International Psychoanalytic Association statement on torture
The International Psychoanalytic Association has joined the mental health associations denouncing torture.
Statement on Torture
The International Psychoanalytical Association joins with other mental health and medical professional organizations in strongly condemning the use of torture.As an organization of psychoanalysts who have devoted their lives to helping people undo the effects of trauma in their lives, we strongly protest against any use of torture, particularly that directly or indirectly administered or sanctioned by governments or any public bodies. Torture degrades those tortured and those torturing. The effects of that physical and moral degradation are, we know, are transmitted to the families and offspring of both victims and perpetrators.
We also strongly condemn the participation or oversight by any mental health or medical personnel in any and all aspects of torture. Such actions are contrary to the basic ethical principles fundamental to the caring professions.
Approved by the Board July 2007
While an advance by the IPA, the statement, of course is extremely weak. It doesn’t define torture nor does it include Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, as does the UN Convention and the American Psychological Association. It does not deal with the thorny issue of a training analysis of a consultant to torture, as occurred in Brazil in the so-called Lobo-Cabernite affair, when training analyst Dr. Leao Cabernite protected his analysand Dr. Amilcar Lobo from accusations that Dr. Lobo was a consultant in one of the Brazilian military’s torture centers.
“When in 1973 an article from a Brazilian underground newspaper concerning the torture and murder of political prisoners was sent to Maria Langer, a writer for an Argentinean newsletter, it indicated that a physician was a member of the torture Team. Penciled on that article was the information that Dr. Lobo was an analytic candidate at Rio I. The first action of Rio I, (by the authority of Dr. Cabernite), using the Army, was to determine that the penciled note in question was by Dr. Vianna. She was vilified by Dr., Cabernite, president of Rio 1 and analyst of Dr. Lobo, who attempted her expulsion from Rio 2, as I have already noted, for bringing disrepute on the ethics of psychoanalysis.” Bernard Rubin]
Numerous IPA officials for many years defended Dr. Cabernite against all critics. Again, from Dr. Rubin:
“However, it was not only Prof. Lebovici, but the four subsequent presidents of the IPA, who were silent, until Dr. Etchegoyen in 1993 asked for an ethics investigation from Rio 1. Two years and 156 pages later, a report and recommendations were rejected by Rio 1. In August 1996, the Executive Council of the IPA expressed solidarity with Dr. Vianna, but simultaneously recognized the validity of Rio l’s rejection of the ethics report and recommendations. A final report by the IPA’s Ad Hoc Commission of Inquiry is due at the end of this year.
This commission in a report in 1997 admitted that the IPA had “not always played a helpful role in this affair.” For example, there is the inexplicable loss of documents, reports, and letters exchanged between 1973-80 regarding this matter. The commission states, “only in recent years have all the documents been filed and stored.” The problem at the IPA is not a shortage of filing cabinets, but rather that when there is information that can subvert the power of the IPA, it is suppressed. The institution, as Foucault noted, is highly efficient when self-survival is at stake.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the sordid history of the IPA on the issue of torture, the new IPA resolution has no enforcement mechanism. To commit to take action would be to condemn the past actions of their own organization.
Add comment September 12th, 2007