Hi everyone! I've been working on a side project on and off for a little while, a dystopian action thriller set fifty years in the future in an alternate reality. At one point in the story, the main character is sent as a captive to a militarized syndicate. While she was originally sent there to be used for human experimentation purposes, the leader sees potential for her and instead decides that she will work for them. The character is assigned a handler (who will later turn out to be the son of the leader) that will train her for her new role. Of course, being a captive who is there against her will, she is very resistant and is hostile towards her handler. So, in order to get her to comply, he decides that he has to "break" her, so she'll be more docile and compliant going forwards. What would be methods to "break" a captive? Not necessarily torture methods, but something that would render a disobedient captive pliable, tamp out any fire/spirit that they have left in them.
Short answer, attack and threaten whatever they care about. People don't have a reason to live unless they have a reason to live, so focus on whatever that might be.
Usually if you are breaking someone you want them sympathetic to you in the end. To this end you want to constantly have access to your propaganda. All media you allow them to have access to paints you in a sympathetic light. Second, you want to play good cop/bad cop. In your case, I would have her handler be the good cop who stops the negativity of the bad cop. When she inevitably capitulates she will have formed a bond with him and view him as a savior figure. If you really want to go down the rabbit hole: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Kubark%201-60.pdf
Have you watched the old 1968 Mission Impossible? There was one episode called Operation Rogosh. There was a communist agent called Rogosh sent into the US to spread biological bacteria so a plague would happen. The IMF team built an elaborate set resembling a fake prison. So they made him unconscious and when he woke up they tried to deceive him that many years had passed(and that his plague plans already took place in the US) and he was on trial in his home country by his government.For what crime I don't remember. That was to get him to reveal the locations of the bacteria containers. The recorded message which told the IMF leader what his mission was said "break him fast" so there you go. I'm not sure if you can use this plot since it has already been used but there was another TV movie that used this plot which was probably influenced by Operation Rogosh. But the bad guys(the Nazis) were using it on an Allied spy to make him think the war years had passed and that Hitler was already dead(he wasn't yet).
Clive Barker has a story called "Dread" where an older college student has this notion to break his classmate out of her vegetarianism by kidnapping her and locking her in a room with a hunk of beef. Sound comical... but the psychological break down of this girl by the end was really intense. There was no violence or torture (per se), but he managed to break her in the end. I was reading a dark romance where the MMC breaks the FMC. She didn't want to marry him, but they married anyway. Despite this, she still didn't like him (he didn't really like her either but especially didn't like how independent she was and how she didn't really need him or want him). So he basically orchestrates a murder, frames her for it, she bets put on death row and is literally on her way to be beheaded when MMC swoops in and miraculously has found evidence that sets her free. by this point, the FMC is so traumatized, she sees him as a godsend. He literally made it so that she had no one and made it so that HE was her only hope. I'm telling you, dude/dudette. Psychological break down is the way to go! Make is so that she needs him. make it so that she sees him as her only ally and will do whatever it is he wants just so she doesnt lose that 1 person. Of course, he'd have to make everything around her cruel and unbearable and he'd be the only "nice" thing of comfort. Or if you want him to be overly cruel, you can have him deprive her of something she values, like morals (in the vein pf "Dread") or an object or person, and then watch her slowly break to get it back.
This is very true. If you ever knew a very cold or cruel person, those rare moments when they're less cold or heaven forbid actually pleasant or nice for a moment feel like an incredible blessing. Or after you've had to spend a lot of time with them, even running across somebody who's just less of an asshole feels great.
Change the conditions of their life. Take away everything that gives them security and comfort, make them believe there's nothing left to live for. Let them live like this for some time—a few weeks at least, so they become accustomed to and it becomes an on going nightmare they can't wake up from. Then offer them hope again that they can have their old life back, with all the comforts and security, but they just need to do what you want them to do. Getting someone put on trial where it looks like they're going to prison, or having them put in prison for instance will accomplish that. Or making them believe they're about to lose their home or become unemployable. Of course they'll hate you and will never trust you again.
Look up the Stanford Prison Experiment for some of the psychology involved. Sleep deprivation is another method. Small rewards for obedience, in a highly controlled environment.
In North Korea, they do something called "stress positions" where a prisoner is made to pose in specific awkward poses for hours. They also do a thing where they force the victim to drink water until he's bloated and vomiting. Really, though, for your character there's the old-fashioned trick of not letting them eat. Especially not meats. Starvation makes people do bad things, and if your baddies specifically want this character to work for them, then they need to "train" her that working for them brings rewards. So, they starve her, and then present her with a series of really small or simple chores. She is then rewarded with food when she completes them. A special task should be rewarded with meat. Sleep deprivation would add to this, because tired people struggle to think straight. This might not help too much with your story, but you could try looking up old WWII training films on youtube. There's a lot of black and white films about things like knife fighting, interrogations, and evading tanks.
This reminds me of a documentary I saw on cults. They cut protein from the diets of new members, to make them more compliant.
