The American Psychological Association and torture: How could it happen?

Bryan Welch
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies
Volume 14 (2)

Here is an excerpt:

This same grandiosity was ubiquitous in the governance's rhetoric at the heart of the association's discussions on torture. Banning psychologists' participation in reputed torture mills was clearly unnecessary, proponents of the APA policy argued. To do so would be an “insult” to military psychologists everywhere. No psychologist would ever engage in torture. Insisting on a change in APA policy reflected a mean-spirited attitude toward the military psychologists. The supporters of the APA policy managed to transform the military into the victims in the interrogation issue.

In the end, however, it was psychologists' self-assumed importance that carried the day on the torture issue. Psychologists' participation in these detention centers, it was asserted, was an antidote to torture, since psychologists' very presence could protect the potential torture victims (presumably from Rumsfeld and Cheney, no less!). The debates on the APA Council floor, year after year, concluded with the general consensus that, indeed, psychology was very, very important to our nation's security. In fact the APA Ethics Director repeatedly advised members of the APA governance that psychologists' presence was necessary to make sure the interrogations were “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.”

We psychologists were both too good and too important to join our professional colleagues in other professions who were taking an absolutist moral position against one of the most shameful eras in our country's history. While the matter was clearly orchestrated by others, it was this self-reinforcing grandiosity that led the traditionally liberal APA governance down the slippery slope to the Bush administration's torture program.

During this period I had numerous personal communications with members of the APA governance structure in an attempt to dissuade them from ignoring the rank-and-file psychologists who abhorred the APA's position. I have been involved in many policy disagreements over the course of my career, but the smugness and illogic that characterized the response to these efforts were astonishing and went far beyond normal, even heated, give and take. Most dramatically, the intelligence that I have always found to characterize the profession of psychology was sorely lacking.

The article is here.

Psychologist contractors say they were following agency orders

Pamela MacLean
Bloomberg News
Originally posted May 5, 2017

A pair of U.S. psychologists accused of overseeing the torture of terrorism detainees more than a decade ago face reluctance from a federal judge to let them question the CIA’s deputy director to show they were only following orders.

The judge indicated at a hearing Friday that the psychologists should be able defend themselves in the 2015 lawsuit without compromising government secrecy around the exact role Gina Haspel played in the agency’s overseas interrogation program years before she was tapped to be second in command by the Trump administration.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the case on behalf of three ex-prisoners, one of whom died in custody, is urging the judge not to let the psychologists’ lawyers question Haspel and a retired Central Intelligence Agency official. While the defendants want to demonstrate their actions were approved by the agency, the ACLU says that won’t shield them from liability.

The article is here.

The code not taken: The path from guild ethics to torture and our continuing choices

Pope, Kenneth S.
Canadian Psychology
Vol 57(1), Feb 2016, 51-59

Abstract

Psychology’s controversial role in torture in settings like Abu Ghraib, Bagram, and Guantánamo fractured a comforting façade and raised questions about how we can best serve the profession. The controversy confronts us with choices about what our profession is, what it means, what it does—who we are, what we mean, what we do. It asks whether our lives and organisations reflect professional ethics or guild ethics. Professional ethics protect the public against abuse of professional power, expertise, and practice, and hold members accountable to values beyond self-interest. Guild ethics place members’ interests above public interest, edge away from accountability, and tend to masquerade as professional ethics. Psychology’s path to involvement in torture began before 9/11 and the “war on terror” with a move from professional ethics to guild ethics. In sharp contrast to its previous codes, APA’s 1992 ethics code reflected guild ethics, as did the subsequent 2002 code (APA, 2002). Guild ethics are reflected in the questionable nature of APA’s, 2006, 2007a, 2008a, and 2015 policies on interrogation and torture. This article examines tactics used to maintain the façade of professional ethics despite over a decade of publicized reports of documentary evidence of psychology’s organisational involvement in what came to be called “enhanced interrogations.” It asks if we use versions of these tactics in our individual lives. If a credible identity, integrity, and professional ethics are not reflected in our individual lives, it is unlikely they will thrive in our profession and organisations.

The article is here.

Neuroscience: Tortured reasoning

Lasana T. Harris
Nature 527, 35–36 (05 November 2015) doi:10.1038/527035a
Published online 04 November 2015

In 2009, following the abuse of prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the US government made a significant decision. It moved the responsibility for 'enhanced interrogation techniques' from the CIA to a new government organization: the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG). The move upset many CIA insiders; torture had been in their toolkit since the early days of the cold war. The remarks of one official at a HIG-organized conference on torture in Washington DC can be summed up as: how could a new agency, created to both conduct and study torture, replace the decades of practice and perfection attained by the CIA? By adding a scientific component, responded the newly appointed head of the HIG.

This exchange highlights the theme of neuroscientist Shane O'Mara's Why Torture Doesn't Work. Rightly, O'Mara takes a moral stand against torture (forced retrieval of information from the memories of the unwilling). However, instead of simply providing utilitarian arguments, he argues that there is no evidence from psychology or neuroscience for many of the specious justifications of torture as an information-gathering tool. Providing an abundance of gruesome detail, O'Mara marshals vast, useful information about the effects of such practices on the brain and the body.

(Underline provided by me.)

The entire book review is here.

CIA torture survivors sue psychologists who designed infamous program

By Spencer Ackerman
The Guardian
Originally published October 13, 2015

Survivors of CIA torture have sued the contractor psychologists who designed one of the most infamous programs of the post-9/11 era.

In an extraordinary step, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen now face a federal lawsuit for their role in convincing the CIA to subject terror suspects to mock drowning, painful bodily contortions, sleep and dietary deprivation and other methods long rejected by much of the world as torture.

In practice, CIA torture meant disappearances, mock executions, anal penetration performed under cover of “rehydration” and at least one man who froze to death, according to a landmark Senate report last year. Versions of the techniques migrated from the CIA’s undocumented prisons, known as black sites, to US military usage at Guantánamo Bay, Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan and Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

The entire article is here.

Thoughts on Psychologists, Ethics, and the Use of Torture in Interrogations

Zimbardo, P.G. (2007). Thoughts on Psychologists, Ethics, and the Use of Torture in  Interrogations: Don’t Ignore Varying Roles and Complexities.
Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy (ASAP) Online SSPSI Journal. Vol. 7, pp. 65-73.

Here is an excerpt:

Such considerations lead me to conclude that PENS has utilized the wrong model for its ethical deliberations about psychologists as consultants to military interrogations. The model featured in this task force report is that of a psychologist working for the military as an independent contractor, making rational moral decisions within a transparent setting, with full power to confront, challenge and expose unethical practices. It is left up to that individual to be alert, informed, perceptive, wise, and ready to act on principle when ethical dilemmas arise.

Instead, I will argue that those psychologists are "hired hands" working at the discretion of their military or government agency clients for as long as they provide valued service, which in the current war on terrorism is to assist by providing whatever information and advice is requested to gain "actionable intelligence" from those interrogated. PENS notes that psychologists often are part of a group of professionals, rarely acting alone. They can become part of an operational team, experiencing normative pressures to conform to the emerging standards of that group. They cannot make readily informed ethical decisions because they do not have full knowledge of how their personal contributions are being used in secret or classified missions. Their judgments and decisions may be made under conditions of uncertainty, and may include high stress. Moreover, definitions of basic terms are not constant, but shifting, so it becomes difficult or impossible to make a fully informed ethical judgment about any specific aspect of one's functions.

In addition, PENS does not recognize the reality that in field settings, the work of Ph.D./Psy.D. psychologists is often substituted by, or made operational by, numerous paraprofessionals, such as mental health counselors, personnel officers, psychological assistants and interns, and others trained in psychology. If they do not belong to professional associations, such as APA, they are relieved of the professional consequences of engaging in unethical actions. Thus, our concerns must extend to these psychologist paraprofessionals as well as those professionals within APA.

The entire article is here.

What, exactly, does yesterday’s APA resolution prohibit?

By Marty Lederman
Just Security
Originally posted August 8, 2015

By an overwhelming vote of 156-1 (with seven abstentions and one recusal)–so lopsided that it stunned even its proponents–the American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives yesterday approved a resolution that the APA describes as “prohibit[ing] psychologists from participating in national security interrogations.”

What does Approved Resolution No. 23B do, exactly?  As I read it, it does three principal things, in ascending order of importance:

1.  It reaffirms an existing APA ethical prohibition that psychologists “may not engage directly or indirectly in any act of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment,” a prohibition that “applies to all persons (including foreign detainees) wherever they may be held”; and it “clarifies” that “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” (CIDTP) should be understood not (or not only) as that term is defined in the U.S. Senate’s understandings of, and reservations to, the Convention Against Torture, but instead in accord with the broadest understanding of CIDTP adopted by any international legal body at the relevant time:  the definition “continues to evolve with international legal understandings of this term.”

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3.  Finally, and most significantly, the Resolution establishes a new prohibition that “psychologists shall not conduct, supervise, be in the presence of, or otherwise assist any national security interrogations for any military or intelligence entities, including private contractors working on their behalf, nor advise on conditions of confinement insofar as these might facilitate such an interrogation.”

The entire article is here.

Psychologists Approve Ban on Role in National Security Interrogations

By James Risen
The New York Times
Originally posted August 7, 2015

The American Psychological Association on Friday overwhelmingly approved a new ban on any involvement by psychologists in national security interrogations conducted by the United States government, even noncoercive interrogations now conducted by the Obama administration.

The council of representatives of the organization, the nation’s largest professional association of psychologists, voted to impose the ban at its annual meeting here.

The vote followed an emotional debate in which several members said the ban was needed to restore the organization’s reputation in the wake of a scathing independent investigation ordered by the A.P.A.’s board.

The entire article is here.

Report to the Special Committee of the Board of Directors of the American Psychlogical Association

David H. Hoffman, Esq.
Danielle J. Carter, Esq.
Cara R. Viglucci Lopez, Esq.
Heather L. Benzmiller, Esq.
Ava X. Guo, Esq.
S. Yasir Latifi, Esq.
Daniel C. Craig, Esq.
SIDLEY AUSTIN LLP

July 2, 2015

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I. INTRODUCTION

In November 2014, the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association engaged our Firm to conduct an independent review of allegations that had been made regarding APA’s issuance of ethical guidelines in 2002 and 2005, and related actions. These ethical guidelines determined whether and under what circumstances psychologists who were APA members could ethically participate in national security interrogations.

The gist of the allegations was that APA made these ethics policy decisions as a substantial result of influence from and close relationships with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other government entities, which purportedly wanted permissive ethical guidelines so that their psychologists could continue to participate in harsh and abusive interrogation techniques being used by these agencies after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Critics pointed to alleged procedural irregularities and suspicious outcomes regarding APA’s ethics policy decisions and said they resulted from this improper coordination, collaboration, or collusion. Some said APA’s decisions were intentionally made to assist the government in engaging in these “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Some said they were intentionally made to help the government commit torture.

The entire report is here.

An ethics lesson for psychologists: don’t participate in torture

By J Wesley Boyd
The Conversation
Originally posted April 29, 2015

The Senate’s Report on the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program (commonly known as the torture report) released in December 2014, confirmed that doctors and psychologists were complicit in the torture of detainees.

Two psychologists, unnamed in the report, but confirmed to be James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, designed some of the “enhanced interrogation” techniques. Other psychologists monitored interrogations.

A few weeks after the release of the report the president of the American Psychological Association (APA) stated that because Jessen and Mitchell are not members of the APA, the organization has no jurisdiction over them and cannot sanction them in any way. But Mitchell and Jessen weren’t the only psychologists to violate ethical standards, and the APA has yet to fully denounce psychologists' participation in torture.

The entire story is here.

The Ethics of Enhanced Interrogations and Torture: A Reappraisal of the Argument

William O'Donohuea, Cassandra Snipesa, Georgia Daltoa, Cyndy Sotoa, Alexandros Maragakisa & Sungjin Im
Ethics & Behavior
Volume 24, Issue 2, 2014

Abstract

This article critically reviews what is known about the ethical status of psychologists’ putative involvement with enhanced interrogations and torture (EITs). We examine three major normative ethical accounts (utilitarian, deontic, and virtue ethics) of EITs and conclude, contra the American Psychological Association, that reasonable arguments can be made that in certain cases the use of EITs is ethical and even, in certain circumstances, morally obligatory. We suggest that this moral question is complex as it has competing moral values involved, that is, the humane treatment of detainee competes with the ethical value/duty/virtue of protecting innocent third parties. We also suggest that there is an ethical duty to minimize harm by making only judicious and morally responsible allegations against the psychologists alleged to be involved in EITs. Finally, we make recommendations regarding completing the historical record, improvements in the professional ethics code, and the moral treatment of individuals accused in this controversy.

The entire article is here.

Why there would have been no torture without the psychologists

By Steven Reisner
Slate
Originally published December 12, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

The psychologists were vital to the torture program for one additional reason: The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had determined that the presence of psychologists and physicians, monitoring the state and condition of the prisoner being tortured, afforded protection for the CIA leadership and the Bush administration from liability and potential prosecution for the torture. Later, the OLC applied the same rules to the Defense Department’s “enhanced interrogation program,” which, according to an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee, was created and overseen by a team led by a clinical psychologist, and eventually overseen exclusively by clinical psychologists.

The entire article is here.

Tortured by Psychologists and Doctors

The New York Time Editorial Board
Originally published

Here is an excerpt:

The ghastly new revelation is that two psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, who devised a list of coercive techniques to be used in questioning prisoners also personally conducted interrogations in which they tortured some C.I.A. detainees. They earned tens of millions of dollars under contracts for those services.

The report also cites other health professionals who participated, including unidentified C.I.A. medical officers or doctors who cleared prisoners for interrogation and played a central role in deciding whether to continue or adjust procedures when a prisoner developed severe medical problems.

The entire article is here.

APA names lawyer to examine claims it aided U.S. government in shielding psychologists who tortured prisoners

By John Bohannon
Science Magazine
Originally published November 17, 2014

The American Psychological Association (APA) last week named a former federal prosecutor to lead an investigation into its role in supporting the U.S. government’s interrogation of suspected terrorists.

A new book by reporter James Risen of The New York Times alleges that APA, the largest U.S. professional association of psychologists, bent its ethical guidelines to give psychologists permission to conduct such interrogations at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. The motivation, according to Risen, was to stay in the good graces of U.S. intelligence and defense officials. APA has denied the allegations and says that it worked closely with the CIA and the Pentagon "to ensure that national security policies were well-informed by empirical science."

The entire article is here.

APA Applauds Release of Senate Intelligence Committee Report Summary

American Psychological Association
Press Release
December 9, 2014

Says transparency will help protect human rights in the future

WASHINGTON — The American Psychological Association welcomed the release today of the Executive Summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program during the George W. Bush administration. The document’s release recognizes American citizens’ right to know about the prior action of their government and is the best way to ensure that, going forward, the United States engages in national security programs that safeguard human rights and comply with international law.

The new details provided by the report regarding the extent and barbarity of torture techniques used by the CIA are sickening and morally reprehensible.

Two psychologists mentioned prominently in the report under pseudonyms, but identified in media reports as James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, are not members of the American Psychological Association. Jessen was never a member; Mitchell resigned in 2006. Therefore, they are outside the reach of the association’s ethics adjudication process. Regardless of their membership status with APA, if the descriptions of their actions are accurate, they should be held fully accountable for violations of human rights and U.S. and international law.

Last month, the APA announced an independent review of the allegation by New York Times reporter and author James Risen that the association colluded with the Bush administration to support enhanced interrogation techniques that constituted torture. The review is being conducted by attorney David Hoffman of the law office Sidley Austin. Hoffman will be reviewing the released Senate Intelligence Committee report as a part of his APA review. Anyone with relevant information they wish to share with Hoffman is encouraged to communicate with him directly by email or phone at (312) 456-8468.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 130,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

Psychologists to Review Role in Detainee Interrogations

By James Risen
The New York Times
November 13, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

For years, questions about the role of American psychologists and behavioral scientists in the development and implementation of the Bush-era interrogation program have been raised by human rights advocates as well as by critics within the psychological profession itself. Psychologists were involved in developing the enhanced interrogation techniques used on terrorism suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency. Later, a number of psychologists, in the military and in the intelligence community, were involved in carrying out and monitoring interrogations.

The entire article is here.

APA Declines to Rebuke Guantanamo Psychologist

By Spence Ackerman
The Guardian
Originally published January 22, 2014

America’s professional association of psychologists has quietly declined to rebuke one of its members, a retired US army reserve officer, for his role in one of the most brutal interrogations known to have to taken place at Guantánamo Bay, the Guardian has learned.

The decision not to pursue any disciplinary measure against John Leso, a former army reserve major, is the latest case in which someone involved in the post-9/11 torture of detainees has faced no legal or even professional consequences.

The entire story is here.

The December 31 letter is here.

Medical, Military, and Ethics Experts Say Health Professionals Designed and Participated in Cruel, Inhumane, and Degrading Treatment

Press Release
Institute of Medicine as a Profession


An independent panel of military, ethics, medical, public health, and legal experts today charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm. The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers (see attached) concludes that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody.

These practices included “designing, participating in, and enabling torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment” of detainees, according to the report. Although the DoD has taken steps to address some of these practices in recent years, including instituting a committee to review medical ethics concerns at Guantanamo Bay Prison, the Task Force says the changed roles for health professionals and anemic ethical standards adopted within the military remain in place.

“The American public has a right to know that the covenant with its physicians to follow professional ethical expectations is firm regardless of where they serve,” said Task Force member Dr. Gerald Thomson, Professor of Medicine Emeritus at Columbia University. “It’s clear that in the name of national security the military trumped that covenant, and physicians were transformed into agents of the military and performed acts that were contrary to medical ethics and practice. We have a responsibility to make sure this never happens again.”

The entire press release is here.

Thanks for Gary Schoener for this release.

APA Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists' Involvement in National Security Settings

The goal of this grassroots task force is to develop a clear, comprehensive policy statement that consolidates existing APA policies into a unified, consistent document. The consolidated policy document will highlight the following principles drawn from existing APA policies:

1. Torture is always a violation of human rights and psychologists' professional ethics;
2. Psychologists are always prohibited from engaging in torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment;
3. Abusive interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding and sensory deprivation, constitute torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment and are always prohibited;
4. The role of psychologists in unlawful detention settings is limited to working on behalf of detainees or providing treatment for military personnel;
5. There is absolutely no defense to a violation of human rights under the APA Ethics Code.

The web page for this member-initiated task force is here.

Here is a copy of the proposed policy:

This is a policy recommendation related to psychologists' work in national security settings and reaffirmat...

Protecting Psychologists Who Harm: The APA's Latest Wrong Turn

By Roy Eidelson
Truth-out.org
Opinion

Shortly after learning about the American Psychological Association's (APA) late February announcement of its new Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists' Involvement in National Security Settings, I found my thoughts turning to the School of the Americas, Blackwater and perhaps even more surprisingly, the Patagonian toothfish. Those may seem like a strange threesome, but they share one important thing in common. All have undergone a thorough repackaging and renaming in a marketing effort aimed at obscuring - but not altering - some ugly truth.

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What can annulment of the PENS Report accomplish? First, annulment will serve to indisputably repudiate the illegitimate process by which the military-intelligence establishment took control over the core ethics of psychology as a profession. Second, annulment will set the stage for a long-overdue transparent, broad-based and independent examination - by psychologists, by human rights advocates, by national security experts and by ethicists - of whether or not it is ethical for psychologists to serve in aggressive operational roles in national security settings. More than a decade has passed since the attacks of 9/11, yet this fundamental question has never been honestly and openly addressed. Indeed, the PENS Report was strategically designed to take this question off the table - by offering the mere pretense of meaningful discussion and debate.

The entire story is here.

A blog post referencing the member-initiated task force is here.

A blog post referencing the PENS report is here.