Elephants used in tourism and logging are subjected to a traditional training process called phajaan that involves physical restraint and pain to break their spirit, causing lasting psychological harm.
Working elephant welfare hinges on the training methods used to establish human control and the conditions maintained throughout working life. Phajaan fundamentally relies on breaking down an elephants resistance through overwhelming stress and pain — a process that may cause lasting PTSD-like effects. Even after training, maintaining compliance in large, powerful animals typically requires ongoing coercive management. The growth of observation-only sanctuaries that allow elephants to live in social groups with minimal human interference demonstrates that tourism revenue and elephant welfare are reconcilable when consumer preferences shift.