Psyche, Science, and Society

Valtin on APA-FBI attacks on therapist confidentiality

January 7th, 2007

Daily Kos diarist Valtin, a psychologist, has elucidated another aspect of the American Psychological Association’s collaboration with the National Security State. [FBI & American Psych. Association Attack Patient Confidentiality] He documents a damning silence by the APA on FBI efforts to turn psychologists into spies, reporting on suspicious activities by people mentioned by therapist clients.

What emerges is a portrait of institutional American psychology — and its top leadership — eager to have front seats at the spoils table that is capturing the billions of dollars flowing into national security in the wake of 9/11. (One is reminded of the participation of former APA president and top U.S. psychologist, Martin Seligman, in discussions on psychological debility via learned helplessness at SERE, a military program implicated in a famous New Yorker expose in the development of torture techniques used by the U.S. in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guanatamo.)

Valtin quotes the FBI as stating:

There is a need for the American Psychological Association and state psychological associations to develop an ethical code for practitioners for instances where a client may have information relevant to terrorism (similar to other mandates that already exist, such as those for instances of abuse of children and the elderly and a client’s intention to harm himself or another person). Such instances are peculiar because they involve third-party harm. Psychologists need to be trained for what behaviors to look for, and how to report information to law enforcement while protecting the client and their family and community. This may include some kinds of cross-cultural training. The APA may have to work with legislatures and licensing boards regarding some of these issues. Similar training and issues of confidentiality need to be considered for the training of clergy, teachers, and physicians….

It was suggested that the APA might develop guidelines for such reporting, and offer these to other agencies (school systems, social services), where appropriate.

Valtin also points out that the recent Health Insurance and Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) makes an explicit exemption for telling the patient about violations of confidentiality for “national security”:

Patients have the right to receive an accounting of disclosures of protected health information made by their providers in the six years prior to the date on which the accounting is requested, except for disclosures….

4. for national security or intelligence purposes

5. to correctional institutions or law inforcement officers

As Valtin concludes:

My Main Point

When the APA published its own article on the conference in November 2003, it never mentioned the changes in confidentiality laws and ethics codes proposed by the FBI, neither opposing or supporting them. You would never know from reading the APA’s account that such tremendous changes in standard ethical practice were being proposed, or that the APA was to take the lead in making these changes throughout the larger medical and social services field.

The silence of the APA on this issue is deafening. The leaders of the APA have fudged the question of use of psychologists in national security interrogations that hold “enemy combatants”, and where torture has taken place. The leaders of the APA would allow use of psychologists in Army interrogations where use of isolation, sleep deprivation, and inducement of fear and debility take place (see my earlier article on the “new” Army field interrogation manual). The leaders of the APA would like to be seen as enthusiastic cheerleaders of the neocon war on terror, as handmaidens to the organization of state security, in the name of providing “knowledge”. In the meantime, they would turn every psychologist, psychiatrist, doctor, counselor, clergyman and teacher into government informants and spies.

Read the entire piece!

Entry Filed under: APA, Psychology, Rights and Liberties, Social Issues, Terrorism