Psychologists group still rocked by torture debate

In an angry response to Salon, the American Psychological Association defends its policy on participating in terror suspects' interrogation -- as some members still push for change.

By Mark Benjamin

Read more: Politics, News, Mark Benjamin

Aug. 4, 2006 | Agitated members of the American Psychological Association are making final plans to challenge a policy that allows psychologists to participate in the interrogation of detainees during the "war on terror." As Salon reported on July 26, the 150,000-member association has been embroiled in an internal revolt over the group's year-old interrogation ethics principles. Detractors say those principles are so weak and vague that psychologists could become pawns in detainee abuse. Currently, they are drafting alternative proposals, one of which would outright bar psychologists from taking part in interrogations, to present at the association's annual meeting Aug. 10-13 in New Orleans.

Salon revealed that six of the 10 psychologists that APA president Gerald Koocher helped select to draft the ethics report had close ties to the military, including four who'd been involved with the handling of detainees at Guanténamo or Abu Ghraib, or who'd served in Afghanistan. That revelation, subsequently reported by the Associated Press, further incensed some members of the association, said Steven Reisner, a psychologist critical of the current interrogation policy. "It generated a lot of energy in my circles," he said, adding that an online petition against the interrogation principles has netted more than 1,400 signatures from members and other psychologists.

The association reacted angrily to Salon's article, releasing a six-point response, distributed to APA leaders, alleging inaccuracies and biased reporting. APA spokeswoman Rhea Farberman said in a telephone call that Salon had an agenda and that the article lacked sufficient balance. However, when questioned, Farberman also acknowledged that a key ASA rejoinder was "technically" incorrect.

At issue is the year-old report by the APA's 10-member Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force. The report states that psychologists can play "a valuable and ethical role to assist in protecting our nation, other nations, and innocent civilians from harm" by consulting with interrogators. It reflects the view that psychologists can use their insight and knowledge to help interrogators pry valuable information from prisoners. APA director of ethics Stephen Behnke said that psychologists also help prevent abuse. "Psychologists take advisory or consultative roles in relation to interrogations to help ensure interrogations are safe, legal, ethical, and effective," he wrote in an e-mail.

The PENS report explicitly states that "psychologists do not engage in, direct, support, facilitate, or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment." But some psychologists, including former APA president Philip Zimbardo, architect of the famous 1971 Stanford prison experiment in which students, as mock prison guards, quickly became sadistic, believe that claim is a pro forma protection easily circumvented in the post-9/11 atmosphere. Other opponents of the APA policy go even further, arguing that psychologists should refrain from interrogations entirely because interrogations fundamentally violate psychologists' primary role in the healing profession.

In its original six-point response to Salon, the APA took exception to the use of the words "internal revolt" to describe the push against the association's interrogation principles. It suggested the policy had been formally embraced by the elected members of the APA's council, who have broad authority to develop APA policy. "The reality is that APA's Council of Representatives endorsed the current policy at its last meeting," the association leadership said in the response.

That raised some eyebrows among some members, who pointed out the claim was incorrect. In a relatively unusual move, they said, the interrogation report bypassed the council (described on the APA Web site as the "most important governance body of the association") and became policy through the imprimatur of APA's smaller 12-person board of directors. "Council was not asked to endorse or approve the PENS task force report," said council member Bernice Lott.

Farberman, the APA spokeswoman, acknowledged that the original APA statement on the council's endorsement was technically incorrect. She said that members of the council had made "laudatory" statements about the report at a council meeting last February. When called on this issue last week by her own members, Farberman admitted to the council in an e-mail, obtained by Salon, that "Council took no official action on the report." Still, Farberman said in a telephone call to Salon that the APA leadership was not facing an internal revolt. She said that an Associated Press article was more accurate in describing the APA leadership as "under fire."

Next page: How APA leaders are trying to tamp down the controversy