 (unless there is danger to the therapist)." But it so happens that these same "strict ethical principles" of the APA have been the topic of unsparing rebuke which won't be cited much on those holiday beaches.
A recent report by the Pentagon's Inspector General confirms what has been detailed in news stories since 2005: the starring role played by American psychologists and psychoanalysts in devising and supervising torture techniques as administered by the US military in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
These techniques have been 'reverse-engineered' from the Pentagon's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) programme in which US military and intelligence personnel are taught how to withstand harsh interrogation. Psychologists have always been central to this enterprise; 'reverse-engineered' simply means they are now similarly central to the use of sleep deprivation, sexual and cultural humiliation and waterboarding on suspected terrorists.
In 2002, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that "interrogation methods |
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used were no longer effective in obtaining useful information from some detainees" and, as the Inspector General's report details, "recommended that the FBI Behavioral Science Unit, the Army's Behavioral Science Consultation Team, the Southern Command Psychological Operations Support Element, and the JTF-170 clinical psychologist develop a plan to exploit detainee vulnerabilities". The use of dogs, sexual humiliation, and kindred tortures were only a couple of months away.
Amid furious protests from members, the APA leadership has piously maintained that "psychologists have a critical role in keeping interrogations safe, legal, ethical and effective." The Pentagon report makes clear this claim is ludicrous.
So here we have shrinks refining Tony Soprano's brutish violence; draping his id with the national flag. The APA's August meeting will be stormy as members vote on a motion introduced by Neil Altman urging "a moratorium on psychologist involvement in interrogations at US detention centers for foreign detainees". 
FIRST POSTED JUNE 15, 2007
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