Former PENS Task Force Member Calls for Moratorium on Psychologist Participation in Interrogations

Psychologist Michael Wessells, today (8/16), in TomPaine.com:

The APA has been embattled recently over its policy of permitting psychologists to play an advisory role on behavioral science consultation teams, which guide the interrogation of detainees. This policy drew fire because of the horrendous violations of human rights at sites such as Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and Bagram and the abuse of specific psychological methods, including sleep deprivation, stress positioning, exploitation of phobias, forced nakedness, sensory deprivation, religious degradation and isolation. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association have banned their members from supporting interrogations processes, leaving many psychologists wondering why the American Psychological Association would not adopt a similar stance.

The APA’s vote last week fails to provide human rights protections because three key issues remain unaddressed: the lack of clear ethical guidance, ineffective systems for monitoring and reporting, and the illegal nature of the detainment environment itself. As a result, psychologists who work with military and intelligence agencies will continue to be put in a position of enabling, supporting, or allowing violations of detainee rights....

The current APA policy offers no operational guidance about the appropriateness of these methods, leaving psychologists to judge at each instance whether a particular treatment counts as a human rights violation. Psychologists are not trained to make such determinations, which in any case cannot be made well on the spot. To behave ethically in the security arena, psychologists need the backing of their professional association in the form of clear ethical guidance. Two years following the public outrage over the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, the APA has still not provided such guidance. Although it has denounced the most heinous abuses that any reasonable person would regard as torture, these are not the primary methods being used. The so-called ‘torture lite’ methods—which psychologists know are damaging—are taking place underneath the radar and without repercussions. This situation constitutes a major failure of ethics guidance on the part of the world’s largest professional organization.

Michael Wessells is professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University and professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College. He regularly advises various government and international agencies on child protection and psychosocial programs and policies, and he currently is co-chair of a United Nations interagency task force on mental health and psychosocial support during emergencies.... Dr. Wessells resigned from the Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) because of the issue of torture.

(Read the whole thing.)