Psychologists or interrogators? the necessity to choose one role or the other
Martha Davis, a member of the Steering Committee of withholdapadues.com, has written this very interesting analysis of the error in assuming that “psychologists” are participating in interrogations. Davis perceives a fundamental conflict between the identity as a “psychologist,” subject to professional ethics, and that of a military interrogator, totally subservient to the military chain of command:
With apologies for the length of this… is it too late to stand back and ask what the APA is fighting for no matter how strong the safeguards put into a resolution?
It looks like the APA will talk endlessly with protesters about HOW psychologists are to be involved in detainee interrogations and WHAT they can or cannot do, as long as WHETHER is off the table. But since when did psychologists as psychologists become so directly involved in interrogations anywhere? In virtually all dual role situations for a psychologist (psychologist treating prisoners, psychological assessments of suspects to determine ability to stand trial, research or consulting psychologist developing new measures for assessing fitness to serve), the ethical issues have been dealt with in theory, practice and print for decades and the psychologist has a realm of practice that is not to be subordinate to the institutional chain of command (e.g. the police commissioner can’t order the psychologist to make a psychological decision.) In top secret military activity, the dual role issues and chains of command are murky and difficult to know (e.g. psychologists working for intelligence agencies in psych ops), but BSCT psychologists involved in top secret detainee interrogations lose their duality as psychologists in the military and have only one, intelligence officer in the Army. Still the APA has publicly supported the BSCTs as psychologists. According to the APA Exec. Dir. of Public Communications in a letter to the editor of the Charleston Gazette:
“APA has chosen a strategy of engagement, of having psychologists present wherever interrogations take place, as the strategy most likely to promote ethical interrogations and to prevent abuse.”
It looks like after 9/11 the U.S. Army (at least) instituted a new service, something that stands independent of and equal in importance to other services in the military that have long been staffed by psychologists (like psychological services for armed forces personnel). The Army named their version of this new service “Behavioral Science Consultation Teams” and has explicitly described it as staffed by psychologists and psych techs (and originally psychiatrists). These teams are a) separate from the Medical Services b) answerable to the army chain of command, and in GTMO to the CO himself, and c) devoted to intelligence gathering.
No matter what the APA says, the Army (cf the Army Surgeon General 2005 report) says BSCTs are involved in intelligence gathering – training/coaching civilian contract or army personnel “student interrogators” in the camps, attending interrogations, collecting psychological information in preparation for them, and because the Army appears to have less experienced interrogators than the FBI, the DIA, and maybe the CIA, BSCTs can direct the line of inquiry with authority to stop, start, amend what goes on. Note that the Army is not employing BSCT psychologists as “safety advisors,” (which is how the APA describes their function) although the Army may use their status as “psychologists” to assure an uneasy public that detainee treatment is humane.
If, as I have read, Dr. Gelles of the Navy is “Chief Psychologist, Interrogations” then other branches of the armed services are also establishing units in which the psychologists’ primary responsibility is interrogations. I submit that psychologists as psychologists (as opposed to once psychologists, now CIA agents) responsible for intelligence gathering and in charge of interrogation units “on the ground” is a new and profoundly important development. What is critical here is that the APA, the state licensing boards, indeed no civilian entity has any authority whatsoever over what they are and what they do. And here’s what may be the real rub. The APA or state licensing boards probably cannot object to the Army calling BSCTs “psychologists” even though they are intelligence officers because of the right of a government agency like the VA to waive the licensing law and call some personnel “psychologists” even if they don’t have a doctorate, etc.
We must take the authority of the military and its chain of command absolutely as the bottom line here, compounded ten-fold by the fact that what really goes on in detainee interrogations is top secret. We and the APA have the power to protest, to advise, to write press releases, and if we want, to support and lend our professional reputations to the effort. But no NGOs or civilian groups have power over the military or access to top secret interrogations. If anyone has any doubt, look at what the Army Surgeon General did after receiving a massive study (2005) of detainee treatment that recommended that psychiatrists be removed from detainee interrogations. He said we don’t accept the recommendation, but we’ll study the matter. And the argument that BSCTs are “safety officers” is naïve at best. An interpreter who did a tour of duty at GTMO, (Saar and Novak, 2005) reports that interrogations are staged for visiting VIPs and everyone shapes up when the International Red Cross representatives come by, but no such good behavior is reserved for BSCTs.
The APA cannot stop BSCTs, but it can withhold its very public, enthusiastic endorsement of the program, and it can amend Ethics code1.02 so that psychologists in the Medical Services who witness abuse are not in a black hole of ambiguity, ordered by code 1.02 to follow orders when their judgments are at odds with the chain of command.
Certainly the APA itself should stop calling intelligence officers psychologists. If “safety officers” are needed, then the call should be for International Red Cross personnel involvement in interrogations because they are more independent of the command structure and would not be associated so directly with medical services. What is the cost to psychologists in the military? As someone responsible for psychological services for law enforcement told me, “What a terrible position to put a psychologist in. Who would want the job?” However, it is possible that some do want the BSCT job –or cannot get out of it without trouble from the CO — and it may actually be prestigious, at least at the higher rank levels. Also, if psychologists are poised to direct a new service in the military – interrogation training and monitoring or some such — then this must have great appeal. To ban this is not necessarily to deprive the individual psychologist of advancement – if he or she wants to become an intelligence officer, there appear to be ample opportunities within the traditional intelligence agencies for people with psychological training. (NB: FBI and CIA agents with degrees and licenses in law or psychology are called FBI or CIA agents, not psychologists.) It is the leaders of APA who want greater hegemony for the profession who must be most threatened by questioning whether psychologists as psychologists should be involved in detainee interrogations. In this sense it is even more powerful an issue than the fight for the right of psychologists to give medications because psychologists appear poised to actually run a new service as psychologists.
So when the resistance feels insurmountable, it may be because it is. We cannot underestimate the overriding power of the military and the U.S. Government to dictate how this is played out, and the stakes for the governance of the APA in supporting it. At this point, just days before the APA convention, I hope there is no premature decision to accept any alternate proposal – unless the impossible happens and the APA explicitly withdraws its very public support of psychologists’ nvolvement in detainee interrogations and promises to rescind 2002 Ethics Code 1.02.
Martha Davis
Add comment July 24th, 2007