Psyche, Science, and Society

Reisner on defeated “moratorium” amendment at APA

Steven Reisner recently responded to some arguments against the Amendment on interrogations that was overwhelmingly defeated at the American Psychological Association Convention two weeks ago. the defeated amendment stated:

BE IT RESOLVED that the objectives of the APA shall be to advance psychology as a science and profession and as a means of promoting health, education and welfare (Bylaws of the APa: Article 1) and, therefore, the roles of psychologists in settings in which detainees are deprived of adequate protection of their human rights, should be limited as health personnel to the provision of psychological treatment.

A poster on the list summarized the arguments against this amendment on the APA Council of representatives thusly:

The debate focused on several points

1. Psychologists should not be associated in any way with national security interrogations or detention centers due in part to the obvious abuses that have and do occur.

2. Psychologists are in a unique position to be an “ethical presence” in training interrogators and during the conduct of interrogations, and

3. The moratorium may end up with unintended consequences for psychologists practicing in other settings. For example, would such prohibitions restrict forensic psychologists or those working in prisons, group homes, inpatient hospitals, police departments, etc. where clients do not consent to their evaluation and treatment? The ethical code does not restrict psychologists from practice in specific settings. Rather, the code calls on psychologists, regardless of setting, to adhere to the guidelines and principles and to work on behalf of their patients/clients.

Reisner deftly analyzed and demolished these arguments, pointing out, along the way, the silliness of the claims that psychologists have any special expertise or moral calliber that will make it likely that they will not go along with and prevent abuse:

I find this response, on the part of elected representatives to be quite depressing, because it makes clear that the reps believed the resolution and the debate was about something different than it actually was.

1. There was no issue about whether psychologists should “be associated in any way with national security interrogations or detention centers due in part to the obvious abuses that have and do occur.” Even though many of us believe that this is a reasonable position, the debate was about whether psychologists should be involved in interrogations where detainees are “deprived of adequate protection of their human rights.” The belief that the resolution would prohibit psychologists from being in certain settings is a false, hot-button issue. Would the COR reps argue that psychologists should be able to participate in interrogations in a concentration camp? Or, as was brought up repeatedly during the mini-convention, in a detention camp for the Japanese in California during WW II? It is obvious that participating in the machinery of human rights violations is a violation of ethics. The two interrogators invited by the APA Board, Steve Kleinman and Mike Gelles, both agreed that the language of the amendment would actually be protective of interrogators, because it would make it clear to their superiors that such a circumstance is unethical in itself.

2. The argument that psychologists “are in a unique position to be an “ethical presence” in training nterrogators and during the conduct of interrogations>” is, unfortunately based on no data other than Col. Larry James’ fear tactic argument that if psychologists are not there “people will die!” In fact, the one research, Craig Haney, of the University of California-Sant Cruz, who presented at the mini-convention on an analogous subject (studying the roles of psychologists working in prisons where prisoners rights were terribly abused) found, after 30 years of research, that in no case did a psychologist’s presence reduce or mitigate the abuse. On the other hand, we do know that psychologists working in detainee interrogations were in fact responsible for terrible abuses, and, in fact, developed the protocols of abuse. This is, therefore, an emotional argument, but has no basis in fact or logic. Why should psychologists take on the role of ethics police for the CIA, and what gives them special ability, or authority, to do so?

3. The idea that “The moratorium may end up with unintended consequences for psychologists practicing in other settings“, is also a fear-based, rather than a fact or logic based argument. First, the resolution and moratorium were clear that they applied only to detainee centers (in fact, the psychologists who worked in prisons and campaigned for prisoners’ rights were unhappy that it did not apply to prisons!). They were written that way precisely because of these concerns. It is unclear to me why the COR representatives would, and second, would it really be a problem if we applied the same to prisons or hospitals where people were deprived of “adequate protection of their human rights?” I for one only wish that the APA could support psychologists working for the good of prisoners and patients in that way.

So, our problem has to do with the psychological state of our elected members, when facing such a vote. The fact that Council reps respond to the emotional and economic valence of the issue, as opposed to the data and international ethical standards, reveals precisely why psychologists are NOT the ones to uphold ethical standards under the pressure of military orders and the high emotions of abusive interrogations. It is precisely why cooler heads have always determined independently what the appropriate ethical standards should be for those in a position where their judgement might be impaired by pressure from superiors, pressure from the emotions of the moment to get information, and the overblown threat, manipulated for political ends, that has accompanied the United States’, and now APA’s, policy in detainee interrogations.

August 31st, 2007

Justice Department lawyers refuse detainee cases

While America’s psychologists, or at least their professional organization, the American Psychological Association, can’t find it in their heart to openly criticize and refuse to collaborate with the horrors committed in the name of the war on terror, it turns out that another professional group has done so. US News & World Report informs us that many Justice Department lawyers have been refusing to handle detainee appeals cases for the government:

The government’s legal arguments justifying the detention of hundreds of people at the Guantánamo Bay naval base have been repudiated three times by the U.S. Supreme Court. But it’s not just outsiders who take issue with the U.S. Justice Department strategy: Up to one fourth of the department’s own civil appellate staff has recently opted out of handling the government’s cases against detainee appeals, two sources familiar with the matter tell U.S. News.

These conscientious objectors—their exact number is not known—have decided not to take part in the government’s litigation against the detainees because of disagreements with the legal approach, these sources say. They would not elaborate on the specific reasons for the objections, but critics have long objected to the government’s failure to formally charge detainees and have pushed for closing Guantánamo because of allegations of torture and inhumane conditions. Defense lawyers also contend that the government has stymied their cases by withholding documents and curbing client access.

The quiet rebellion has emerged in recent months among the approximately 56 attorneys in the appellate section of the Justice Department’s civil division following a court ruling in February that placed the defense of the approximately 130 remaining Guantánamo cases under the responsibility of the appellate lawyers. More than 300 men captured shortly after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 are still being held at Guantánamo over alleged ties to terrorists, although all but a handful have never been formally charged with crimes.

Its a sad day when attorneys in Alberto Gonzales’ Department of Justice demonstrate greater moral concern than do the country’s psychologists. Perhaps those lawyer jokes will soon be changed. Have you heard the one about the psychologist who only caused temporary harm with sensory isolation…

1 comment August 31st, 2007

Valtin on Isolation, Sensory Deprivation & Sensory Overload

Valtin, on Never In Our Names shares his paper on Isolation, Sensory Deprivation & Sensory Overload that was presented at the recent American Psychological Association conference, during the Miniconvention on Ethics and Interrogations. It presents an historical account of study of the effects of these techniques, techniques which constitute the most used torture techniques in the US arsenal.

Valtin puts his paper in context of the ongoing struggle in the APA:

As many are no doubt aware, the APA Council of Representatives passed a resolution on psychologist participation in coercive interrogations that was long on rhetoric, but far short on substance. In essence, the APA legitimized psychologist practice in settings where indefinite detention occurs, along with sensory and sleep deprivation, sensory over-stimulation, and use of drugs (as long as not for the purpose of eliciting interrogation).

My paper was written with the intent to document the long history of behavioral science collaboration with abusive interrogation research, particularly around the subject of sensory deprivation (SD). I did not have time in this paper to address the strong observational and naturalistic evidence of the debilitating effects of isolation and SD, and readers will have to await my longer, published paper.

Read the paper.

August 30th, 2007

Military Families Speak Out: Funding the war means killing the troops

From United for Peace and Justice:

Dear Friends at United for Peace and Justice,

As you may know, Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, together with an advocacy group he helped create called Freedom’s Watch, has launched a $15 million national ad campaign with the goal of convincing the American public that continuing the war in Iraq is the right thing to do. Wounded veterans and Gold Star families are featured in these ads, stating that if Congress were to end the war in Iraq, war Veterans’ and Gold Star families’ sacrifices will mean nothing.

Last night, Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out members Celeste and Dante Zappala picked up a video camera and made a one and one-half minute piece to counter the message of this ad campaign.

After making their video last night, Celeste and Dante sent us a message “We don’t have $15 million, but we have the truth.” (See text of their message below, in italics.)

We are now sending this email to all of you, in hopes that you will watch the video and send it out to all you know, and we can keep this heartfelt and vital message going:

So watch and spread the message: “Funding the war means killing the troops.”

1 comment August 30th, 2007

Mary Pipher wins BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award

Psychologist ad bestselling author Mary Pipher has won this week’s BuzzFlash Wings of Justice Award. If you see this on Wednesday, take a look at the announcement on the BuzzFlash home page.

August 29th, 2007

Scott Horton on psychologists, torture, and the APA

New York attorney, civil libertarian, and Harpers blogger writes about the APA’s inadequate response last week to the role of psychologists in US torture. Note especially the last two paragraphs:

 The corruption of the institutional standards of an important profession is concern for all of us. Right now, the APA is out on a limb doing a tango with the CIA and the DOD. The branch has cracked and it is going to fall to the ground. And the reputation of the APA is going to suffer still more when the collaboration of some of its members with the torture regime is fully exposed, as it surely will be.

All Americans need to be asking how our society can cope with a profession that is beset with such severe moral rot. [emphasis added]

Here is his whole post:

Psychologists and the Torture Question

Scott Horton

A few weeks ago, I reported that two major professional organizations—the lawyers (ABA) and the psychologists (APA)–appeared poised to condemn the Bush Administration’s torture policies and to stake out principled positions against their members’ collaboration in these practices. Well they did, sort-of.

The 400,000-member American Bar Association passed a resolution which was unequivocal and very strong in its terms. They condemned President Bush’s July 20, 2007 Executive Order, calling it illegal, and they called on Congress to overturn it through legislation. They even committed their resources to lobbying for Congressional action on the issue. The vote in the House of Delegates was 545 to 1. Rather lopsided.

However, the American Psychological Association took a far more nuanced position. They condemned some of the techniques that Bush authorized as “torture.” That was a step forward. But they turned down a resolution counseling members to refrain from involvement in highly coercive interrogation process, largely on the strength of members associated with the Department of Defense who argued that the presence of psychologists was essential to prohibit abuse. Indeed, Agence France Press captioned its report this way: “US psychologists limit roles in torture of military prisoners”. I think this is far from commentary. AFP got the story just right.

The Hippocratic Oath, sworn by medical professionals from the 4th century BCE forward, requires the professional to swear with respect to all his subjects that “I will keep them from harm and injustice.” It seems clear that, in the thinking of the APA, some footnotes to this oath are necessary. In particular, APA appears to believe that these ethical rules really shouldn’t stand in the way of lucrative contracts with the Department of Defense, especially when DOD promises to give psychologists the power to prescribe medications—something denied to psychologists by state licensing authorities. You really can’t look at the APA conduct and escape the conclusion that the leadership of this organization is, plain and simple, in the thrall of the Defense Department.

The Houston Chronicle, which is by and large a pro-Bush Administration newspaper, took a look at the goings on at the APA and came away with a distinct sensation of nausea. In an editorial captioned “Human Wrongs,” they put their finger on what is, at its core, an institutional abdication of ethics:

The worst argument for psychologists’ presence at interrogations comes from U.S. Army Col. Larry James, director of the psychology department of a military medical center,” the Chronicle went on to explain. ‘If we lose psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die,’ he said at the APA meeting. Psychologists, James suggested, can rein [in] or report overzealous violators.

Any interrogation system that teeters so close to atrocities needs more than a psychologist. It requires thorough overhaul and specific bans of the most extreme methods. The Department of Defense has listed such prohibitions. The CIA has not.

Torturing prisoners doesn’t produce reliable data. It does, however, violate human rights and strip Americans of the right to protest torture of its own men and women. Above all, it blurs our credibility as a democracy worth defending. No American psychologist should have a part in an interrogation system with the potential to devolve into murder. No American should.

And now one of the APA’s Prize recipients, Mary Phiper, who wrote the New York Times bestseller Reviving Ophelia has returned her Presidential Citation from the APA as a result of the organization’s morally aberrant conduct in San Francisco. Phiper wrote:

I cannot accept the August 19, 2007 Reaffirmation of APA’s Position Against Torture… Under this motion, psychologists will be allowed to continue working on interrogation teams that are not subject to the Geneva Conventions. This motion places our organization on the side of the CIA and Department of Defense and at odds with the United Nations, The Red Cross, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. With this reaffirmation we have made a terrible mistake.

The corruption of the institutional standards of an important profession is concern for all of us. Right now, the APA is out on a limb doing a tango with the CIA and the DOD. The branch has cracked and it is going to fall to the ground. And the reputation of the APA is going to suffer still more when the collaboration of some of its members with the torture regime is fully exposed, as it surely will be.

All Americans need to be asking how our society can cope with a profession that is beset with such severe moral rot.

[For the record, its Pipher, not Phiper.]

August 28th, 2007

My interview on WBAI for download

My interview this morning on WBAI’s Wakeup Call show about the role of psychologists in US torture is available for download here.

August 27th, 2007

Protest at Spokane CIA torture firm, Mitchell Jessen & Associates

The Spokeman Review reports that protesters gathered last Thursday outside Mitchell Jessen & Assocites, a firm recently reported to have been involved in torture [see Mark Benjamin: The CIA's torture teachers; Katherine Eban: Rorschach and Awe; and Jane Mayer: The Black Sites]. This firm has a former APA President, Joseph Matarazzo, on its Board.:

 More than two dozen people, some dressed in black hoods and orange jumpsuits to resemble Guantanamo detainees, gathered Thursday evening at Riverside and Washington to protest the work of a Spokane psychology firm in the spotlight for working with the CIA at its secret interrogation sites.

“Mitchell and Jessen – How Do You Sleep at Night?” and “Torture – Spokane’s Shame,” read two of the signs waved at motorists during the evening rush hour in front of the American Legion Building, where Mitchell Jessen & Associates leases offices on the second floor. During the protest, the office was locked and dark, and there were no vehicles in the firm’s parking spaces.

Some motorists honked and gave the thumbs-up as they drove by the line of protesters. One tattooed man in a muscle shirt, who said he worked in the building but refused to give his name, came outside to yell at the people picketing and call them “uneducated.” And one bemused worker at the Jaazz Salon & Day Spa in the same building jokingly said, “I hope they don’t think our haircuts are that bad.”

The protest was organized by the Peace and Justice Action League of Spokane after The Spokesman-Review and three national magazines reported this summer that the work of James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen for the CIA at “black,” or secret, military detention sites was under investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., asked the Pentagon to retain all records of the work done by the Spokane-based psychologists.

In June, the online magazine Salon.com identified Mitchell and Jessen as key developers of the CIA’s interrogation program. Vanity Fair and the New Yorker followed suit with more details of the controversial interrogation methods, which violate the Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners.

Mitchell and Jessen “should have to close up their office and do community service for the rest of their lives,” said Marianne Torres, one of the protesters. “Spokane is getting credit as a leader in torture policy – it makes me sick,” she said.

“We did this because so many people in Spokane are oblivious to what is going on in their backyards,” said Nancy Nelson of PJALS, who wore a black hood and orange jumpsuit.

According to a recently declassified Pentagon report reviewed by the newspaper, the techniques used at the CIA sites included painful stress positions, long periods of sensory deprivation and waterboarding, or simulated drowning.

Mitchell Jessen’s partners include Randall W. Spivey and Roger L. Aldrich, according to a 2005 city of Spokane business license. Other “governing people” include David M. Ayers, president of Tate Inc., a private contractor with training contracts at Fairchild and other military sites, and Joseph D. Matarazzo, an emeritus psychology professor at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland and the former president of the American Psychological Association.

The Mitchell Jessen revelations have sparked controversy among psychologists about whether they should assist military interrogations of al-Qaida members. Last weekend in San Francisco at the American Psychological Association’s annual conference, members voted a compromise – not to participate in torture techniques but to stay at the military sites. The vote disappointed dissenting psychologists who had called for a moratorium on any involvement.

Willow Moline, who just finished her psychology degree at Eastern Washington University and joined Thursday’s protest, said the work of Mitchell and Jessen “gives psychology an extraordinarily bad name.”

In a June 29 Spokesman-Review story, Stephen Behnke, director of the APA’s Ethics Directorate, distanced the organization from Mitchell and Jessen, saying neither man is an APA member.

But after the newspaper reported on Aug. 12 that Matarazzo, the APA’s former president, is a partner in the Spokane company, the APA declined further comment.

Mitchell and Jessen have repeatedly declined interview requests and have released one statement since finding themselves in the media spotlight. In the statement, the company said it is proud of its work and opposes torture.

August 27th, 2007

New article: Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award

My newest article, Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award, is now available on CounterPunch. Its an expanded version of Author Mary Pipher returns award to American Psychological Association, posted her yesterday.

2 comments August 25th, 2007

Huge increase in US detainees in Iraq

The New York Times reports that there are almost 25,000 Iraqis in US detention today, a 50% increase over a year ago:

The number of detainees held by the American-led military forces in Iraq has swelled by 50 percent under the troop increase ordered by President Bush, with the inmate population growing to 24,500 today from 16,000 in February, according to American military officers in Iraq.

The detainee increase comes, they said, because American forces are operating in areas where they had not been present for some time, and because more units are able to maintain a round-the-clock presence in some areas. They also said more Iraqis were cooperating with military forces.

Nearly 85 percent of the detainees in custody are Sunni Arabs, the minority faction in Iraq that ruled the country under the government of Saddam Hussein; the other detainees are Shiites, the officers say.

The New York Times doesn’t do the calculations, but this means roughly 1.5% of the Sunni male population, children included, is imprisoned. This is more like 3% of the Sunni adult male population. add on thousands of Sunnis held by the Shiite dominated government and we have the definition of a population under occupation.

August 25th, 2007