rdl may just be unusual in this sense. As for 3min/day, even solitary prisoners have that minimal contact - bare interaction with guards when let out for exercise, or when the meals come.

Yeah, it's not sensory deprivation, which seems reliably able to drive people crazy in hours to a day. It's just a really crappy form of prison (combined with some additional psychological trauma of being solitary). If you're there voluntarily, even if without the ability to easily leave, it's nowhere near as bad.

I imagine political prisoners do comparatively well in solitary, too, or the extremely religious, etc. I know from the other side, religiosity and belief in one's cause are the main ways to successfully resist torture or other psychological hardship.