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On Torture

By Adrienne McFadd, Ph.D. (SOTI Contract Provider), & David Nesvig, Ed.D. (Consultant, SOTI; Emeritus Counseling Psychologist, SDSU)

Recently, several local psychologists who serve as contract providers for Survivors of Torture International attended a SOTI sponsored lecture given by a psychiatrist and bioethicist, Steven Miles, entitled “Oath Betrayed.” The presentation drew on his book by the same title.  Those of us who provide psychological services for asylum-seeking survivors of torture from abroad were disturbed to understand the role that health professionals, including psychologists, apparently have played in the torturing and abusive interrogations of detainees in Guantanamo, and other military detention facilities scattered across the globe. The scope of the Department of Defense and CIA activities, available for all to see in a recently declassified report by the DoD’s Office of the Inspecter General (OIG), feeds a growing opinion among ethicists that the US is becoming “a torturing society.”  We are all too aware of the life-long mental health costs of physical and psychological torture as a result of our work with asylum-seeking survivors of torture here in San Diego.

The OIG Report documents how psychologists have worked on Behavior Science Consultation Teams which devise individualized interrogation plans for enemy combatants according to “harsh fear up,”  “pride and ego down” operating principles.  These psychologists were trained by psychologists from SERE, the military’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program, who previously trained military personnel to resist torture if captured by an enemy.  Presumed enemy combatants have been subjected to extremes of sensory deprivation and disorientation, sleep deprivation, self-inflicted pain techniques, sexual humiliation and other forms of mental cruelty, in addition to waterboarding.’  Dr. Miles points out that these practices only serve to harden the feelings of torture victims, their families and thousands of others who hear about it; and make heroes of them in their own communities.  Torture degrades our moral standing in the world and within our own psyches.  The questionable quality of information extracted using coercive and cruel methods, as well as the loss of potential informants during the process, call into question even short-term gain for our national security.

Perhaps some of our membership know about the ongoing debate within the APA and in the media about the position psychology as a profession is take with respect to military interrogations.  Last summer at the New Orleans Convention, the APA voted in a new resolution condemning any involvement of psychologists in torture.  At first glance, the resolution seems comprehensive and laudable.  However, because the APA supports the ongoing participation of military psychologists in interrogations, it looks to many in the torture treatment field as though the APA is talking a talk that differs embarrassingly and tragically from its walk.

Psychologist Neil Altman is the chief sponsor of a proposed APA resolution to call a moratorium on psychologist involvement in national security “enemy combatant” interrogations.  The APA leadership does not support Dr. Altman’s resolution.  In Dr. Altman’s opinion, psychologists who participate largely support torture and abuse regardless of their individual ethics. In Altman’s view, the APA, “facing conflicting national and international standards,” is in a parallel position to an individual psychologist who might be ordered to take or tolerate an action that is permissible under local law but violates the code of ethics.  Furthermore, the OIG Report now asserts that psychologists have been at the helm of devising abusive, torturing interrogations and have been involved in developing the overall interrogation program. 

Psychologist Michael Gelles makes the opposing case that psychologists belong in these settings as trained professionals providing “clear guidelines, established procedures and scrupulous oversight,” protecting detainees as well as staff from loss of control over aggression.  Jane Mayer, in a New Yorker article entitled “The Memo,” points out that Dr. Gelles’ own honorable whistle-blowing efforts from within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service met with great resistance and did not bring an end to torture and abuse.  Dr. Gelles is so far the only individual psychologist from the military who has spoken out in opposition to abuses.  Division 19, representing military psychologists, takes exception to the criticisms of Altman, Miles, and others, asserting that, “military psychologists believe they are performing a valuable service by being included in the interrogation process, and that resolutions that would prevent such service fail to respect their ability to make appropriate ethical and professional judgments…In fact, it [the moratorium] appears to pass judgment on a group of psychologists doing their legal and ethical military duties, in the absence of any evidence substantiating instances of abuse or mistreatment of detainees by psychologists at these facilities.”  However, there is significant evidence that provokes strong suspicion, impossible either to substantiate or dispel without a formal, public, credible and objective investigative process. We need to bring the internal DoD conclusions in the OIG Report into the public arena.

Given the lack of open investigation into this issue, and given the sheer volume of information in the media, in testimony and in declassified documents relating to torture, including the OIG Report, we cannot rest assured about our colleagues’ position in these interrogations.  Nor is it clear that torture and abuse have decreased or been halted in Guantanamo and the other facilities in question.  Some APA members, many of whom are in the torture treatment field, are circulating a letter to APA President Brehm calling on the APA to reassert its position with respect to our ethics, human rights and torture, to take steps to bring to an end psychologists’ participation in the interrogations, and to investigate how and why APA policy came to support these activities. We support Dr. Altman’s Moratorium and the requests in the letter to the APA.

This conflict is current; decisions are imminent; our involvement is necessary.  It sounds dramatic, but the soul of our profession may be at risk.  This letter speaks to the opinions of the authors.

To become more informed about the debate and read the letter to the APA, and thus to form your own opinions, consult the resources below.  We urge you to consider signing the letter to the APA.

References:

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Brehmletter/

The APA ethics webpage: www.apa.org/ethics/materialsaug2006.html has a series of materials and letters chronicling this conflict.

The Lucifer Experiment: Understanding how Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo, 2007.

Internet blog of psychologist Stephen Soldz.

Division 19 is the Society for Military Psychology within the APA.

Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror  by Steven Miles, M.D.,  Random House, 2006.

The Memo: How an internal effort to ban the abuse and torture of detainees was thwarted, by Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, February 27, 2006.

American Torture, by Michael Otterman,

Sincerely,

Adrienne McFadd, Ph.D.
SOTI Contract Provider

David Nesvig, Ed. D.
Consultant, SOTI
Emeritus Counseling Psychologist, SDSU