"Enhanced" interrogation of detainees: do psychologists and psychiatrists participate?

After revelations of participation by psychiatrists and psychologists in interrogation of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and Central Intelligence Agency secret detention centers, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association adopted Position Statements absolutely prohibiting their members from participating in torture under any and all circumstances, and, to a limited degree, forbidding involvement in interrogations. Some interrogations utilize very aggressive techniques determined to be torture by many nations and organizations throughout the world. This paper explains why psychiatrists and psychologists involved in coercive interrogations violate the Geneva Conventions and the laws of the United States. Whether done with ignorance of professional ethical obligations or not, these psychiatrists and psychologists have crossed an ethical barrier that may best be averted from re-occurring by teaching medical students and residents in all medical specialties about the ethics principles stemming from the 1946-1947 Nuremberg trials and the Geneva Conventions, together with the Ethics Codes of the World Medical Association and the American Medical Association; and, with regard to psychiatric residents and psychological trainees, by the teaching about The Principles of Medical Ethics With Annotations Especially Applicable to Psychiatry and the Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, respectively. In this way, all physicians and psychologists will clearly understand that they have an absolute moral obligation to "First, do no harm" to the human beings they professionally encounter.

Now is the time for AAPL to demonstrate leadership by advocating positions of social importance.

The American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) and other medical organizations have not taken a position on the abolition of capital punishment because of a long-standing tradition of remaining neutral on "nonmedical" societal issues that are highly divisive. It is the authors' contention that taking a stand on vital social issues that are clearly in the public interest is wholly consistent with the stated purposes of AAPL and that the time has come for an open and frank discussion by the membership on the merits of altering its policy, with particular focus on eliminating the death penalty. The present article explains why capital punishment can no longer be considered a nonmedical societal issue and why AAPL must awaken to take on controversial matters such as this one. For AAPL to continue to avoid this debate and silence any attempt to organize opposition to the current status quo will only serve to embolden those who argue in favor of the death penalty. Such continued silence betrays any notion of neutrality and is an abdication of the canons of medical ethics we have all sworn to uphold.