What is hut syndrome and why does the outside world scare us

When it comes to cabin syndrome or prisoner syndrome we are referring to a condition that has been much talked about in the post-pandemic period, but which in reality seems to date back much earlier, linked above all to the cold Nordic countries of Europe and America, where due to the rigid winter climate conditions people remain isolated at home for months. Something very similar has been experienced during the pandemic of Covid-19, with repeated lockdowns due to the health emergency, which forced everyone inside the home for prolonged periods. Many closed themselves completely in that domestic dimension, rejecting the outside world even when it was possible to return to normality. With Dr. Davide Carlotta, psychologist and psychotherapist at the IRCCS San Raffaele Hospital, we have explored this condition in depth.

What is hut syndrome

As with hodophobia, also with hut syndrome there is difficulty in classification. The expert clarified: “Here we leave the manualized clinical conditions. There is literature, but why is it referred to as folk syndrome to say that it is a concept that is part of popular psychology. It is a concept that can be found in common feeling. In English they call it cabin fever. We talk about cabin fever to describe the psychological condition that comes from being isolated for more or less long periods of time in a confined space. We are essentially talking almost about an imprisonment syndrome“.

Symptoms of cabin syndrome

Basically the hut syndrome is one fear of the outside world: you feel incapable of facing it and dealing with its changes, so you prefer to stay in a more comfortable condition. He manifests himself with anxiety, irritability, loss of energy, lack of motivation, disorientation, sleep disturbances: one feels uncomfortable at the thought of leaving the home. The expert explained: “Cabin fever is essentially the experience that many of us have had during the pandemic, forced into our homes. Several people have developed a series of problems ranging from fatigue to difficulty concentrating or insomnia, hypersomnia (sleeping excessively), anxiety-type problems, irritability. Confined for a prolonged period of time, without being able to move as we see fit, we begin to suffer psychologically. We are a very adaptable species and it can also happen that after a period in these restricted and unlimited contexts, we then adapt and struggle to re-emerge from the cave.” In the specific case of the pandemic, there is also one relation to the health issueat the basis of the failure to abandon the home: “There may be concerns regarding the healthiness of the environment. For some time we lived with the fear of infection and then when we had a little more freedom some found themselves experiencing fear. As long as I’m at home everything is calm, but out there who knows“.

How to be free again

Leaving the hut is possible, but not so immediate. As the psychotherapist explained: “When we can no longer remain secluded, the impulse would be to go out regardless of the danger: once I reach a certain level of suffering I go out, I throw myself out of the hut even at the risk of my life. Instead we adapt to confinement. In this difficulty of facing external space it is essential to understand the reasons. We need to do a certain type of work, understand the reasons for certain beliefs, which can certainly also have to do with representations about ourselves that I don’t feel comfortable with, I don’t feel safe in going out into the world. It is essential to understand in each individual case what the fear and not wanting to go out originates from. We start from there. The work is on the individual case“.