blog.bioethics.net

The American Psychological Association Needs to Think Harder About Ethics

The Report of the APA Task Force on psychological ethics and national security has drawn scathing comments in the NY Times and now Lancet. Stephen Behnke is scrambling to do damage control. But there were problems before the report even came out.

An article by Jane Mayer in the July 11/18 2005 New Yorker. "The
experiment: Is the military devising new methods of interrogation
at Guantanamo" raises serious questions about the appropriateness
of one member of the committee and about the complicity of Marty
Seligman in research refining methods of torture as well. I only
recently got a chance to read the New Yorker article but found it
quite troubling. It implicitly raises important questions about
the integrity of the task force and the judgment of Stephen
Behnke. Steve, let's hear from you.

The identifies Colonel Louie (Morgan) Banks as an administrator
of the military's program of systematic research to improve the
efficiency of psychological methods in breaking the will of
prisoners and obtaining confessions, regardless of whether these
confessions are true. The article quotes persons involved in the
mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo as indicating that Banks
was a consultant in specific interrogations. Banks himself is
quoted as saying "I do go down to Guantanamo occasionally, PI have
provided assistance" The artice indicates that Banks finds no
problem in helping with interrogations, as long as the law is not
broken.

Dr. Banks was a member of the APA's task force on
psychological ethics and national security! What was he doing on
that committee? Prior to the release of the task force report, I
had written to Stephen Behnke and, noting that the Army would be
represented on the task force, asked that representatives of human
rights organizations be there as well. He did not respond to that
specific request, but said that I would approve of the task force
report. I don't approve of it and I believe that Behnke owes the
membership of APA and the larger community of psychologists an
explanation why someone like Banks, involved in reprehensible
conduct, would be given a key role in how that conduct is judged.

As for Marty Seligman. The article indicates that he has advised
the torture researchers and a spokesperson for them cites learned
helplessness theory as a useful theoretical framework for their
work. I am struggling to figure out the connection between
positive psychology and torture. Is Marty helping these prisoners
get a peak experience?

According to a separate article in the NY Review of Books, Amnesty
International lists 60 alleged incarceration and interrogation
methods employed in US run detention centers, including immersion
in cold water to simulate drowning, forced shaving, being pissed
on, and mock executions. Wow, the technology of learned
helplessness has gone far beyond the insolvable anegrams and 90
decibel noises used in the 70s.

Perhaps Steve Behnke and the APA task force have given us a reason
to show up at the next APA convention: to join others concerned
about human rights in protesting APA's complicity in psychologists
conducting research intended to improve the efficiency of methods
to deprive others of those rights.