Because that’s what I’m interested in having — a reasoned, give-and-take discussion on topics like this. Not a, “Well, if you defend the APA, you must be a mouthpiece for them. And a racist to boot.” Whatever you’re doing here is of no interest to me; lesson learned.

In your first four paragraphs you tell me why, perhaps, psychologists, out of a sense of indebtedness to the military for prescription privileges, may be more willing to support torture than psychiatrists and physicians. I don’t see how these historical circumstances should make me feel any better about a psychologist consulting interrogators about which phobias of a detainee to exploit or how long to enforce solitary confinement or at what point to desecrate the Koran or how long or at what point to hood a detainee.

In your arguments that follow your history, you continue to have some difficulty keeping quotations and attributions straight. In the passages I quoted from the respective policy statements of the AMA and the APA (psychological), it was the AMA—not the APA–statement that allowed its members two possible roles regarding detainees:

-impartial medical care
-”developing interrogation strategies for general training purposes.”

Psychologists who participate in interrogations as military Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs) have only military standards and procedures to guide them—under which they are

authorized to make psychological assessments of the character, personality, social interactions, and other behavioral characteristics of detainees, including interrogation subjects, and, based on such assessments, advise authorized personnel performing lawful interrogations and other lawful detainee operations, including intelligence activities and law enforcement.

This describes participation for psychologists in individual interrogations—not general training.

You write:

If a psychologist, consulting indirectly in the training of interrogators, can help them understand how to obtain information more quickly and with less pain inflicted upon an enemy prisoner, is that in the benefit to our nation’s defense and security?

So inflicting some pain is acceptable? And just how much pain? Please explain what guidelines psychologists have for making such determinations? The APA has not provided any.

You write:

I think part of our challenge, too, in today’s discussion of issues like these is that we focus on the present, short-term situation (”enemy combatants,” which is a slippery slope if I’ve ever heard one), and ignore serious wars like WWII where such training and consultations, to defeat Nazism, was essential to the military’s operation.

Is it somehow short-sighted of me to object to the detention and torture of people not charged with any crime because we might need the ability to do similar things to the likes of Nazis later? Your logic sounds racist to me—as if our largely Arab and Muslim detainee population is somehow disposable for the sake of more “serious wars like WWII.”

Let me restate my point about your quotation methods. In your original blog post, you follow the phrase, “the AMA states” with a block quote. Anyone with even a small amount of academic training would assume that the block quote is something that the AMA has said. But instead, it is something that the APA’s Stephen Behnke said.

Further, I used the phrase, “I believe,” in order to advance an opinion about one particular phrase—not to characterize my entire, fact based argument. That is obvious in my writing. It is a fact that AMA policy only allows physicians to “participate in developing interrogation strategies for general training purposes.” You can quibble with me about what kind of training physicians are allowed to offer interrogators. It is clear, however, that physicians are not allowed to participate—directly or indirectly—in individual interrogations. Psychologists are allowed and they do.

The difference in policy is huge. It is has grave consequences. Psychologists are allowed to participate in individual interrogations in a non-healing capacity. “They employ their professional training not in a provider patient relationship, but in relation to a person who is the subject of a lawful governmental inquiry, assessment, investigation, interrogation, adjudication, or other proper action” (DOD Instruction, 6 June 2006). Psychologists have no professional guidelines for how to behave in this setting. They are supposed to oppose torture, but what constitutes torture has been left wide open for interpretation.

You can find all of my quotations and the sources for them back at the rebuttal I wrote on Hungry Blues.

In 1918, in his APA presidential address, the psychologist Robert Yerkes said:

In this country, for the first in the history of our science, a general organization in the interests of certain ideal and practical aims has been effected. Today, American psychology is placing a highly trained and eager personnel at the service of our military organizations. We are acting not individually but collectively on the basis of common training and common faith in the practical value of our work (Yerkes, 1918).

Without the military’s help at that time, and later in WWII and its acceptance of psychologists as legitimate professionals in healthcare, there’s some question as to whether the psychological profession would have become the recognized and respected professionals and clinicians they are today.

More recently, the military was also the first governmental agency to allow psychologists to prescribe medications. This was an important stepping-stone to gaining prescription privileges in a state-by-state effort. While gaining very slow acceptance, the APA owes the military a hat tip in this effort for opening the door.

Which is not to say that the APA should just blindly accept whatever the military wants psychologists to do. I don’t see their position of anything of the sort. I don’t believe for a moment that two large, unwieldy beaucracies such as the APA and military could ever conspire in a quid-pro-quo relationship of this nature. I’m just noting that the history of the APA plays an important role into understanding the dynamics of this organization (as compared to the AMA, for instance) and the U.S. military. Ignoring the history could lead one to believe that they are acting out of shallow, short-term motives.

Which brings me to an interesting hypothetical… If a psychologist, consulting indirectly in the training of interrogators, can help them understand how to obtain information more quickly and with less pain inflicted upon an enemy prisoner, is that in the benefit to our nation’s defense and security?

I think part of our challenge, too, in today’s discussion of issues like these is that we focus on the present, short-term situation (“enemy combatants,” which is a slippery slope if I’ve ever heard one), and ignore serious wars like WWII where such training and consultations, to defeat Nazism, was essential to the military’s operation.

As an aside, I should note that the APA’s informational article (of which I can’t see how anyone didn’t realize I was quoting from it, given I was linking to it in the first paragraph, but a lesson learned for me nonetheless) about the comparisons between organizations was written before the AMA clarified and tightened its own standard. I should also note that I think, tellingly, you said it all in your comment right here:

The proper interpretation of the AMA language, I believe, is that AMA members may participate in developing general strategies that will help interrogators respect the human rights of detainees. [emphasis added]

It’s all a matter of beliefs and interpretation as to how much these policies differ. Because until someone is called up on disciplinary action in both of these organizations for the same issue, we’ll never know how much they really differ in reality.

Yerkes, R.M. (1918). Psychology in relation to the war. Psychological Review, 25: 85-115.

John Grohol Issues Misleading APA Damage Control

(Note: I recently moved Hungry Blues to my own domain, which is why the link, above, will take you to a different website than the one you link to in your post.)

Thu Aug 10, 6:50 PM ET

NEW ORLEANS – The American Psychological Association took a stand against torture Thursday but kept an existing policy saying that it’s ethical for psychologists to assist in military interrogations.

Critics said the new policy, adopted at the group’s convention, does not go far enough to keep its members from becoming embroiled in practices that could violate the principles of human rights.

“The ultimate question is, should psychologists participate in national security interrogations, and the answer is no,” said Leonard Rubenstein, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. “It’s a question that other medical groups have addressed and the APA has not.”

The APA adopted as policy long-standing international human rights standards for the prevention of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.

“The Association unequivocally condemns any involvement by psychologists in torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. This APA policy applies to all psychologists in all settings,” a statement released by the organization said.

An APA policy issued last year said that while psychologists should not get involved in torture or other degrading treatment, it was ethical for them to act as consultants to interrogation and information-gathering for national security purposes.

[...]

June 7, 2006
Military Alters the Makeup of Interrogation Advisers
By NEIL A. LEWIS
New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 6 — Pentagon officials said Tuesday that they would try to use only psychologists, and not psychiatrists, to help interrogators devise strategies to get information from detainees at places like Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The new policy follows by little more than two weeks an overwhelming vote by the American Psychiatric Association discouraging its members from participating in those efforts.

Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters that the new policy favoring the use of psychologists over psychiatrists was a recognition of differing positions taken by their respective professional groups.

The military had been using psychiatrists and psychologists alike on behavioral science consultation teams, called “biscuit” teams because of the acronym, to advise interrogators on how best to obtain information from prisoners.

But Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, recent past president of the American Psychiatric Association, noted in an interview that the group adopted a policy in May unequivocally stating that its members should not be part of the teams.

http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/16446.html

New AMA ethical policy opposes direct physician participation in interrogation

For immediate release
June 12, 2006

Statement attributable to:
Priscilla Ray, MD
Chair, AMA Council on Ethical and Judicial Affairs

“After careful consideration and broad input from experts, the American Medical Association has adopted ethical guidelines that limit physician participation in interrogation. The new AMA policy clearly states that physicians who engage in any activity that relies on their medical knowledge and skills must continue to uphold medical ethics.

“Physicians must not conduct, directly participate in, or monitor an interrogation with an intent to intervene, because this undermines the physician’s role as healer. Because it is justifiable for physicians to serve in roles that serve the public interest, the AMA policy permits physicians to develop general interrogation strategies that are not coercive, but are humane and respect the rights of individuals.

“The practice of medicine is based on trust, and physicians are expected to care for patients without regard to personal characteristics. The development of this new ethical policy removes ambiguity for physicians who must make decisions about their involvement in interrogations.

“This policy builds on previous AMA efforts to assist physicians in the military who encounter such issues.”

And they are not the only ones to believe a difference exists. So does former APA president Philip Zimbardo, who knows a little about the subject as the architect of the infamous 1971 Stanford ‘prison’ experiment which demonstrated how easily people will resort to brutality if they believe the ‘system’ allows it.

Other who have expressed concerns about the APA’s policy include Jean Maria Arrigo, a civilian psychologist who served on the APA task force and founder of the Intelligence Ethics Collection at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and Steven Reisner, a psychologist and senior faculty member at Columbia University’s International Trauma Studies Program. To date over 1,500 psychologists, many APA members, have signed the petition calling “upon the American Psychological Association to direct its members to desist from participating in and consulting to interrogations at Guantánamo and similar facilities” at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/483607021?ltl=1150467493

“Understanding how large organizations work sheds light on the APA’s committee choices. If you need to study and formulate a response to a situation in an organization, typically you assign a subgroup of people to work on it. Most people choose that subgroup of people based upon their experiences and background. …[T]he APA’s choices for the committee appear appropriate, tapping psychologists whose expertise would be valuable to understanding the issue under consideration.”

The drug companies run the same argument to defend their paying prominent psychiatrists to run drug trials, and/or speak about particular drugs at conferences.