Psyche, Science, and Society

Uwe Jacobs responds to APA Board substitute resolution replacing Moraotorium

July 28th, 2007

Uwe Jacobs, Executive Director of Survivors International, responded in an email to Neil Altman to the recent American Psychological Association Board substitute resolution to the Moratorium resolution that would call for a halt to psychologists participating in national security interrogations of so-called “enemy combatants.” Neil Altman is the sponsor of the Moratorium resolution that the Board resolution would replace.[posted here with the permission of Dr’s Jacobs and Altman]:To: Neil Altman, PhD
From: Uwe Jacobs, PhD
Re: Moratorium Resolution and BOD alternative

Date: 7/24/07

Dear Neil -

I would like to clarify my position with respect to the substitute motion by the APA Board of Directors currently being circulated as an alternative to your original moratorium resolution.  You will recall that my efforts to explicitly ban participation in all forms of coercive interrogations and inflicting distress on prisoners and list a large number of specific techniques was meant to be responsive to some concerns expressed by the Ethics Committee and thus aid passage of your resolution by the COR. In my following exchanges with Dr. Stephen Behnke [the APA’s Director of Ethics], he strongly encouraged this effort initially.

However, I began to understand that this was intended to become a substitute and competing document to your resolution, which I did not intend or support. In addition, I felt increasingly at a loss as to how I could respond to a number of objections made to my proposals by SB. It is certainly true that my own thinking was incomplete and evolving and that SB had useful editorial suggestions for me.
However, I also encountered objections I did not understand.

For example, I had suggested that any participation in intentionally inflicting distress on prisoners above and beyond routine procedures of law enforcement would be prohibited. SB objected that distress was too vague, that a lot of things cause distress and that I should focus on causing harm instead.  Conversely, I believed that this would lead to a situation where harm (a higher standard) would have to be proven, rather than having a simple standard of behavioral ethics. I did not believe that it was complicated or murky to say that we don’t intentionally inflict distress for the sake of inflicting distress. I further argued that we obtain informed consent and explain our reasons and procedures, for example, in the context of a forensic evaluation. I also could not agree with SB’s repeated likening of the situation under discussion with other psychological activities, such as performing forensic examinations and mandatory reporting of abuse. I still believe that inflicting distress on a child molester for the sake of protecting the child, while being legally required to do so, is not an activity anyone could claim to be unethical because of standards that were drafted specifically to address the handling of prisoners. The same goes for telling a divorced mother or father that one will have to make recommendations concerning child custody on the basis of psychological data. Such objections simply do not appear authentic, and I found them especially puzzling here because I had inserted a qualifying note stating that these ethical standards were concerned specifically with the handling of prisoners and interrogations and nothing else.

In working on this document, I also began to understand that SB discouraged anything that was legal in nature, such as making reference to the Convention Against Torture, and that there was interest only in compiling a comprehensive list of prohibited techniques and to say additionally that we should not cause harm. I felt that this program was too minimal and would lead to a less desirable outcome, rather than improve the resolution, especially if the idea was to offer it as an alternative.  After gaining distance from some of the details and complexities, I came back to the simple realization that there was a basic difference between what we wanted APA to articulate and what the APA leadership wanted: we wanted to say that psychologists should not be working at detention sites that have been found in violation of international human rights laws and the APA leadership wanted to preserve access of psychologists to these sites, insisting that psychologists would be valuable as guarantors of safety and ethics.

When I tried to explain this position of APA to one of my German colleagues this summer, he made it clear that he considered it an insane proposition to participate in the operation of an internationally condemned prison camp with the argument that this will make it less bad for the prisoners.  I realized that this type of policy would be unthinkable for a professional organization in Germany because the experience of the Third Reich still runs deep with us and we think that when government policy is in violation of basic human rights, one may no longer adopt professional neutrality.

I can’t agree, therefore, that striving to be a good egg but going to work at Gitmo is as clear a policy against torture as recommending that we don’t participate at all. After all, a non-binding policy resolution by a professional group is not a major act of civil disobedience, much less does it rise to the level of any individual psychologist’s refusal to obey an order from a superior officer. It is just a public statement and it seems like the least we should do.

I hope that this helps to explain why I don’t think the Board proposal is a good alternative to your resolution.

Best regards,

Uwe
p.s. If it is of any help to your dealings with the COR, feel free to share these thoughts.

Uwe Jacobs, PhD
Director, Survivors International
703 Market Street, Suite 301
San Francisco, CA 94

Entry Filed under: APA, Guantanamo, International Law, Interrogation, Law, Psychological Torture, Psychology, Torture, War Crimes