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.

Survivors International Devotes Program to Serving Survivors of Gender-Based Violence

Center for Gender and Refugee Studies and SI Join to Advocate for Gender Asylum Seekers

Survivors International, which has provided comprehensive care for torture survivors for over 18 years, announces the commencement of its Gender Asylum and Recovery Project. Working alongside the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies (CGRS), and thanks to the generosity of the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, SI will be dedicating services and staff towards addressing the needs of the growing population of asylum-seekers fleeing gender-based persecution. This Project hopes to become the catalyst for relevant treatment and international advocacy for those oppressed on the basis of gender or sexual minority status.

Only in the past decade has the multitude of gender-motivated persecution – from genital mutilation, domestic abuse, to hate violence – finally become recognized as legitimate grounds for asylum. Much of this is due to CGRS' pioneering legal work and favorable new legal precedents set by the Federal Courts and Board of Immigration Appeals. CGRS groundbreaking work includes successfully arguing the concept of "reasonable expectation of futility," demonstrating that whether or not gender asylum-seekers have gone to state authorities is often irrelevant to the fear of persecution as notoriously few police worldwide actually prosecute domestic or hate violence. These legal breakthroughs have opened a space for more and more fleeing gender-based violence to step forward to seek refuge and safety.

This critical shift has brought with it new needs; appropriate resources are required to medically and psychologically treat these survivors and to provide them a continuum of care to lead healthy, independent lives once again. SI, an expert in providing such services to victims of torture, hopes to step in to fill this gap and support the work of CGRS to advocate for this group.

Not only will SI clinicians support such claims with a higher level of documentation through medical and psychological examination and expert testimony, but their work will also further insight into the underlying effects of gender-based abuse. Understanding that eliminating fear of repatriation by granting asylum is only the first step in the healing process, SI will also provide comprehensive case management to clients, linking them to long-term psychological and medical care and social service referrals.

As with all of its services, SI will provide these at low to no cost to clients to help overcome the tremendous financial burden such clinical services often impose on asylum seekers, who often have little access to traditional sources of income.

The first of its kind in the United States, this program is intended as a model to spur torture-treatment and immigration service centers throughout the nation to provide relevant assistance to this population. SI also hopes to publish the research on care for those suffering gender-motivated violence to deepen an understanding of this reality in the broader medical community.

For more information on this program: Please contact Dr. Uwe Jacobs, SI Director at (415) 546-2080 x 104.
Legal Providers: To refer clients to this program, please see our client referral information page.