New York Sun on referendum victory:
Psychology Group Changes Policy on Interrogations
By JOSEPH GOLDSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the New York Sun | September 18, 2008
In a dramatic turnaround that could strain the long-standing ties between the psychology profession and the military, the American Psychological Association has reversed its policy of encouraging members to assist in the interrogation of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other overseas prison sites.
The professional association’s new policy, which was reached by a referendum, goes beyond telling members, even those who are military personnel, that it is off-limits to participate in interrogations at detention centers abroad. Members would be prohibited from working at such sites in any capacity that directly assists the government. The prohibition would apply to psychologists who work as psychological profilers or even as clinicians who treat detainees as mental health patients.
“This goes beyond interrogations,” a Boston psychologist who has sought to change the APA’s position, Stephen Soldz, said. “The thought is that if you are there and a part of the military chain of command, then you are part of the system.”
The new policy represents “a significant change” in the association’s policy on the involvement of psychologists in interrogations, the association said in a statement. A spokeswoman, Rhea Faberman, declined to make any officers at the APA available for comment. According to the bylaws of the APA, the policy does not go into effect for another year.
Previously the APA has generally encouraged a policy of “engagement” - or involvement in national security interrogations - for the purpose of stopping “interrogations that cross the bounds of ethical propriety,” as the director of the APA’s ethics office, Stephen Behnke, wrote in a letter earlier this year. APA officials also had encouraged engagement in the interrogation process by psychologists, on the grounds that psychologists have expertise to lend and ought to assist in the country’s anti-terrorism efforts.
The APA had already banned its members from participating in any of 19 interrogation techniques, including the use of hoods, forced nakedness, and waterboarding.
Since June 2006, the Defense Department has relied increasingly on psychologists to staff the behavioral science consultation teams, which advise interrogators on how to attempt to elicit information from detainees. Before then, psychiatrists had participated on such teams, but the Defense Department announced it would increase its reliance on psychologists after the American Psychiatric Association began a policy of instructing its members not to participate.
The role that psychologists played in advising interrogators is not well-documented but is increasingly coming under scrutiny. During a court proceeding at Guantanamo last month, lawyers informed the court that a military psychologist would invoke her right under the military’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment, were she called as a witness. At issue was the psychologist’s role in devising the conditions of detention and the tactics of the interrogation of a detainee facing war crimes charges, Mohammad Jawad. The detainee’s attorney, Major David Frakt, claims in court papers that the psychologist advised that Mr. Jawad be put under extremely isolating conditions and that interrogators exploit his concerns about his family.
While not all licensed psychologists are members of the APA, a majority are, according to information provided by the association. The APA’s military psychology group has 442 members, although it was not clear whether all of those were uniformed military personnel. Because the APA can conduct investigations against its members for violating APA ethics codes and forwards any adverse findings on to state psychologist licensing boards, the new policy goes far beyond a statement of principles.
It is unclear how the military will respond to the APA’s new policy and whether it will remove psychologists from teams that advise interrogators. The new policy also would apply to any detention sites run by the Central Intelligence Agency, but would allow psychologists to be present at such sites if they were employed by an “independent third party working to protect human rights,” such as the Red Cross.
The measure could put pressure on military psychologists involved in detainee programs to seek other work.
“These people are going to want to go back into the civilian work force some day,” Dr. Soldz said. “This will make it harder for the military to recruit psychologists, if the military asks them to do things that are unprofessional.”
The new policy was decided by a vote put to the 90,000 members of the APA’s voting membership. Of about 15,000 members who returned ballots, 59% voted for the resolution and 41% against.
The chief executive officer of the group Physicians for Human Rights, Frank Donaghue, said the vote was a “blow against medical complicity in torture.”
The text of the resolution states, in part, that “psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law or the US Constitution.” Because the conditions at prisons in America are occasionally found, during the course of a civil rights lawsuit, to violate the Constitution, a strict reading of the new policy would suggest that APA members could not work in such facilities.
September 18th, 2008
A statement from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology on the overwhelming vote in favor of a referendum to change APA policy on Interrogations:
American Psychological Association Members Pass Historic Ban on Psychologist Participation in U.S. Detention Facilities
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Today, the membership of the American Psychological Association (APA) passed a referendum banning participation of APA member psychologists in U.S. detention facilities, such as Guantanamo or the CIA’s secret “black sites” operating outside of or in violation of international law or the Constitution. The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology congratulates our colleagues, and in particular, we congratulate the referendum authors - Dan Aalbers, Brad Olson, and Ruth Fallenbaum - as well as the activists withholding dues and otherwise protesting professional collusion with unethical behavior.
Dan Aalbers, one of the referendum’s authors, stated: “This is a decisive victory for the membership of the APA and for human rights advocates everywhere. This new policy will ensure that psychologists work for the abused and not the abusers at places like Guantanamo Bay and the CIA black sites. We expect that the APA’s leadership will immediately take action to ensure that psychologists are removed from the chain of command at places where human rights are violated or said not to apply.”
In recent years revelations from the press, Congress, and Defense Department documents revealed that psychologists have played a central role in Bush administration detainee abuse. These reports conclusively demonstrate that psychologists designed, implemented, disseminated, and standardized detention and interrogation practices that frequently amounted to torture.
The passage of this referendum constitutes a decisive repudiation of the APA leadership’s long-standing policy encouraging psychologist participation in interrogations and other activities in military and CIA detention facilities that have repeatedly been found to violate international law and the Constitution. In 2005, the APA’s orchestrated Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security [PENS] declared that psychologists’ participation in interrogations in these sites helped keep interrogations there “safe, legal, an ethical.” Although APA followed this report with resolutions ostensibly condemning participation in torture, the resolutions continued to permit psychologists to serve in sites where human rights are routinely violated. The APA membership has now rejected APA policy in favor of one refusing psychologist participation in the running of detention facilities operating against the law and professional ethics.
“For years APA leadership has insisted that our professions’ contributions to the Bush administration detentions made things better. It turns out that the APA membership wasn’t convinced” said Stephen Soldz, a psychologist on the faculty of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology.
Passage of the referendum culminates years of struggle by numerous APA members to change policies that conflict with the best traditions of psychology as a profession. The referendum is a clear statement that APA members take seriously the professions’ highest ethical aspiration: “Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.” Members are not willing to continue colluding with the Bush administration’s systematic policies of detainee abuse that often amount to torture.
Referendum proponents collected over 1,000 signatures, forcing APA to submit the policy change to a mail ballot of the entire membership. The ballots went out on August 1 and votes received as of Monday, September 15th were counted. The referendum passed with 8,792 [58.8% ] YES votes to 6,157 votes against. The turnout was the highest ever in APA history.
“With this vote APA members have taken a major step toward restoring unimpeachable ethical standards by prohibiting its members from participating at sites that violate human rights and international law. But until APA communicates this new policy to the White House, the Department of Defense and the CIA, the abuses might continue. We must assure that the policy is implemented quickly” said Steven Reisner, a New York psychologist who is running for APA President.
Passage of the referendum is an important first step in righting APA policies that have cast shame upon the profession. The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology calls upon APA to take additional steps to turn the organization around.
Ø Although the referendum pulls psychologists out of detention sites where human rights are being violated, we call upon APA to take a further step and put APA policy in line with that of the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association and ban psychologists from any direct role in the interrogation of specific individuals in any national security setting.
Ø We call upon the APA to initiate and fund an independent panel to investigate and create a public record regarding the participation of U.S. psychologists in torture and other detainee abuse. The panel should also investigate organizational, policy, and ethical policies contributing to this abuse and make recommendations for change.
Ø The APA should proceed expeditiously to modify its ethics code to remove clauses allowing ethical violations when psychological ethics are in conflict with “law, regulations, or other governing legal authority.”
Ø The APA should act quickly on ethics complaints against psychologists reported to have contributed to U.S. torture and detention abuses.
Ø Finally, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology calls upon APA members to follow up this victory by electing a President, Steven Reisner, who is steadfastly committed to ending psychologist collusion with detainee abuse.
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology includes Jean Maria Arrigo, Brad Olson, Steven Reisner, Stephen Soldz, and Bryant Welch
Contacts:
Stephen Soldz
ssoldz@bgsp.edu
Steven Reisner
SReisner@psychoanalysis.net
September 17th, 2008
My friends and colleagues Jean Maria Arrigo and Jancis Long have published a new article on the American Psychological Association and its approach to the participation of psychologists in national security interrogations: APA: Denunciation and accommodation of abusive interrogations: A lesson for world psychology in the Brazilian journal Psicologia: Teoria e Prática. The article can be downloaded here.
At the same time word comes of the publication of a shortened version of the article in Preventing Torture within the Fight against Terrorism, the newsletter of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims [IRCT]. Issues of the newsletter are available at the link above. The current issue with the Arrigo-Long article can be directly downloaded as a pdf here.
The indefensible position of the APA abetting detainee abuses has become a cause celebre around the world. We regularly receive communications from colleagues in various countries who are outraged by the APA policy. See, for example, the questions raised by the Nordic Psychological Associations last June, questions which, to my knowledge, have so far not been answered by the APA.
Recently the Psychologists for Social Responsibility End Torture Action Committee issued an Appeal for International Support from U.S. Psychologists: Condemn Psychologist Participation in Bush Regime Detainee Abuse. Please help distribute this Appeal to colleagues around the world.
September 17th, 2008
I was interviewed today, along with law professor Scott Silliman, by Frank Stasio on WUNC, North Carolina Public Radio, on the show The State of Things. Here is the program description:
Torture and Interrogation Symposium
Since the attacks of 2001, there has been growing controversy over the United State’s use of certain interrogation techniques against so-called enemy combatants. A symposium at the Parr Center at UNC this weekend will address many aspects of this controversy, including the complex and uncertain laws regarding torture, and the surprising role psychologists play in helping the government apply its interrogation methods. Host Frank Stasio will be joined by guests Scott Silliman, professor of the Practice of Law and executive director of the Center on Law, Ethics, and National Security at Duke University, and Stephen Soldz, the director of the Center for Research, Evaluation and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.
You can listen to or download the program here. I am brought in about 12 minutes into the show.
If you’re near Chapel Hill, come hear me speak on Saturday, September 13.
September 10th, 2008
Our struiggle to change American Psychological Association policy on interrogations has been given an enormous boost in recent months by our pro bono media consultant. Emily Whitfield, who was the top press person for the ACLU for many years appeared and volunteered to help us in the month before the APA Convention. Largely, though not exclusively, thanks to her we have had remarkable success getting our message out, including my Op Ed in the Boston Globe, a front page article in the New York Times, another front-pager in the New York Sun, a story on NPR’s All things Considered, an NPR’s Talk of the Nation show, and a Democracy Now! interview. Now we have a Boston Globe editorial. And this is just the beginning.
I would like to extend an enormous “Thank You!” to Emily for all her wonderful efforts in promoting an ethical psychology and ending the regime of torture.
August 30th, 2008
In her customary succinct style, Jean Maria Arrigo has expressed in a few words the reason why the APA Referendum focuses upon banning participation in certain setting [US detention centers] rather than the actions of individual psychologists. This statement complements yesterday’s statement by the Referendum authors:
Why does the referendum focus on the national security settings of interrogation rather than on the conduct of individual psychologists? Because we are psychologists!
Because we all know the studies of Solomon Asch on conformity, of Stanley Milgram on obedience, and of Phil Zimbardo on prison behavior-plus bystander, minority deviance, and whistle blower research. Where is the psychological research supporting the APA model of the morally autonomous BSCT psychologist? Unlike the randomly selected and disinterested experimental subjects of Asch, Milgram, and Zimbardo, the military and government-contract psychologists were selected for conformity, obedience, and role acceptance in national security settings; the career and financial stakes are very high; they have prior loyalties to co-workers in these settings; and there are legal constraints on disobedience.
The place for national defense psychologists to show their mettle as morally autonomous agents was in the PENS task force meeting itself. In fact, all six present as task force members-in spite of the obvious moral reservations of some-supported a psychological ethic that adhered to the permissive U.S. definition of torture. They did not vote their consciences, so to speak, but their institutional positions. We cannot expect more individualistic acts of dissent from BSCT psychologists at detention centers.
Jean Maria Arrigo
August 30th, 2008
In a major development, the Boston Globe today editorialized against the participation of psychologists in US abuses. It calls for major change in American Psychological Association policies. It endorses both the APA Referendum and the Presidential campaign of Steven Reisner.
These votes are providing association members with a chance to end any ambiguity about their profession’s abhorrence of abusive techniques. Many came out of the playbook of totalitarian states and could easily be used against US personnel in future clashes. Psychologists should leave no doubt they are opponents, and not enablers, of these methods
The editorial is so good, it’s as if we wrote it.
The circumstances in a place like Guantanamo are by their very nature abusive and should rule out psychologists’ participation even in “good cop” questioning. Guantanamo-style interrogation is hard to square with the psychological association’s ethics code: “Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.”
This editorial follows by two weeks my Op Ed in the Globe. It follows by a week the the APA’s disingenuous and dishonest response. The Globe has clearly read both and conducted their own careful examination of the issues. Their verdict is in. The APA cover story does not pass the smell test. Our case is vindicated in all essential details.
Here is the complete Globe editorial:
Psychologists and torture
By Boston Globe
August 30, 2008
FROM THE moment US military and civilian officials began detaining and interrogating Guantanamo Bay prisoners with methods that the Red Cross has called tantamount to torture, they have had the assistance of psychologists. This has been a source of anguish to many members of the profession, who want to join their colleagues in other professional organizations and draw a clear line against psychologists’ involvement in interrogation of detainees.
Many psychologists fault their own professional organization, the American Psychological Association, for not taking a firmer stance and for not punishing association members who in the past have helped interrogators in using techniques like sleep deprivation to raise prisoners’ stress levels or in finding their emotional weak points. When the association convened a task force on the subject in 2005, a majority of members turned out to have ties with the military or US intelligence.
In its defense, the association points to a current policy statement that prohibits “direct or indirect participation” in torture or “cruel, degrading, or inhuman treatment or punishment.” The association should go further and forbid - as the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have - any involvement at all by medical professionals in interrogation.
The circumstances in a place like Guantanamo are by their very nature abusive and should rule out psychologists’ participation even in “good cop” questioning. Guantanamo-style interrogation is hard to square with the psychological association’s ethics code: “Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.”
In the coming weeks, association members will vote on new leadership, and one candidate for president wants psychologists banned from participating in interrogations at US detention centers that violate human rights and do not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Members are also voting on a resolution banning psychologists from working in such facilities “unless they are working directly for the persons being detained or for an independent third party working to protect human rights.”
These votes are providing association members with a chance to end any ambiguity about their profession’s abhorrence of abusive techniques. Many came out of the playbook of totalitarian states and could easily be used against US personnel in future clashes. Psychologists should leave no doubt they are opponents, and not enablers, of these methods.
August 30th, 2008
The writers of the American Psychological Association referendum currently being voted upon have isued a statement explaining why the referendum focusses upon participation in abusive settings and not the actions of individual psychologists:
Why Settings?
By Dan Aalbers, Ruth Fallenbaum, & Brad Olson
Q. Why have you chosen to focus on settings rather than individual actions?
A: We have four main reasons for doing so:
1. Psychologists know from decades of research that good people do bad things in bad situations (cf. Ross and Nisbett, 1991, Zimbardo, 2007). Psychologists subject to the chain of command in an inherently abusive environment (e.g., the CIA black sites and Guantanamo Bay) are no less vulnerable to “drift” than anyone else; it is time to start applying the hard-learned lessons of psychology to psychologists.
2. The presence of psychologists legitimizes the operations of these facilities. This is because the Bush administration has redefined torture in a way that all but guarantees that psychologists will play a role in any given torture session. To understand why one needs to explore the labyrinths of this administration’s legal defense of torture.
Most psychologists have heard of the infamous Yoo-Bybee legal memos that redefined torture so that only pain equivalent to that experienced during “death, organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function” could be considered torture, but fewer psychologists know that the same memos incorporate psychologists into this administration’s legal defense of torture.
Yoo argues that torture can only take place if the perpetrator intends to cause prolonged mental harm:
“If a defendant has a good faith belief that his actions will not result in prolonged mental harm, he lacks the mental state necessary for his actions to constitute torture. A defendant could show that he acted in good faith by taking such steps as surveying professional literature, consulting with experts, or reviewing evidence gained from past experience.”
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf
Thus, by consulting with a psychologist an interrogator demonstrates that his or her intent is to extract information and not to cause harm; if the interrogator is a psychologist he or she can demonstrate good intent by reviewing the literature before an interrogation. Of course members of other professions — say sociology — could also perform this same role but there is an advantage in using clinical psychologists since Yoo argues that one has only suffered ‘prolonged mental harm’ if the victim suffers from PTSD or (untreated) depression and psychologists can diagnose these disorders while other social scientists cannot:
“the development of a mental disorder such as posttraumatic stress disorder, which can last months or even years, or even chronic depression, which also can last for a considerable period of time if untreated, might satisfy the prolonged harm requirement”
http://www.aclu.org/pdfs/safefree/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf
Psychologists hold the keys to these abusive settings because the clandestine services need psychologists to tell them that they are not torturing. As Alexander Leighton once said: “the administrator uses social science the way a drunk uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.”
3. We find these settings inherently offensive. Even without evidence of torture, we would object to the participation of psychologists in a system that buys people from mercenaries, ships them off to secret locations and holds them there for an indefinite period of time.
4. Although the accounts of prisoners who have been released and information emerging from military tribunals are beginning to provide first hand accounts about the treatment in Guantanamo Bay, we do not know what actions are being performed in the CIA black sites. These settings are - by their very nature - closed to scrutiny. What little we do know comes from heavily redacted documents released through the freedom of information act requests and a handful of leaked documents. We do know that abuse has taken place, we do know that psychologists have contributed to this abuse and we do know that those have who operate these facilities have resisted calls to allow a full, independent investigation. Obviously, this is not a sound basis for oversight.
August 29th, 2008