How the APA Enabled Torture

An article published on Slate.com today (12/14/14) suggests that the APA was not just negligent in allowing psychologists to design and participate in the Bush administration's torture program, but that it may have been actively enabling this involvement. The author of the piece, Steven Reisner, writes, "It appears that senior staff members of the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest association of psychologists, colluded with national security psychologists from the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House to adapt APA ethics policy to suit the needs of the psychologist-interrogators."

According to Reisner, an APA task force met in June 2005 and concluded that “it is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national security-related purposes.” The APA was the only major health profession organization to come to this conclusion. "National organizations of physicians, psychiatrists, and nurses all determined that their ethical obligations prohibited their members from participating in these interrogations."