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<h1><font size=4><b>Torture, Psychology, and Daniel Inouye<br><br>
</b></font></h1><h3><b>The True Story Behind Psychology's Role in
Torture?</b></h3><font size=3>June 17, 2009 By <b>Bryant L. Welch</b>
<br>
<a href="http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21722" eudora="autourl">
http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/21722<br><br>
</a>A seventeen-year-old boy is locked in an interrogation cell in
Guantanamo. He breaks down crying and says he wants his family. The
interrogator senses the boy is psychologically vulnerable and consults
with a psychologist. The psychologist has evaluated the boy prior to the
questioning and says, "Tell him his family has forgotten him."
The psychologist also prescribes "linguistic isolation" (not
letting him have contact with anyone who speaks his language.) The boy
attempts suicide a few weeks later. On the eve of the boy's trial, the
psychologist apparently fearing her testimony will only further implicate
her, indicates she will plead the Fifth Amendment if she is called to the
stand. The trial is postponed, leaving the boy in further limbo.
<br><br>
The military psychologist is merely a foot soldier in psychology's
participation in torture. It goes much deeper. We now know that
<i>psychologists</i> helped design and implement significant segments of
George Bush's torture program. Despite their credo, "Above
all, do no harm," two psychologists developed instruments of
psychological torture. They "reversed engineered" psychological
principles. They used the very therapeutic interventions psychologists
use to ameliorate psychological suffering, but "reversed" their
direction to <i>create</i> psychological distress and instability.
If one's reality sense is threatened, a good therapist validates and
supports it as appropriate. In reverse engineering, the environment is
deliberately made more confusing and the victim's trust in his own
perceptions is intentionally undermined. In extreme form, this can
ultimately drive a person to insanity from which some never come back.
These were the types of techniques that were used on the
seventeen-year-old detainee and others.<br><br>
Military psychologists also colluded with the Justice Department to help
CIA operatives circumvent the legal prohibitions against torture. Under
the Justice Department definition of torture, if a detainee was sent to a
psychologist for a mental health evaluation prior to interrogation it was
<i>per se</i> evidence that the interrogator had no <i>legal intent
</i>to torture the detainee because the referral "demonstrated
concern" for the welfare of the
detainee. <br><br>
Most remarkably of all, this whole process occurred under a protective
"ethical" seal from the American Psychological Association
(APA), psychologists' largest national organization. The APA governance
repeatedly rejected calls from its membership for APA to join other
health organizations in declaring participation in Bush detention center
interrogations unethical. <br><br>
Most psychologists are appalled at what the APA has done, and many, like
me, have resigned from the APA. But the true story behind APA's
involvement with torture has not been fully told. <br><br>
I have had ample opportunity to observe both the inner workings of the
APA and the personalities and organizational vicissitudes that have
affected it over the last two decades. For most of the twenty-year period
from 1983 to 2003, I either worked inside the APA central office as the
first Executive Director of the APA Practice Directorate, or I served in
various governance positions, including Chair of the APA Board of
Professional Affairs and member of the APA Council of Representatives.
Since leaving APA I have maintained a keen interest in the
organization.<br><br>
The transformation of APA, in the past decade, from a historically
liberal organization to an authoritarian one that actively assists in
torture has been an astonishing process. As with many usurpations
of democratic liberal values, the transformation was accomplished by a
surprisingly small number of people. APA is an invaluable case study in
the psychological manipulations that influence our governmental and
non-governmental institutions. <br><br>
To explain APA's behavior two questions have to be answered. First, how
did the APA develop the connections with the military that fostered the
shameful role it has played in torture? Second, why did the APA
governance not join other health professions in prohibiting participation
in the Bush Administration's "enhanced interrogations," as
APA's rank and file members were demanding?<br><br>
<b>The APA-military connection<br><br>
</b>One source of APA's military connections is obvious to anyone who has
worked at APA over the last twenty-five years. Strangely, it has
been overlooked by the media. Since the early 1980's, APA has had a
unique relationship with Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye's office. Inouye
was an honored WWII veteran, a Japanese American who himself was a
medical volunteer in the midst of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He entered
office in 1962. For much of the '70s, he was Chair of the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence. Later he became, and is currently, the chair
of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which, of
course, makes up the largest chunk of federal discretionary spending and
is why economists often split discretionary government funding into
defense spending versus "everything else." This appropriations
committee covers not only all of the armed forces but the CIA as well.
Put succinctly, Inouye controls the military purse strings, and is very
influential with military brass. <br><br>
One of Inouye's administrative assistants, psychologist Patrick Deleon,
has long been active in the APA and served a term in 2000 as APA
president. For significant periods of time DeLeon has literally directed
APA staff on federal policy matters and has dominated the APA governance
on political matters. For over twenty-five years, relationships between
the APA and the Department of Defense (DOD) have been strongly encouraged
and closely coordinated by DeLeon. <br><br>
Inouye himself has served as an apologist for the Guantanamo Bay
Detention Camp ("Gitmo") since the inception of the War on
Terror. In a press briefing at the U.S. State Department, held shortly
after his trip to Gitmo in February of 2002, Inouye affirmed Rumsfeld's
propagandist vision of the site, and then remarked: "Watching
our men and women treat these detainees was rather impressive. They would
go out of their way to be considerate. ..." <br><br>
From what we know now, that is true, but not in the benevolent way
Inouye implied. Inouye's comments bore a chilling similarity to Barbara
Bush's famous comments about the alleged good fortune of Katrina victims,
in the Houston Astrodome. The detainees, he said, are being treated
"in some ways better than we treat our people." (R. Burns,
Associated Press, 2002). And he compared the Guantanamo climate to
Hawaii's. (It is "somewhat warmer.")<br><br>
More significantly, it was Inouye who recently stripped the funding
needed for closing Gitmo from a supplemental appropriations bill. This
"Inouye Amendment," threw a stick in the spokes of any U.S.
movement away from the worst of global war on terror policies. In
announcing the funding cut, Inouye's press release was a remarkable
illustration of Orwellian "newspeak," ostensibly supporting the
very opposite of what he was doing<br><br>
<br><br>
"<b>But let me be clear. We need to close the Guantanamo prison.
Yes, it is a fine facility. I, too, have visited the site. Yes, the
detainees are being well cared for. Our servicemen and servicewomen are
doing great work. But the fact of the matter is Guantanamo is a symbol of
the wrongdoings which have occurred, and we must eliminate that
connection." (Inouye, Press Release May 20, 2009).<br><br>
<br><br>
</b>DeLeon's connection with Inouye is not by any means the only APA
connection with defense interests. In 1951 the military established The
Human Resource Research Organization (HumRRO) to develop techniques for
"psychological warfare." HumRRO was run by psychologist Dr.
Meredith Crawford who spent ten years as APA treasurer and was deeply
involved in APA activities for three decades. Crawford's former student,
Raymond Fowler, became Chief Executive Officer of APA in 1989 and stayed
in that position until 2003. Today, fifty-five percent of HumRRO's budget
comes from the military. <br><br>
As CEO, Fowler hired his two most important lieutenants from HumRRO,
Chief Financial Officer, Charles "Jack" McKay, and in-house
attorney, James McHugh. Both men have now, after lengthy APA tenures,
left the APA and returned to HumRRO in very senior roles. McHugh is
Chairman of the HumRRO Board of Trustees and McKay is Vice-Chairman and
Treasurer. The current President of HumRRO, psychologist William
Strickland, has been an outspoken supporter of APA's policies on the
torture issue. He served on the APA Council of Representatives throughout
the APA deliberations on torture. <br><br>
Whether and how the longstanding relationships and frequent circulation
of key personnel between APA and HumRRO positions have shaped APA's
involvement with the military is unclear, but given recent events, it
certainly warrants more careful scrutiny than it has received from
psychologists. In fact, I do not believe many psychologists are even
aware of these relationships.<br><br>
Regardless of HumRRO's role, however, as psychologists, most APA
governance members have little Washington political experience. For them,
Patrick DeLeon, because of his connection with Inouye, is perceived as a
canny psychology politician and political force on Capitol Hill.
Regardless of the accuracy of that perception, I have no reason to think
DeLeon is a corrupt or evil person. Instead, from my perspective, the
most interesting aspect of DeLeon has always been his apparent
preoccupation with issues of status for psychologists, irrespective of
the issues' actual significance either for psychologists or the public.
<br><br>
DeLeon wanted to make sure a psychologist, not just physicians, for
example, would be eligible to fill this or that position in the Veteran's
Administration, and he campaigned for years for VA psychologists to
receive a minuscule pay increase when they became board certified. On the
whole, I found these matters harmless and of at least some marginal
benefit to people. Using funding from the Department of Defense he has
also launched a campaign for psychologists to be given legal rights to
prescribe psychiatric medications. <br><br>
The torture issue is, of course, quite different. Viewed through the eyes
of DeLeon's adherents, psychology's new found role as architects of a
central component of the war on terror was a tremendous
"victory" for the field of psychology. That it involved torture
was peripheral, obscured by the headiness of being involved in
high-level, important, clandestine government affairs. In discussions
about APA's role in the interrogations, a senior member of the APA
governance described himself as "addicted" to the television
show <i>24.</i> Now he had his own reality TV show.<br><br>
DeLeon's influence in the APA and with many individual psychologists,
especially those from Hawaii, came in very handy for Inouye in his
efforts to support the Department of Defense. When the military
needed a mental health professional to help implement its interrogation
procedures, and the other professions subsequently refused to comply, the
military had a friend in Senator Inouye's office, one that could reap the
political dividends of seeds sown by DeLeon over many years.<br><br>
While we are only now uncovering the names of the individuals who
participated most directly in the interrogations, I think a surprising
number of them will turn out to be people brought into the military
through Inouye's office, many by DeLeon himself.<br><br>
<b>APA's Organizational Decline<br><br>
</b>But this leads to the second and more complex question. Why did the
governance of the APA let this happen under the apparent imprimatur of
the world's largest organization of psychologists? Some people assume
APA's horrifying recent behavior involved large sums of money changing
hands. I could certainly be wrong, but I think the more likely (and more
remarkable and pressing) mechanism has little to do with money. For
reasons described below, the APA leaders who were making these decisions
simply exercised judgment that was both bad and insensitive to the
realities of human suffering. In my opinion, schooled by 25 years of
experience with the APA, it was neither greed nor financial corruption
that brought the APA governance into alliance with the Bush
Administration. Instead, it was a malignant organizational grandiosity
that first weakened the APA and then, ultimately, allowed military and
intelligence agencies to have their way with the APA throughout the Bush
Administration. <br><br>
But how did the APA, of all organizations, get this way? What led to this
grandiose culture? An organization does not rise or fall with a single
event any more than the fall of Rome truly occurred in 476 AD. The
culture of grandiosity was carefully cultivated for more than a decade by
a few self-interested individuals.<br><br>
What has been observable and unarguable about the APA of recent years is
that the pluralistic and multi-faceted governance process I witnessed
when first entering the APA in the early 1980's was sharply curtailed
during the 1990's. Differences of opinion disappeared, and the APA
suffered a terrible organizational decline. Increasingly inbred and
infantilized under the tightly controlled administration of Raymond
Fowler, the association agenda was primarily and at times exclusively
financial, focused on making money either through real estate ventures or
through what I and others felt was the unnecessarily harsh financial
treatment of lower level APA employees. <br><br>
Whatever one's view of APA, few can dispute that Fowler, more than any
other individual, made APA what it is today. The CEO of APA for almost
fifteen years, Fowler served in one capacity or another on the APA Board
of Directors for twenty-five consecutive years. While his supporters
would characterize him as "astute" and his critics as
"devious," few could reasonably disagree that Fowler was the
main mover in the APA for the fifteen years leading up to the torture
debacle. <br><br>
Most peculiarly, Fowler's "agenda" for APA was encapsulated in
the phrase "Working Together," a noble idea that to the best of
my knowledge was never attached to any actual substantive agenda.
Instead, it served as a means of social control, a subtle injunction
against raising any of the conflict-laden issues, challenges, or ideas
that need to be addressed in any vital and accountable organization. The
governance of the APA became either conformist or placid and increasingly
detached from the real world.<br><br>
The result was that much of the activity of the APA Council of
Representatives, the legislative group with ultimate authority in the APA
governance, turned away from substantive matters into an odd system of
fawning over one another. Many members appeared to simply bathe in the
good feeling that came from "working together." The bath was
characterized by grandiose self-referents and shared lofty opinions of
one another. As it became more and more detached from reality, the
organizational dysfunction became more pronounced, but this was ignored
and obscured by the self-congratulatory organizational style. During this
period, isolated dissent from rank-and-file members was stifled with a
heavy-handed letter from the APA attorney threatening legal action or by
communications from prominent members of the APA governance threatening
"ethics" charges if policy protests were not discontinued. (It
is unethical for psychologists to lie, and I can attest that one former
APA president concluded that disagreeing with him was <i>per se
</i>"lying.") <br><br>
<b>Deliberations on Torture<br><br>
</b>This same grandiosity was ubiquitous in the governance's rhetoric at
the heart of the Association's discussions on torture. Banning
psychologists' participation in reputed torture mills was clearly
unnecessary, proponents of the APA policy argued. To do so would be
an "insult" to military psychologists everywhere. No
<i>psychologist</i> would ever engage in torture. Insisting on a change
in APA policy reflected a mean-spirited attitude toward the military
psychologists. The supporters of the APA policy managed to transform the
military into the victims in the interrogation issue. <br><br>
In the end, however, it was psychologists' self-assumed importance that
carried the day on the torture issue. Psychologists' participation in
these detention centers, it was asserted, was an antidote to torture,
since psychologists' very presence could protect the potential torture
victims (presumably from Rumsfeld and Cheney, no less!). The debates on
the APA Council floor, year after year, concluded with the general
consensus that, indeed, psychology was very, very <i>important</i> to our
nation's security.<br><br>
We psychologists were both too good and too important to join our
professional colleagues in other professions who were taking an
absolutist moral position against one of the most shameful eras in our
country's history. While the matter was clearly orchestrated by others,
it was this self-reinforcing grandiosity that led the traditionally
liberal APA governance down the slippery slope to the Bush
Administration's torture program.<br><br>
During this period I had numerous personal communications with members of
the APA governance structure in an attempt to dissuade them from ignoring
the rank-and-file psychologists who abhorred the APA's position. I
have been involved in many policy disagreements over the course of my
career, but the smugness and illogic that characterized the response to
these efforts were astonishing and went far beyond normal, even heated,
give and take. Most dramatically, the intelligence that I have always
found to characterize the profession of psychology was sorely lacking.
<br><br>
Outside the self-absorbed culture of the current APA governance, to the
rest of the world, the APA arguments simply do not pass the red-face test
for credibility. Instead, their transparent disingenuousness only made
the APA sound embarrassingly like apologists for the Bush
Administration.<br><br>
<b>The Conclusion <br><br>
</b>The inability to deliberate rationally on the torture issue was but
the tragic denouement of an organizational process that was actually set
in motion in the early 1990's, largely to serve the convenience of a very
small number of individuals. As a result of the management style of the
90's, the governance of APA was ill prepared for thoughtful deliberation
on a matter as important as the torture issue. The governance was simply
over its head in trying to effectively address such a socially and
ethically consequential issue. This was especially true in a debate in
which one side had organized support from powerful military interests,
then-current APA presidents like Gerald Koocher and Ronald Levant, and
Senator Inouye's office all pushing for APA involvement in the
interrogations. Few people stood up to them, and those who did were
people who were inexperienced in the duplicity and manipulative style of
politics that characterized APA.<br><br>
With the increasing uproar from the membership and the media, APA's more
recently elected leaders and the current CEO, Norman Anderson, have been
extraordinarily quiet on the subject of psychologist and APA involvement
in the torture issue. Instead, second level APA employees have been put
out front to defend the APA position to the membership and to the public.
These are almost exclusively people hired by Fowler to fit into his
carefully designed model of an organization that would be controllable,
if somewhat non-dynamic and uncreative. Thus, the public relations staff
Fowler hired, the staff legal and psychological expertise he hired, and
most remarkably his ethics director have all served as the "face of
APA" on the torture issue in recent years. Not surprisingly, forced
to function under the watchful eye of the public they have not acquitted
themselves in credible fashion.<br><br>
In a recent book, I used several organizational examples to illustrate
that many of the same techniques of political manipulation used in the
Bush Administration were used in other organizational settings. Many of
those examples were drawn from the APA. At the time of writing I never
dreamed the techniques would lead to APA's complicity in <i>torture</i>.
<br><br>
But such is the fate of a regressed and chronically manipulated
organization. Despite being an organization of psychologists, APA has
been subjected to considerable manipulation but to very little analysis.
The people who run APA have "reverse engineered" the very field
of psychology itself and used it against its own membership. <br><br>
Psychologists are amongst the most moral and ethical people I know. They
deserved better from their national organization, just as Americans
throughout that same era deserved better from their government. <br><br>
<br>
Bryant Welch is a clinical psychologist and attorney living in Hilton
Head, SC. He is the author of <i>State of Confusion: Political
Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind, </i>St. Martins Press,
2008.)<br><br>
<br><br>
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