American Psychologists Split on Torture!

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New York Sun on interrogations controversy

The New York Sun covered the interrogations controversy on their front page Friday.

Psychologists Are Split Over Gitmo

By Joseph Goldstein

A military psychologist’s unprecedented refusal to testify when called to a Guantanamo courtroom yesterday will add to a debate that is expected to rage at this weekend’s annual convention of the American Psychological Association.

The professional organization is riven over whether to prohibit members who are in the military or who work with intelligence agencies from participating in the interrogation of suspected terrorists. That issue has prompted the first referendum in the organization’s history this month, for which voting remains open.

The issue has also spurred a New York psychoanalyst, Steven Reisner, to run for president of the APA on a platform of banning psychologists from involvement in national security interrogations “at sites where the conditions violate international law,” he told The New York Sun yesterday.

The APA has long had a close relationship with the military, which is one of the country’s largest employers of psychologists. In recent years, the APA has generally encouraged “engagement” — or involvement in national security interrogations — for the purpose of stopping “interrogations that cross the bounds of ethical propriety,” as the director of the APA’s ethics office, Stephen Behnke, wrote in a letter earlier this year. APA officials also have encouraged involvement in interrogations by psychologists on the grounds that psychologists should assist in the country’s anti-terrorism efforts.

After the American Psychiatric Association voted in 2006 not to allow psychiatrists to be part of the military’s behavioral science consultation teams, which are called “biscuit teams” and advise interrogators, the military began staffing the teams with psychologists alone.

The event that occurred in a courtroom yesterday at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is expected to add a new dimension to the debate among psychologists this weekend. When a military psychologist was called yesterday to testify about the treatment of a detainee, she pleaded the military law’s equivalent of the Fifth Amendment privilege to not self-incriminate, the detainee’s lawyer, Major David Frakt, said in a press release sent by an intermediary. The psychologist’s name is protected by court order.

It is the first time a military psychologist belonging to a biscuit team is publicly known to have been called to give testimony in a Guantanamo court proceeding. The woman’s response suggests that military psychologists are concerned about either their professional licenses or criminal liability.

Court papers filed on behalf of the detainee, Mohammad Jawad, say the psychologist had, in 2003, advised an interrogator to put Mr. Jawad in isolation in an effort to facilitate interrogation, a person familiar with the detainee’s case and who has seen the unclassified legal papers said. The interrogator had sought out the psychologist’s advice because of a concern that Mr. Jawad’s mental state was deteriorating, the person said, adding that Mr. Jawad had been observed speaking to posters on his wall. The psychologist apparently rejected that layman’s diagnosis and believed Mr. Jawad was faking and recommended isolation, the person said.

Nine weeks after Mr. Jawad was removed from a month of isolation, he tried to commit suicide by hanging or repeatedly banging his head, the source said.

“What is so disturbing about the Jawad case,” the source said, is that the psychologist “is calibrating the level of harm.”

Major Frakt said in the statement that the psychologist’s refusal to testify shows that she “now apparently recognizes that her conduct was criminal in nature.”

Mr. Jawad, now about 24, is accused of throwing an grenade at American forces in Afghanistan while in his late teens.

The effect, if any, of a move by the APA to forbid its members from participating in interrogations is uncertain. While the APA has no control over the licensing of psychologists, which is done by the states, the ABA can censure members on ethics charges. State licensing bodies could consider the APA’s findings in deciding license applications.

Mr. Reisner, the New York candidate for APA president, said he supports extending the APA’s current four- to five-year statute of limitations on ethics complaints in order to investigate the role of psychologists have played in national security interrogations.

Add comment August 16th, 2008
Press Release: Military Psychologist Refuses to Testify About Abusive Treatment of Detainee at Guantánamo

I was scheduled to testify at the Guantánamo Military commission yesterday. At the last moment the testimony was canceled. Here is a Press Release from the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and Psychologists for an Ethical APA explaining why.

Military Psychologist Invokes Right to Remain Silent at Guantánamo Hearing, Refusing to Testify About Abusive Treatment of Detainee

Psychologists and Human Rights Groups to Rally Saturday Against American Psychological Association’s Controversial Torture Policy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, August 14, 2008

BOSTON - A military psychologist who recommended isolation torture techniques on a Guantánamo detainee today invoked her right not to incriminate herself, refusing to testify in the case of Mohammad Jawad.

Her testimony was sought by defense attorney Maj. David Frakt in a hearing on his motion to dismiss charges based upon government misconduct in using prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and other torture techniques against his client in an attempt to make him more pliable in interrogations. Following a month-long isolation, apparently recommended by the military psychologist, Mr. Jawad - who entered Guantánamo as a teenager — attempted suicide.

The psychologist’s testimony would have marked the first time that a member of the secretive Behavioral Science Consultation Team (known as BSCT or “biscuits”) had been called to testify in a detainee hearing. The BSCT program has been highly controversial among psychologists and other health professionals. The psychologist invoked her rights under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military equivalent of the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination/right to remain silent.

“The fact that the BSCT Psychologist now apparently recognizes that her conduct was criminal in nature is very significant,” said Maj. Frakt. “We have alleged, based on classified government records that the BSCT psychologist’s recommendation led directly to the illegal abuse and inhumane treatment of Mohammad Jawad. This invocation of the right to remain silent seems to confirm that.”

“The evidence in this case confirms our worst fears, that military psychologists are working to break down detainee’s psyches,” said Dr. Stephen Soldz, an expert psychologist who had been called by Maj. Frakt to testify that the BSCT psychologist had violated the professional credo of “Do no harm.”

“Today’s developments only confirms our view that a full accounting of the shadowy BSCT program is long overdue,” he added. Dr. Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, and faculty member at Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis.

The news comes on the eve of a rally against torture to be held this Saturday outside the Boston Convention Center where the American Psychological Association, the largest group of its kind, is meeting this weekend. The APA has come under increasing fire for its refusal to ban its members’ participation in Bush administration coercive interrogations and torture, as the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association have done.

“The continuing silence of the APA on member involvement in torture is telling,” Dr. Soldz said. “No APA leader or official has ever uttered one word critical of actual U.S. abuse, or of the role of psychologists and psychological expertise in that abuse. They continue to stonewall on disciplining any psychologists who participated, despite promises to investigate.”

At Saturday’s rally, psychologists speaking out against the policy will be joined by the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, and American Friends Service Committee and hear songs from “Raging Grannies” and local musicians.

The torture issue is of increasing concern to all Americans, APA members say, but of particular importance to psychologists because it violates their primary ethical obligation to “Do no harm.” As has been documented by numerous journalists and official government reports, psychologists helped develop, implement, standardize, and disseminate abusive interrogation techniques that have led to torture...

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