[Commpsych] FW: [SCRA-L] Marybeth Shinn's resignation from the APA

[Dawn Darlaston-Jones]

Apologies again for cross postings but in light of similar discussions in
Australia I though that some might be interested in Marybeth Shinn’s
decision

 

Can anyone shed light on the developments on this issue from the Brisbane
conference??

 

 

____________________________________________

 

Dawn Darlaston-Jones, PhD

Lecturer

Behavioural Science

College of Arts & Sciences

University of Notre Dame

19 Mouat Street (PO Box 1225)

FREMANTLE

Western Australia WA 6160

 

Tel: +61 8 9433 0567

Fax: +61 8 9433 6073

e-mail ddarlaston-jones at nd.edu.au

 

CRICOS Code 01032F

 

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From: SCRA-L Div27 General Membership List [mailto:SCRA-L at LISTS.APA.ORG] On
Behalf Of Brad Olson
Sent: 08 October 2007 23:34
To: SCRA-L at LISTS.APA.ORG
Subject: [SCRA-L] Marybeth Shinn's resignation from the APA

 

Dear SCRA,

 

The following is a letter from Marybeth Shinn to Sharon Brehm and the APA.
Marybeth intends, just to make it clear, to remain a member of SCRA. I would
introduce more, but the letter in every way speaks for itself and to the
core of the whole issue: 

 

October 7, 2007

 

Dr. Sharon Brehm

President, American Psychological Association

Department of Psychology

1101 East 10th Street

Bloomington, IN 47405-7007

 

Dear Sharon and Members of the Board of Directors:

 

I am writing with sorrow to resign from the American Psychological
Association. I do not do so lightly, because my connections to APA are deep
and long. I have been a member since 1980, a fellow since 1986, and a
president of two APA divisions and their associated societies, 9 (the
Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues) and 27 (the Society
for Community Research and Action). I feel I owe you and my other colleagues
an explanation, detailed below. Briefly, I am resigning because the American
Psychological Association continues to condone psychologists’ work in
detention centers that violate international law and because of actions by
APA’s leadership to discourage dissent from its policies in this matter.

 

Condoning Work in Illegal Detention Centers

 

This summer, the APA Council voted down an amendment stating that the role
of psychologists in settings in which detainees are deprived of their human
rights should be limited to providing psychological treatment. APA’s action
effectively condones psychologists’ continued participation in
interrogations at Guantánamo and in other centers that violate both the
Geneva Convention and the U.S. Constitution. The resolution that was
approved simply requires that psychologists not plan, design, or assist in
the use of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment
or punishment, and that they report instances of which they become aware. 

 

I believe that the failure of APA to call for psychologists to leave
Guantánamo and CIA black sites lends support and legitimacy to violations of
ethics and international law. The American Bar Association has announced
that it will stop attempting to find lawyers for detainees at Guantánamo
because, according to a report in the New York Times, “it did not want to
‘lend support and credibility’ to what it called inadequate legal
protections for the 340 men held there” (Glaberson, 2007). APA should show
similar courage.

 

In addition, although I appreciate the argument that psychologists “on the
inside” are in a position to challenge conditions of prisoners’ confinement,
and have done so, I think it is equally likely that they will be co-opted.
There is strong social psychological evidence of the coercive power of
situational influences, even in the course of quite short-term experiments,
and evidence that individuals recruit information and shift attitudes to
justify the behavior in which they have engaged. Psychologists are unlikely
to be immune to such forces, especially when secrecy requirements prevent
them from discussing issues with others who are not subject to the same
influences. Under the long-term and open-ended coercive conditions of
detention centers, it seems at least as likely that psychologists would
become part of the problem as that they would succeed in creating solutions.
Indeed, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as cited in the
New York Times and denied by the government, has stated that information
from detainees’ medical records has been used to guide interrogations, and
that psychologists are centrally involved in this process: 

Doctors and medical personnel conveyed information about prisoners' mental
health and vulnerabilities to interrogators, the report said, sometimes
directly, but usually through a group called the Behavioral Science
Consultation Team, or B.S.C.T. The team, known informally as Biscuit, is
composed of psychologists and psychological workers who advise the
interrogators, the report said. (Lewis, 2004).

 

Although APA has passed resolutions unequivocally condemning and prohibiting
psychologists’ participation in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment, a report of the Office of the Inspector General of the Department
of Defense (dated August 25, 2006, but released more recently) suggests that
psychologists have been centrally involved in practices that the APA has
banned. In a section on “development of interrogation policy at Guantanamo
Bay, Cuba,” the report suggests that psychologists were responsible for
reverse engineering torture techniques from the military’s Survival,
Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program originally intended to train
U.S. personnel how to resist breaking down if they were captured and
tortured. Especially chilling to me, the report states that “The Army
Special Operations Command was examining the role of interrogation support
as a ‘SERE Psychologist competency area’” (p. 25)

 

The APA’s ban on psychologists’ participation in torture is absolute, but
the Association explicitly amended its Ethics Code in 2002 to permit
psychologists who experience other conflicts between law and ethics to
“adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing
legal authority” (section 1.02). They should first make the conflict known
and attempt to resolve it. I believe that “the governing legal authority” at
both Guantánamo and CIA black sites, where individuals are held without
prospect of release, under shifting legal guidelines, and without the
opportunity to challenge their detention in impartial courts, violates
international law. By continuing to work in such facilities, psychologists,
whatever their intentions, become complicit in their violations of human
rights. Given the ICRC evidence that psychologists have misused medical
records at Guantánamo to exploit detainees’ vulnerabilities in
interrogation, I would not advocate an exception for therapeutic treatment.

 

Note that I make no representation about the guilt or innocence of the
detainees. Some may well be guilty of heinous crimes against humanity.
Others are probably innocents swept up in error. But all are human beings
entitled to the protection of international law.

 

Discouraging Dissent

 

Reasonable people can disagree about appropriate ethical responses to
conditions that are widely deemed unethical. I appreciate the debate that
went on at the Convention this summer. However, in many other ways, APA’s
leaders have blocked challenges to psychologists’ involvement in detention
centers, misrepresented the nature of dissent, and even made ad hominem
attacks on dissenters.

 

An early action that minimized challenges was the composition of the APA
Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security
(PENS). Three of the ten members were active duty military officers, two
more worked for Defense Department Agencies, and a sixth consulted with a
Defense agency. As noted in a September 19 letter to you by Drs. Steven
Reisner, Stephen Soldz, and Brad Olson (Reisner, Soldz & Olson, 2007), as
well as an earlier open letter which I co-signed, some of these members were
in the chain of command at the places and during the times that abuses have
been documented. Some are also credited with protesting unethical actions.
Irrespective of their individual actions, their employment constituted a
conflict of interest. A committee’s criticism of detention centers and
psychologists’ involvement in them is likely to be muted when a majority of
its members are paid salaries or consulting fees by the military or the
Department of Defense. Two of the four members with no Defense involvement
have now dissociated themselves from the PENS Task Force. Dr. Wessells
resigned in January, 2006, “because continuing work with the Task Force
tacitly legitimates the wider silence and inaction of the APA on the crucial
issues at hand” (Wessells, 2006) and Dr. Arrigo publicly complained about
irregularities in Task Force procedures in her remarks at the most recent
APA convention, as recorded by Democracy Now (Arrigo, 2007).

 

Another recent action to minimize challenge occurred this summer at the APA
convention, when the Board of Directors initially attempted to prevent APA
Council from voting on a resolution limiting psychologists’ roles in
detention centers (“the moratorium resolution”) by presenting its own
substitute resolution, which reaffirmed, but also unfortunately weakened
last year’s resolution condemning torture. Under APA procedures, Council
would have had the opportunity to vote on a moratorium resolution only if
they first voted down the substitute resolution condemning torture. When
advocates pointed out that this substitution violated APA procedures (2006,
p. 19: substitute motions cannot “change an affirmative main motion into a
negative proposal not to take that action") there was discussion and
compromise: A stronger substitute resolution was put forward and passed, and
a limit on psychologists’ involvement was allowed as an amendment, and voted
down. Dr. Linda Woolf (2007) has written articulately and at length about
the limitations of the resolution that was passed: “Ultimately,” she
summarizes, “the 2007 Resolution maintains the status quo and prisoners will
continue to experience torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment both as a function of perpetrator behavior and as a function of
context” (Woolf, 2007).

 

An example of the misrepresentation of dissent is the letter you have
circulated from Dr. Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter, chair of the PENS Task Force
(Moorehead-Slaughter, 2007), commenting on Dr. Arrigo’s concerns about the
Task Force. Dr. Moorehead-Slaughter spends a considerable portion of her
letter defending against attacks that Dr. Arrigo never made. Someone who
read only Dr. Moorehead-Slaughter’s reply but not Dr. Arrigo’s original
criticism of procedural irregularities and conflicts of interest, might
think the criticism was misguided. For example, Dr. Moorehead-Slaughter
begins with a disclaimer that she has “never worked in any capacity for the
CIA, the FBI, or the Department of Defense,” a claim that Dr. Arrigo never
made, and an extensive defense of her integrity, which Dr. Arrigo never
impugned. She goes on to defend the actions and integrity of other members
of the Task Force, when Dr. Arrigo’s concern was with procedures and
conflicts of interest created by members’ employment. Dr.
Moorehead-Slaughter does go on to address some of Dr. Arrigo’s procedural
concerns, although in ways that have been disputed by Reisner et al. (2007).
She ends by lauding APA’s openness as represented in this summer’s
mini-convention on ethics and interrogation, which I agree was laudable, and
by the fact that “The Board of Directors was entirely committed to ensuring
that a proposal limiting the roles of APA members in detention facilities
would be discussed and debated at the Council of Representatives meeting.”
As noted above, I do not believe this is true.

 

More egregious is former president Gerald Koocher’s denigration of critics.
In his presidential column in the APA’s Monitor on Psychology, he complained
that:

A number of opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars have
continued to report on alleged abuses by mental health professionals.
However, when solicited in person to provide APA with names and
circumstances in support of such claims, no data have been forthcoming from
these same critics and no APA members have been linked to unprofessional
behaviors (Koocher, 2006, p. 7, emphasis added).

 

The American Psychological Associations Public Affairs Office (2007), on the
other hand, acknowledges that two psychologists have been identified as
developers of interrogation tactics, but they are not APA members.

 

Dr. Koocher has also defamed both Dr. Arrigo and her father in a
widely-circulated, open letter to Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! (Koocher,
2007). His allegations were refuted (Reisner, et al., 2007) and since
removed from his web site and Goodman's. But even if they had been true, his
effort to discredit the messenger, rather than dealing with the substance of
the message, has no place in reasoned argument. The substance of Dr.
Arrigo's message was that APA-Department of Defense conflicts of interest on
the part of six task force members and several unacknowledged participants
in the task force meeting compromised the PENS report.

 

In sum, I have become increasingly troubled with the American Psychological
Associations failure to call for a moratorium on psychologists’ involvement
at Guantánamo and CIA black sites, and am appalled by the actions of its
leadership in response to dissent. I hereby resign.

 

 

Marybeth Shinn

Member # 1603-1653

 

Cc:  Members of the Board of Directors, Dr. Moorehead-Slaughter

References

American Psychological Association (2006).  2006 Council of Representatives
Handbook.  http://www.apa.org/governance/rephandbook06.pdf

 <http://www.apa.org/governance/rephandbook06.pdf> 

American Psychological Association (2007) Reaffirmation of the American
Psychological Association Position Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman,
or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and Its Application to Individuals
Defined in the United States Code as “Enemy Combatants” Resolution Adopted
August 19, 2007.
http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html

 <http://www.apa.org/governance/resolutions/councilres0807.html> 

American Psychological Association Public Affairs Office (September,
2007).Frequently asked questions regarding apa's policies and positions on
the use of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment during
interrogations. http://www.apa.org/releases/faqinterrogation.html

 <http://www.apa.org/releases/faqinterrogation.html> 

Arrigo, J.M. (2007, August 20) Remarks at the Convention of the American
Psychological Association, as recorded by Democracy Now. Transcript at
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/20/1628234).

 

Glaberson, W. (2007, September 29). Legal aid offer for detainees is
retracted. The New York Times, p. A9.

 

Koocher, G. (2006, Feb 2.). Speaking against torture. President’s Column,
Monitor on Psychology, 37 (2), p. 5.

 

Koocher, G. (2007). Open letter to Amy Goodman.
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/koocher_o
pen_letter_to_amy_goodman.pdf

 

Lewis, N. A. (2004, November 30). Red Cross Finds Detainee Abuse in
Guantánamo. The New York Times, p. A1.

 

Moorehead-Slaughter, O. (2007, undated in the version I received). Letter to
Sharon Brehm. Posted on multiple listservs.

 

Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense (August 25,
2006). Review of the DOD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse. Report
No. 06-Intell-10, August 25, 2006, Evaluation Report.

 

Reisner, S., Soldz, S., & Olson, B. (2007, September 19). Letter to Sharon
Brehm. Posted on multiple listservs.

 

Wessells, M. (2006, January 15). Resignation letter. Posted on listserv of
the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

 

Woolf, L. M. (2007, September 1/2). Sad day for psychologists: Major blow
against human rights. Counterpunch.
http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html

 <http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html> 

 <http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html> 

 <http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html> 

 <http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html> 

 <http://www.counterpunch.org/woolf09012007.html> 

 

Beth Shinn

Professor of Applied Psychology and Public Policy

New York University

 

715 Broadway, Room 201

New York, NY 10003

(212) 998-7923

fax: (212) 998-7781


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