Collective unconscionable: how psychologists, the most liberal of professionals, abetted bush's torture policy

Washington Monthly, Jan-Feb, 2007 by Arthur Levine

Mind games

Wessells's warning proved prescient. The APA's report, released in July 2005, met with widespread condemnation from human rights groups and many in the media. The New York Times and other news outlets noted Banks's role on the task force, and the prestigious Lancet medical journal called the report "a disgrace." The episode also helped open a breach between the APA and the rest of the medical community. After seeing APA raked over the coals for the timidity of its report, the American Psychiatric Association and the AMA released much stronger statements this year that flatly bar their members from participating in interrogation of enemy detainees. They also got specific: The American Psychiatric Association, for instance, prohibits its members from exposing any subject to "degradation, threats, isolation, imposition of fear, humiliation, sensory deprivation or excessive stimulation, sleep deprivation, exploitation of phobias, or intentional infliction of physical pain such as use of prolonged stress positions."

These divisions were dramatized in October of 2005, when APA president Levant and American Psychiatric Association president Dr. Steven Sharfstein traveled together to Guantanamo as guests of the Pentagon. On a day-long tour of the facility, the men glimpsed white-jump-suited Muslim detainees--but weren't allowed to talk to them. Sharfstein, alarmed by published reports about the BSCT teams and their potential to engage in torture, wasn't reassured by his visit and urged military officials to exclude psychiatrists from involvement in interrogations. Levant, by contrast, eagerly offered his organization's support to the military, announcing in a press release, "I saw the invitation as an important opportunity to continue to provide our expertise and guidance for how psychologists can play an appropriate and ethical role in national security investigations."

In the wake of the split, APA has taken some small steps to repair its image. In September, Koocher joined with leading health professionals and Physicians for Human Rights in publicly opposing the administration-backed bill that essentially allows it to disregard the Geneva Conventions, and explicitly condemning techniques such as water-boarding and stress positions. But APA has not relented on the most crucial issue that it faces: preserving the right of psychologists to participate in coercive interrogations. And, thanks to an earlier loophole in the APA's still-vague ethics code, psychologists are allowed to obey so-called lawful military orders instead of the APA's own ethical guidelines, even as the APA offers lip-service to opposing any involvement in torture. AS Stephen Soldz, a Boston-based psychoanalyst and APA critic observes: "What sort of experts on ethics write the Nuremberg defense into their professional ethics code?"

This is by no means the first time that the leadership of a traditionally liberal Washington interest group has courted controversy by essentially siding with the Bush administration on a major policy issue over the objections of many of its members. In 2003, AARP provided crucial support for the corporate-backed Medicare prescription-drug bill--and lost thousands of members as a result. Three years later, that legislation has proved so costly and cumbersome that Republican lawmakers seldom talked about it on the campaign trail--and AARP now supports changing the legislation to allow the government to negotiate drug prices. But there's little evidence that APA is similarly reconsidering its position on interrogations. As Koocher approvingly noted in a paper on "21st Century" ethics that he presented at the APA's New Orleans conference: "The dictum of 'do no harm' has evolved to 'do as little harm as possible.'"