themselves in a superior position by controlling various aspects of the victim’s life. “To compensate for that feeling of powerlessness, they seek extreme ways to control another person’s life absolutely. Confinement is a form of total control because the perpetrator determines when the victim eats, sleeps, or even breathes,” she said. Besides the drive for power, Samanta noted that acts of torture can also be influenced by a diminished ability to feel the suffering of others. This condition can distance the perpetrator further from any sense of empathy for the victim. She mentioned that the loss of empathy can be triggered by several factors, including the accumulation of severe stress, substance abuse such as drugs and alcohol, and disorders in the parts of the brain that regulate empathy. “A person can resort to torture because their brain no longer responds to the pain of others. There is a process of emotional desensitisation or the death of empathy,” she said. Samanta added that in some cases, violent acts can also be triggered by long-suppressed anger. The victim, she said, sometimes becomes a target for venting because they are perceived as representing someone or an experience that once hurt the perpetrator. “Sometimes the victim becomes a symbol of someone the perpetrator hated in the past. The perpetrator unleashes years of accumulated anger onto the current victim,” she said. Samanta’s statement was made in response to the alleged confinement and abuse case involving a woman in Bandung Regency, which has drawn public attention in recent days. Samanta stressed that acts of confinement and torture are not only related to physical violent behaviour but also reflect patterns of control, a loss of empathy, and the perpetrator’s failure to manage deep-seated psychological wounds and suppressed emotions.