Latest on APA Controversy

Survivors International guarded about APA's Resolution on Torture Comments from SI Clinical Director, Uwe Jacobs, PhD San Francisco, CA, August 21, 2007 – The Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a resolution to re-affirm its condemnation of torture and other forms of abuse in the context of detaining so-called enemy combatants. While APA Ethics Director, Dr. Stephen Behnke, characterized the new resolution as “a step in the right direction”, Dr. Uwe Jacobs, Clinical Director of Survivors International, expressed mixed emotions and said the APA did not go far enough. “I am concerned that inserting qualifiers into the language in the manner it was done weakens the intent and enforceable standards. There is absolutely no necessity to do that if your only interest is to protect human rights”, said Jacobs, referring to a struggle he said the human rights faction of psychologists partly lost. “We wanted to simply say that sleep deprivation and sensory deprivation were prohibited, for example, and the leadership insisted that we insert qualifiers that require that the abuse causes lasting harm, for example, and we’re not sure that this can always be proved. What if this was done and somebody thinks it didn’t cause lasting harm? Does that make it ethical? You expect to compromise a little in any politics but this is a difference that’s hard to split.” Jacobs went on to say that in spite of its wonderful appearance as a human rights document, the passage of the new resolution suffered from problems, some in content and some more procedural, and pointed to the following issues: - A simple moratorium that would have asked psychologists not to work in detention centers in which human rights are known to be violated was rejected by the APA leadership; - The alternate resolution that was passed by the Council of Representatives, APA’s governing body, was introduced specifically for the purpose of not letting the moratorium resolution come to a vote; - Even though the APA is an accredited non-governmental organization at the United Nations, the resolution does not adopt the UN Convention Against Torture (CAT) in its original form as its reference but the U.S. Reservations to the CAT. These reservations were articulated by the Reagan administration and are commonly regarded as weakening the CAT in questionable area of non-physical torture or other inhuman and degrading treatment; - The APA steadfastly refused to drop the qualifying statements with regard to sleep and sensory deprivation, in spite of repeated requests and explanations why they should not be adopted. “Only time will tell how much of a step this really was in the right direction”, Jacobs concluded, and a lot will depend on the advocacy APA is willing to put behind this resolution from here on forward. At least we have a clear prohibition of the most common techniques of mental torture, but we need to do more work to close all possible loopholes and to get our language absolutely clear.”

California Becomes First State to Condemn Use of Torture in 'War on Terror'

July 14, 2007

SACRAMENTO, CA – The California Legislature today adopted a resolution aimed at preventing California health professionals from engaging in coercive interrogations of detainees at Guantánamo and other U.S. military prisons.

Senate Joint Resolution 19 instructs the state's licensing boards to inform California doctors, psychologists and other health professionals of their obligations under national and international law relating to torture. The boards will warn the licensees that they may one day be subject to prosecution if they participate in interrogations that do not conform to international standards of treatment of prisoners.

"The resolution calls attention to the intolerable dilemma that torture presents when those who are supposed to be the healers in our society are involved in the abuse of prisoners," said Eisha Mason, associate regional director for the American Friends Service Committee, one of the organizations that sponsored the resolution.

State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) introduced the resolution in response to evidence that – despite the medical oath to "first, do no harm" – some physicians, psychologists and other health personnel have been complicit in abusive interrogations of detainees by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

"As professional licensure and codes of ethics are regulated by states, California has the obligation to notify members of laws concerning torture that may result in their prosecution," said Ridley-Thomas.

SJR 19 aims to protect the integrity of the health professions and individual practitioners by informing them of their legal and ethical obligations, and giving them a legal reference to remove themselves from abusive situations should they have to contravene the orders of a military superior.

A survey of medical students conducted by the Harvard Medical School, published in the October, 2007 issue of the International Journal of Health Services, found that one-third of the respondents did not know that under the Geneva Conventions, they should refrain from participating in coercive interrogations.

"This is an important advance, not just in the U.S., but internationally as well," said Dr. Steven H. Miles, professor of medicine and bioethics at the University of Minnesota. "More doctors abet torture than treat its victims, and it is time for them to be called to the mission of medicine—not to practice torture—and to be reminded that they will be held accountable to international law."

"No government has the authority to legalize torture," Miles added.

The resolution further requests that the Department of Defense and the CIA remove California-licensed health professionals from participating in coercive interrogations.

"This has been an effort for almost three years," said Dr. Jose Quiroga, himself a torture survivor and now medical director of Program for Torture Victims, a sponsor of the resolution. "The California Legislature is sending a message to the Federal Government that they are wrong, and I hope that other state legislatures will begin to do this."

The passage of SJR 19 makes California the first state in the nation to officially condemn the use of torture since the beginning of the "War on Terror." A measure currently under consideration by the New York State Legislature, which would prohibit the state's health professionals from participating in the torture or improper treatment of detainees, is expected to pass later this year.

"California's adoption of the resolution sends a clear message that we are going to live by the principles that this country is founded on," said Martha Dina Argüello, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles, another of the resolution's sponsoring organizations. "We will not let fear erode our civil liberties and we will hold health professionals accountable to ethical and legal standards."

The California State Senate gave final approval to the resolution in a 21-13 roll call vote. On Tuesday, it passed the Assembly 45-31.

"Torture is much more than a political issue," Ridley-Thomas said. "It is an ethical, moral and spiritual issue that has not only become a shame, but it is an evil in our midst."

The Los Angeles offices of the American Friends Service Committee, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Program for Torture Victims coordinated the campaign in favor of SJR 19. The resolution had the additional support, through petitions and testimony, of numerous faith, human rights and medical groups including the California Medical Association.

From the Director’s Desk Do Psychologists Torture?

Survivors International Director and Clinicians confront the American Psychological Association (APA) about its reluctance to make a strong ban against psychologist's involvement with torture.

From the Director’s Desk
Do Psychologists Torture?
By Uwe Jacobs

Those who are familiar with the history of torture know the answer to the general question to be affirmative: psychologists, like all health professionals, have contributed to torture throughout history. But what about now, in the US? You would think that this specific question should be just as easily answered in the negative. And indeed the American Psychological Association (APA) has been asserting just that and issued a strongly worded resolution against torture at the last annual convention in New Orleans. And there is no doubt that this is true if we accept the definition of torture promulgated by the Bush administration: the stuff that requires damage comparable to organ failure.

By contrast, Vice President Dick Cheney said on a talk show: “dunking a guy’s head under water is a no-brainer”. He referred there to water boarding, which was referred to as the “standard French torture” in the Middle Ages. It is not a prank but a serious and frightening method of terror. Eric Lomax, a British POW, tortured by the Japanese in WWII, describes in vivid detail how horrific it was to be subjected to this form of torture in his autobiography The Railway Man. And what about sleep deprivation and sensory disorientation and all the other techniques admittedly used on enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay? Psychologists and psychiatrists have studied these phenomena for decades, often finding out that these things were so dangerous that volunteer subjects started having serious symptoms and that experiments needed to be stopped.

Now that evidence of these psychological torture techniques has come to light, some APA members are trying to get something done that seems simple and straightforward: stop the involvement of psychologists in the interrogation of enemy combatants until we either have all the facts on what has been done to prisoners or until Guantanamo Bay and other such facilities have been closed. The idea is that we should stop contributing to operations in that legal and moral black hole that has attracted world-wide condemnation. We want our APA President to tell the Pentagon the same thing that Dr. Sharfstein, our psychiatric colleagues’ former president told the military: in places like Gitmo you need to proceed without us.

Some colleagues say that psychologists are needed in these places because they have been useful in preventing abuses from occurring, that we need ethical watchdogs and whistle blowers. One such whistle blower, Dr. Michael Gelles, reported human rights abuses and helped to stop some of them. He has argued argued against the moratorium (11) by referring to his own actions. We have many questions for Dr. Gelles (15a) and others in that regard, and these questions mean no disrespect to him and others who have stood up for what’s right. Unfortunately, Dr. Gelles's reply (15b) was short of a real response. I asked him once more if he would not answer the specific questions. Now that the profession of psychology has been placed at the center of the torture controversy, we need these answers to be detailed and precise.

Torture talked about in the Media

Erik Gleibermann, former Survivors International Board Member, writes for Tikkun Magazine.

Gleibermann's article, "Mending a Torn Psychic Fabric: Torture and Tikkun Olam" highlights the strength and healing capacity of survivors of torture and the importance for ourselves and our world to support that healing. Gleibermann quotes Dr. Uwe Jacobs, Director of Survivors International, who says, "The key is that somebody who cares is there to listen to what has happened. The survivor does not have to fear being retraumatized by being misunderstood.” Survivors of torture have many varied ways of representing and healing their trauma, it is our job to listen. From the article we learn that listening well may mean hearing detailed accounts of the torture, it may mean hearing and witnessing a survivor's political analysis of the events leading to his/her torture, it may mean creating spaces for people to come together and create, it may mean giving resources so that survivors of torture have the economic and political safety to start their healing process. It is important that we all participate, as Gleibermann concludes, "As interconnected members of a global community, each of us, whether consciously or not, inevitably absorbs some level of the widespread trauma of torture. The direct survivors have been the ones conspicuously afflicted, but they carry the trauma of our entire society. And so their mending repairs the wider world."

Read entire Tikkun article

PINC Papers on the Responsibility of Psychotherapists in a Time of Torture

Read the papers presented at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California's conference entitled UNFREE ASSOCIATION: The Politics and Psychology of Torture in a Time of Terror.

On March 17, 2007, the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) held a conference in San Francisco entitled UNFREE ASSOCIATION: The Politics and Psychology of Torture in a Time of Terror. This conference brought together four psychologists who have been at the forefront of the ongoing debate within the APA about psychologists’ involvement in military interrogation practices. Two presenters, Neil Altman and Ghislaine Boulanger, have initiated actions to abolish psychologists’ controversial involvement in interrogation practices, and will discuss their differing positions toward the APA.

This particular debate raises a larger question about the role of psychologists as cultural and political witnesses/bystanders in a time of terror. Steven Soldz and Nancy Hollander provide a timely look at this question as it affects both our day-to-day practice and our position as psychologists and psychoanalysts in the cultural unconscious. In addition, Elissa Marder, professor of literature, examines the psychological impact of the Abu Ghraib prison photographs on American society.