APA votes 156-1 to end psychologists' participation in interrogation

The American Psychological Association (APA) has voted, by a massive majority, to prohibit psychologists from taking part in national security interrogations. This action comes in the wake of an independent report which found that key APA officials colluded with the US Department of Defense in the years following 9/11, resulting in less restrictive ethical guidance for military psychologists in national security settings.

Psychologists on the APA's Council of Representatives voted 156-1 – with seven abstentions and one recusal – to back the resolution which states that psychologists will not be involved, in any way, with national security interrogations for the military, intelligence entities or private contractors working on their behalf. (Retired Col. Larry James, the former top Army intelligence psychologist at Guantánamo, cast the sole dissenting vote.) The proposal does still allow psychologists to be involved in consultation on humane interrogations.

However the prohibition does not apply to domestic law enforcement interrogations or domestic detention settings where detainees are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Constitution [see also 'What, exactly, does yesterday's APA resolution prohibit?']. The council also voted to create a special panel to review the APA's existing ethics policies and procedures.

The independent report that led to this action was based on a review of more than 50,000 documents and 200 interviews of 148 people by lawyer David Hoffman and a team of authors. The report found the APA's priorities were 'PR strategy and growing the profession of psychology', rather than the welfare of the people being interrogated. It noted that the profession of psychology should define whether it was ethical and legitimate for psychologists to use their special skill to intentionally inflict psychological or physical harm on individuals, concluding that 'APA officials made such a decision in 2005. Their decision was to keep the limits on this behavior loose and high-level.'

The association previously apologised, and said its association governance was working to correct faults in its policies and procedures. Former APA president Nadine Kaslow said the new motion was a concrete step towards correcting the association's previous 'organizational shortcomings'. She added: 'We are now moving forward in a spirit of reconciliation and reform.'

James Risen, the investigative journalist who has extensively reported on the CIA's torture of detainees, attended the APA annual convention in Toronto where the vote was held and said that although many welcomed the new resolution, others were cautious. He wrote for the New York Times: 'After the vote, about 50 members of the A.P.A.'s military psychology division, including several who were in uniform, held a separate meeting in another conference room in the hotel that hosted the annual meeting. They expressed frustration and anger.'

Risen reported that Tom Williams, president of military psychology division, said that he thought the language of the ban was overly broad. He told Risen this wording could have large effects on any psychologist in a national security setting and the group may consider splitting off from the APA. Others have labeled the Hoffman report 'biased' and 'political', leading to a strong response from APA Council member Steven Reisner: 'If we learn from Hoffman, from history, and from what those who were involved and have shown remorse can teach us, we might begin to heal from this terrible period in APA history. If we accept the justifications from those who show no remorse, but continue to argue, against the evidence, that what was done was not only right, but was business as usual, then we are doomed to repeat ourselves.'

Prior to the vote, Rick Salutin, writing for the Toronto Star, suggested that the social sciences had often caused ethical outrages and that 'bad behaviour among the expert class' was often stimulated by war or terrorist attacks. He said: 'What's surprising about this is that anyone's surprised. The root of their stupefaction, I'd say, is the delusion that the sciences – psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics etc. – are sciences at all, in the sense of the physical sciences. They aren't.'

Salutin suggested that psychology, as a field, should cast aside its pretentions of being a science. He referred to John Seeley, psychologist and sociologist who spent much of his career asking how it was possible to study something so inherently subjective which we are all, naturally, immersed in: 'It was like studying your own back at the same time as it relentlessly pushed you forward,' he added. Salutin reached the following conclusion about psychologists: 'They aren't just social observers, they're social agents, with their own motives and needs that also deserve careful research.' 

Prior to the APA Counil meeting, one psychologist told BuzzFeed News reporter Peter Aldhous 'We've got a fire in our house, and it's a devastating fire.' But at least one hero has emerged from the ashes: as we have reported previously, independent social psychologist Jean Maria Arrigo turned whistleblower and she has finally been recognised and praised for her actions. Aldhous reports that the meeting Walter Hillabrandt of the District of Columbia Psychological Association honoured Arrigo 'for being the finest possible role model,' his voice 'cracking with emotion'. She responded: 'I'm very touched by this, but at the same time I'm very wary that this is a public relations event designed to shut me up.'