Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger, authors of the Malleus Maleficarum, gave very detailed advice as to how a suspected witch should be investigated, questioned, tortured, and tried. She was not to be left alone after torture, lest the Devil coerce her to commit suicide. She was to be led backwards into any chamber the judge was in, lest she bewitch or curse him with her eyes. She was to be questioned in a different location than the torture chamber in the event she confessed under torture.
By far the most interesting bit of advice Kramer and Sprenger gave to judges and inquisitors was to search a suspected witch upon taking her into questioning, and again more invasively before torturing her. They advised removing her clothes (or having a virtuous woman do so in private chambers) to search for any concealed magic implements that might impair the investigation. Before torture, she was to be shaved, removing all the hair from her body in search of hidden devil's marks, magic implements, or other damning evidence hidden in the hair.
In the 15th century, when the Malleus Maleficarum was written, and in the subsequent century or two when the advice within was implemented, adult women would ordinarily be seen naked by only their husbands, and their hair would ordinarily never be removed for any purpose (except perhaps medical reasons). Searches of this nature would be highly unusual and humiliating, only adding to the dehumanization suspected witches faced as their family, friends, and neighbors were turned against them, their reputations were destroyed, and their every word discredited. Though such searches were ostensibly to reveal damning evidence, the humiliation a witch would likely feel surely added to the pressure to confess and make everything stop.
Kors and Peters, p. 204-224
Although I don't doubt that all these procedures had a psychological effect on the accused witches, my interpretation of this is that was not the primary intention. The main purpose of all these practices seems to me to be the search for evidence and their own protection as evidenced by the text stating that accused witches were led into court back wards for the safety of the judge and the preservation of their idea of a fair trial by the witch being unable to influence the outcome magically.
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