Imagine a pain generator that does no actual damage, as reputedly used by the interrogators of some intelligence agencies.
The victim might even adapt to the pain to some extent, the way they would adapt to the positive feelings created by drugs.
It helps if there is nothing they can do about it. Physical confinement itself acts as an anesthetic, the true explanation for those supposed Chinese acupuncture surgeries carried out in the 1970s.
The agony component comes from
having to do something. In a way, that is
the worst feeling, even if it's designed to be temporary, the same way that relief is the best feeling.
When it comes to bureaucracy in all its forms, there is no relief. My old suggestion of letting the bureaucrats do all the bureaucracy has
not been followed.
This answer would be a form of
complex simplification.
The Roman Empire fell because they couldn't evolve fast enough. Now it may be our turn.