US psychologists to steer clear of ‘immoral’ terrorist interrogations

The move by the APA, the nation’s largest association of behavioral experts, is a rebuke of the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policies, because many of the techniques deemed unacceptable have been widely reported to be used at military facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as in Iraq and at various CIA detention centres.

But it also has practical effects. Psychologists who have their membership revoked can lose their license, because many state licensing boards require psychologists to be in good standing with the national association.

Also ruled out of bounds are the exploitation of prisoners’ phobias, the use of mind-altering drugs, hooding, forced nakedness, the use of dogs to frighten detainees, exposing prisoners to extreme heat and cold, physical assault and threatening the use of such techniques against a prisoner or a prisoner’s family.

Several psychologists declared that these methods are not only physically and psychologically damaging to both inmates and captors, but also counterproductive for obtaining useful intelligence.

The move follows similar decisions by other professional associations, such as the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association. But psychologists play an unusual role in that they widely serve both in a clinical role—involving the treatment of sick prisoners—and as researchers of human behaviour.

The decision came after days of heated protests at the 115th annual meeting of the Psychologists’ Association. The association decided against a blanket measure that would have kept psychologists from participating in interrogation facilities altogether.

“If we lose psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die,” said US Army Col Larry James, chief of the department of psychology at the Tripler Army Medical Center, Honolulu.