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The devastating effects of both acute and chronic sleep deprivation are well known to sleep scientists and health practitioners. In most cases, the damage is done unwittingly by individuals to themselves, but sleep deprivation has been frequently used by our military and intelligence agencies to inflict intentional harm on prisoners of war.
In May 2005, Stephen G. Bradbury, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, authored an extensive memorandum in which he described multiple techniques that were used by the CIA in interrogation of prisoners. Among the techniques described were waterboarding, prolonged confinement in cramped positions, “walling”, and sleep deprivation. The memorandum discusses the finer points of these techniques, arguing that using the techniques did not meet the legal definition of torture. The techniques, along with their legal justification, have since been repudiated by many human rights groups, including the United Nations, and even by the current U.S. Administration.
Appallingly, psychologists served as consultants to the CIA in torturing prisoners, and the primary professional organization of psychologists, the American Psychological Association (APA), was complicit in the sordid activities. The Bradbury memo refers repeatedly to the roles played by medical and psychological personnel in monitoring the physical and psychological effects of torture. In 2005, APA secretly convened a task force on Psychological Ethics in National Security (PENS) that inserted new language in the APA Code of Ethics that condoned involvement of psychologists. The Justice Department had determined that torture was legally permissible, and the APA had then further determined that psychologists’ participation was not unethical. Particularly noteworthy is that the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association refused to be similarly involved.
APA’s actions have been, and continue to be shameful. Their website contains a timeline of events and actions taken by the organization, but they have yet to fully acknowledge the role of the leadership and hold anyone accountable. Ironically, the then and present Director of Ethics for APA was a principal player. It is astonishing that no psychologist who has been directly or indirectly involved with the CIA’s torture programs has been held to account. The APA has commissioned an investigation of what happened, and its officers are currently refusing any further comment until the results of that investigation are released.
The first principle of the APA Ethics Code pertains to beneficence and nonmaleficence. The first sentence of that principle is:
“Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm. In their professional actions, psychologists seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact professionally and other affected persons and the welfare of animal subjects of research."
The reputation of professional psychology has been seriously damaged. It does not take an investigatory commission to conclude that many individual psychologists including some in the APA itself have been in violation of the ethical code. Resignations by APA leaders who were involved would be a start towards rebuilding the reputation of professional psychology.
