Torture

Before 9/11 I used to mention torture off-handedly in my learning class as an example of sensitization . Of course, I never dreamed back then that any psychologists would actually use torture. Like many, I thought that the Nuremberg Trials had shut the door firmly on those who would use the scientific method for less than benign ends. Apparently, I was wrong. I no longer mention torture in class.

Yesterday, the American Psychological Association took an important step when its council voted to affirm an "absolute prohibition against psychologists' knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

More specifically, the council named prohibited actions: "includes all techniques defined as torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under the 2006 Resolution Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the United Nations Convention Against Torture, and the Geneva Convention. This unequivocal condemnation includes, but is by no means limited to, an absolute prohibition for psychologists against direct or indirect participation in interrogations or in any other detainee-related operations in mock executions, water-boarding or any other form of simulated drowning or suffocation, sexual humiliation, rape, cultural or religious humiliation, exploitation of phobias or psychopathology, induced hypothermia, the use of psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances used for the purpose of eliciting information; as well as the following used for the purposes of eliciting information in an interrogation process: hooding, forced nakedness, stress positions, the use of dogs to threaten or intimidate, physical assault including slapping or shaking, exposure to extreme heat or cold, threats of harm or death; and isolation, sensory deprivation and over-stimulation and/or sleep deprivation used in a manner that represents significant pain or suffering or in a manner that a reasonable person would judge to cause lasting harm; or the threatened use of any of the above techniques to the individual or to members of the individual’s family;"

The American Psychological Association's action follows similar positions by the American Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. Yesterday's statement by the American Psychological Association was a compromise from another stronger position which sought to ban psychologists' participation from all interrogations. The council rejected that earlier proposal.

The Psychologists for Social Responsibility recently sponsored a symposium: Rethinking the Psychology of Torture. One of their conclusions was that, "Torture does not yield reliable information and is actually counterproductive in intelligence interrogations."

At least we now have some operational definitions of what not to do (or teach) with regard to torture.