In contrast, the American Medical Association, in June 2006 adopted:
"Physicians must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation, because a role as physician-interrogator undermines the physician's role as healer and thereby erodes trust in the individual physician-interrogator and in the medical profession."
In June, 2005, the American Psychiatric Association expressed concern over the reports of psychiatrist involvement in abuses at Guantánamo:
"The American Psychiatric Association… is troubled by recent reports regarding alleged violations of professional medical ethics by psychiatrists at Guantánamo Bay. APA is reviewing issues related to psychiatry and interrogation procedures and plans to develop a specific policy statement in the near future."
I have been unable to find one mention of concern regarding reports of involvement of psychologists in Guantánamo abuses by the American Psychological Association or any of its recent leadership. Rather, in February 2006, then President Gerald Koocher wrote:
"A number of opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars have continued to report on alleged abuses by mental health professionals."
In May, 2006 the American Psychiatric Association went on to ban all direct participation in interrogations by psychiatrists:
"No psychiatrist should participate directly in the interrogation of person[s] held in custody by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States or elsewhere."
American Psychiatric Association President Steven S. Sharfstein devoted a significant portion of his 2006 Presidential Address to this issue:
"We must… exercise vigilance over our other core values. When I read in the New England Journal of Medicine about psychiatrists participating in the interrogation of Guantánamo detainees, I wrote to the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Defense expressing serious concern about this practice. In mid-October I found myself on a Navy jet out of Andrews Air Force Base… on a 3-hour trip to Guantánamo Bay. We were… briefed thoroughly on interrogation methods and the involvement of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams… in the process….
After returning to Andrews, we began a spirited 3-hour discussion over dinner. I found myself looking eye to eye with top Pentagon brass -- they are much taller than I am, but we were sitting down. I told the generals that psychiatrists will not participate in the interrogation of persons held in custody. Psychologists, by contrast, had issued a position statement allowing consultations in interrogations.
If you were ever wondering what makes us different from psychologists, here it is. This is a paramount challenge to our ethics and our Hippocratic training. Judging from the record of the actual treatment of detainees, it is the thinnest of thin lines that separates such consultation from involvement in facilitating deception and cruel and degrading treatment. Innocent people being released from Guantánamo-people who never were our enemies and had no useful information in the War on Terror-are returning to their homes and families bearing terrible internal scars. Our profession is lost if we play any role in inflicting these wounds."
As President Sharfstein looked eye to eye with Pentagon brass, then American Psychological Association President Ronald Levant was along for the trip to Guantánamo. While the psychiatrists' President told the brass "that psychiatrists will not participate in the interrogation of persons held in custody," here is what the psychologists' President had to say upon return:
"I accepted this offer to visit Guantánamo because 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. Our goals are to ensure that psychologists add value and safeguards to such investigations and that they are done in an ethical and effective manner that protects the safety of all involved."
As a psychologist, it deeply saddens me to admit that Psychiatric Association President Sharfstein has it correct. What distinguishes the two professions is that psychiatrists have taken a moral position, at the cost of a potential loss of access to top military decision-makers and funding-providers, while the leadership of psychologists, in contrast, have put access and, potentially, funding, above taking a moral stand on the perversions of the War on Terror. In the process of protecting this access, the psychological association has regularly used deception and bad faith, trying to argue that participation in interrogations is, indeed, ethical.
The Association leadership has worked persistently to protect the ability of psychologists to participate in "national security" interrogations, even, at times, claiming an ethical obligation to do so to prevent harm to society, presumably from the "terrorists" imprisoned there for the last five years. [See also Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter’s report on the PENS Task Force she chaired: "as experts in human behavior, psychologists contribute to effective interrogations."]
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