The Hoffman Report: The Investigation into the American Psychological Association (APA)

The Hoffman Report is the informal name for the 2015 investigation into the American Psychological Association’s (APA) practices regarding its relaxing of ethical standards for psychologists involved in torture interrogations. The full name for the report is, Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture. It was authored by attorneys David Hoffman, Danielle Carter, Cara Viglucci Lopez, Heather Benzmiller, Ava Guo, Yasir Latifi and Daniel Craig of the law firm, Sidley Austin, LLP.

It was an extensive investigation spanning 6 months that reviewed over 50,000 documents and conducted over 200 interviews with 148 people.

The report notes that,

“Although most individuals were quite cooperative and willing to meet with us, that sentiment was not universal, and there were several individuals who declined to meet with us or did not respond to our requests.”

Also,

“This inquiry is made more difficult by the amount of time that has elapsed since the important events occurred. The key events relating to the APA task force report occurred 10 to 11 years ago, and the events relating to the ethics code revision occurred 13 to 19 years ago.”

The independent investigation resulted in a 542-page final report. It is available for download here

Independent Review Relating to APA Ethics Guidelines, National Security Interrogations, and Torture (PDF)

Mental health professionals 'may have committed war crimes', report says

As reported in the Guardian

Much more at the link

Health professionals who assisted in the CIA’s torture programme of terror suspects “betrayed the most fundamental duty of the healing professions” and may have committed war crimes, according to a hard-hitting report released on Tuesday.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) called for a federal commission to investigate the full extent of health professionals’ participation in CIA torture following last week’s release of the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report on the agency’s detention and interrogation programme.

“Under the auspices of the Bush administration, the CIA systematically tortured suspected terrorist detainees, in at least one instance to the point of death. This torture program heavily relied on the participation and active engagement of health professionals to commit, conceal, and attempt to justify these crimes,” PHR concludes.

The report comes days after Dick Cheney, the former US vice president, defended the practices disclosed in the report including “rectal feeding” – arguing the practice was done for medical reasons. Former CIA director Michael Hayden has also claimed that the practice was carried out on medical grounds.

According to PHR, rectal hydration is almost never practiced in medicine because there are more effective methods, and it is never considered as a first option for rehydration or nutritional support. PHR notes that the report indicates that rectal hydration was used to “control and/or punish the detainees ... Insertion of any object into the rectum of an individual without his consent constitutes a form of sexual assault.”

“Rather than reject such brutal practices, medical officers appear to have modified them to increase pain: ‘we used the largest Ewal [sic] tube we had,’ stated one officer in a February 2004 email,” writes PHR.

Dr Vincent Iacopino, PHR’s senior medical advisor and an author of the analysis, said Cheney was “either terribly misinformed or propagating a lie. Any reasonable person knows feeding does not take place rectally.”

The report sets out eight areas where doctors, psychologists and physician assistants may have violated “medical and psychological ethics, domestic and international law, and federal research guidelines”:

• Designing, directing and profiting from the torture program;
• Intentionally inflicting harm on detainees;
• Enabling US department of justice lawyers to create a fiction of “safe, legal and effective” interrogation practices;
• Engaging in torture research that could potentially violate the Nuremberg Code, brought in after World War II to ban “experiments” like those practiced by the Nazis, and could constitute a crime against humanity;
• Monitoring torture and calibrating the level of pain;
• Evaluating and treating detainees for the purposes of torture;
• Conditioning medical care on cooperation with interrogators;
• Failing to document physical and/or psychological evidence of torture.

The report is especially damning of the work of psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. The SSCI described how the pair – given the pseudonyms “Grayson Swigert” (Mitchell) and “Hammond Dunbar” (Jessen) in the report– designed the so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EITs) used to interrogate suspects.

Much more at the link

Meet the Psychologists Who Helped the CIA Torture People

As Seen in New York Magazine

Read Much More at the Link

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s 500-page executive summary of its report on the CIA’s torture program offers some horrifying details about U.S. treatment of detainees captured in the post-9/11 years. It also highlights and adds some details about the important role two psychologists had in both developing the “enhanced interrogation” program and carrying it out.

Within the report, the duo in question are referred to with the pseudonyms "Grayson Swigert" and "Hammond Dunbar." But both the New York Times and NBC News have identified them as Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two psychologists who have been previously singled out for their roles in developing and legitimizing the torture program.

Both men came from an Air Force background, where they worked on the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program in which military personnel are trained to resist enemy questioning by enduring oftentimes brutal mock interrogations. Beyond that, though, they seemed otherwise poorly suited for the task of interrogating al-Qaeda detainees. “Neither psychologist had any experience as an interrogator,” the report notes, “nor did either have specialized knowledge of al-Qa'ida, a background in counterterrorism, or any relevant cultural or linguistic expertise.” Despite their lack of experience in these key areas, Mitchell and Jessen “carried out inherently governmental functions, such as acting as liaison between the CIA and foreign intelligence services, assessing the effectiveness of the interrogation program, and participating in the interrogation of detainees in held in foreign government custody.”

So how did these two men come to play such an outsized role in developing and enacting the CIA’s torture program? Much of the story is captured in a 2009 Times article by Scott Shane. Shane writes that Mitchell, who after retirement “had started a training company called Knowledge Works” to supplement his income, realized that the post-9/11 military would provide business opportunities for those with his kind of experience and started networking with his contacts to seek them out.

[...]

“In 2005,” the Senate report states, “the psychologists formed a company specifically for the purpose of conducting their work with the CIA. Shortly thereafter, the CIA outsourced virtually all aspects of the program.” And while the company’s contract was terminated in 2009 amid a growing national outcry over government-sanctioned torture, by then Mitchell and Jessen’s years-long relationship with the CIA had already proven extremely profitable.

The CIA paid two ex-military psychologists $81 million to help design and run torture the program

Of course, the Psychologist who made so much money from the program has been speaking out, defending the torture program.

Is This Guy Crazy?

Electroshock therapy is being used on chinese teenagers to treat Internet addiction

From a report first seen here

Electroshock therapy is being administered to youngsters at a controversial Internet addiction clinic where patients are "reborn".

More than 3,000 youths have been tricked or forced in to a four-month program run by Dr Yang Yongxin at a clinic in Shandong province. About 100 people are currently receiving treatment at the clinic.

Patients are given electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for breaking any of the center's 86 rules, including eating chocolate, locking the bathroom door, taking pills before a meal and sitting on Yang's chair without permission, the Information Times reported.

Parents or guardians sign a contract acknowledging that the child will be given ECT and pay 6,000 yuan ($878) per month for treatment.

Details about the treatment were revealed online recently when a number of former patients began to write about their experience.

According to the posts, the clinic administers continuous ECT in a current of up to 200 milliamperes.

Meanwhile, patients are forced to admit "wrongdoings" and those of others and are also instructed to kneel down in front of their parents to show obedience.

In addition, patients - known as "members of the alliance" at the clinic - are not permitted to talk about anything other than overcoming their Internet addiction, numerous former patients write.

Most are found to be "cured" - or "reborn" according to Yang - by simply "admitting" that they have overcome their addiction.

Internet addiction is not classified as a mental illness in China, a country with nearly 300 million Internet users, many of whom are adolescents who willingly indulge in endless hours of online games per day.

Depression, fainting, muscle weakness and twitching and anorexia have been listed as typical syndromes of Internet addiction.

The government established the first Internet addiction treatment clinic in Beijing in 2004.

Today, all online game operators are required to install a "fatigue system" for players under 18 years, which is designed to restrict their play time to three hours a day. But analysts say there are too many ways to work around the rules.

Until recently, media reported on Yang's alleged "success". Liu Mingyin, a China Central Television reporter, called Yang "a fighter in the Third Opium War", framing the doctor's combat against Internet obsession as part of an ongoing war against "spiritual opium".

For his part, Yang views his acts as part of "a holy crusade" and says the electric current he applies to his "patients" is mild and "not dangerous".

What the youths receive at the clinic isn't really ECT, but a "refreshment therapy" that cautiously helps Net-addicted children calm down, says a story written in Yang's name and published online.

[...]

Tao Ran, director of the China's first Internet addiction clinic, said that ECT is "the last resort" in treating people with severe depression who are suicidal.

"It'll make patients more submissive, no doubt. But at the same time, ECT will cause memory loss," Tao says, adding that Yang's clinic is "the only Internet addiction clinic in the world that applies ECT to patients".

Tao's own center has treated more than 4,000 Internet-addicted youths. Patients have "comprehensive therapy" that includes medication and psychological counseling.

About 30 percent of Internet addicted youngsters are hyperactive and uncontrollable in a family environment, Tao said.

They need treatment at a professional institution that does not administer ECT, he said.

Zhuo Xiaoqin, a public health expert with the China University of Political Science and Law, said it was wrong to link Internet obsession with mental illness.

"A consistent standard must be in place to determine what Internet addiction really is," he said.

(China Daily June 3, 2009)

US soldier who shot five troops was 'broken' by counsellors

As seen in the Telegraph

Army Sgt. John M. Russell, 44, has been charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Baghdad shootings, which his father said took place about six weeks before the end of his third tour of duty in Iraq.

Wilburn Russell, 73, alleged his son had been treated poorly at the stress centre and had e-mailed his wife calling two recent days the worst in his life.

"I hate what that boy did," said Mr Russell, speaking in front of the two-story suburban home his son is buying with his wife. "He thought it was justified. That's never a solution."

Excerpts of his military record, obtained by The Associated Press, show Sgt. Russell previously did two one-year tours of duty in Iraq, one starting in April 2003 and another beginning November 2005. The stress of repeat and extended tours is considered a main contributor to mental health problems among troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His father said the soldier, an electronics technician, was at the stress centre to transition out of active duty. He said his son was undergoing stressful mental tests that he didn't understand were merely tests, "so they broke him."

"John has forfeited his life. Apparently, he said (to his wife), 'My life is over. To hell with it. I'm going to get even with 'em,"' he said.

"He lived for the military," Mr Russell said. "We're sorry for the families, too. It shouldn't have happened."

The soldier's son, John M. Russell II, said that he has communicated with his father by e-mail regularly. In the last message he received from him, April 25, his father sounded normal and planned to be back in Texas to visit in July.

"He's not a violent person," he said. "He's just a loving, caring guy.

He doesn't like to see anyone get hurt. For this to happen, it had to be something going on that the Army's not telling us about."

Related Articles

• US soldier shoots dead five comrades in Baghdad
• US soldier kills 5 troops in Iraq
• US soldier jailed for 'execution' murders in Iraq
• Iraq withdrawal: background to the war
• US army soldier sentenced to life in prison for murder of Iraqi prisoners
• US Army sergeant convicted of murdering four Iraqi detainees

Waterboarding, Interrogations: The CIA's $1,000 a Day Specialists

As reported on ABC News

As the secrets about the CIA's interrogation techniques continue to come out, there's new information about the frequency and severity of their use, contradicting an 2007 ABC News report, and a new focus on two private contractors who were apparently directing the brutal sessions that President Obama calls torture.

According to current and former government officials, the CIA's secret waterboarding program was designed and assured to be safe by two well-paid psychologists now working out of an unmarked office building in Spokane, Washington.

Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, former military officers, together founded Mitchell Jessen and Associates.

Both men declined to speak to ABC News citing non-disclosure agreements with the CIA. But sources say Jessen and Mitchell together designed and implemented the CIA's interrogation program.

Click here to see Jessen refusing to talk to ABC News.

"It's clear that these psychologists had an important role in developing what became the CIA's torture program," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Click here to see Mitchell refusing to talk to ABC News.

Former U.S. officials say the two men were essentially the architects of the CIA's 10-step interrogation plan that culminated in waterboarding.

Associates say the two made good money doing it, boasting of being paid a $1,000 a day by the CIA to oversee the use of the techniques on top al Qaeda suspects at CIA secret sites.

"The whole intense interrogation concept that we hear about, is essentially their concepts," according to Col. Steven Kleinman, an Air Force interrogator.

Both Mitchell and Jessen were previously involved in the U.S. military program to train pilots how to survive behind enemy lines and resist brutal tactics if captured.

Mitchell and Jessen Lacked Experience in Actual Interrogations

But it turns out neither Mitchell nor Jessen had any experience in conducting actual interrogations before the CIA hired them.

"They went to two individuals who had no interrogation experience," said Col. Kleinman. "They are not interrogators."

The new documents show the CIA later came to learn that the two psychologists' waterboarding "expertise" was probably "misrepresented" and thus, there was no reason to believe it was "medically safe" or effective. The waterboarding used on al Qaeda detainees was far more intense than the brief sessions used on U.S. military personnel in the training classes.

"The use of these tactics tends to increase resistance on the part of the detainee to cooperating with us. So they have the exact opposite effect of what you want," said Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich).

The new memos also show waterboarding was used "with far greater frequency than initially indicated" to even those in the CIA.

Abu Zubaydah was water boarded at least 83 times and Khalid Sheikh Mohamed at least 183 times.

Former CIA Officer John Kiriakou Says Waterboarding is Torture

That contradicts what former CIA officer John Kiriakou, who led the Zubaydah capture team, told ABC News in 2007 when he first revealed publicly that waterboarding had been used.

He said then, based on top secret reports he had access to, that Zubaydah had only been water boarded once and then freely talked.

Kiriakou now says he too was stunned to learn how often Zubaydah was waterboarded, in what Kiriakou says was clearly torture.

"When I spoke to ABC News in December 2007 I was aware of Abu Zubaydah being waterboarded on one occasion," said Kiriakou. "It was after this one occasion that he revealed information related to a planned terrorist attack. As I said in the original interview, my information was second-hand. I never participated in the use of enhanced techniques on Abu Zubaydah or on any other prisoner, nor did I witness the use of such techniques."

A federal judge in New York is currently considering whether or not to make public the written logs of the interrogation sessions.

The tapes were destroyed by the CIA, but the written logs still exist, although the CIA is fighting their release.

A CIA spokesperson declined to comment for this report, except to note that the agency's terrorist interrogation program was guided by legal opinions from the Department of Justice.

The Committee for Truth in Psychiatry

The Committee for Truth in Psychiatry, or CTIP, is a national organization of over 500 former electric shock patients. They are an important organization in the context of Human Rights. here is a snippet from their front page:

None of us was truthfully informed about the nature or consequences of this treatment before consenting to it, and we have pooled our experience-gained knowledge to provide truthful information about it for future psychiatric patients.

Over the years, many individual recipients of "electroconvulsive therapy" (ECT) (shock treatment) have related their personal experiences, verbally or in writing, emphasizing whatever aspects were most important in each one's special circumstances. What the CTIP has done as a group is to highlight and emphasize the common demoninators in the shock experience. Accordingly, though our members differ widely in the details of their own stories, including how they got into ECT and how much good or (more often) harm it did them, we can agree on the most certain effects of ECT and that future patients should be informed of them before they give their consent to it.

Following are the most important points we make:

• If a person is in a state of physical suffering of nervous origin, ECT will almost certainly relieve it temporarily. ECT relaxes the nervous system and the relaxing effect lasts from a couple of days to a couple of months. Sometimes people stay well after the relaxing effect has worn off, but, typically, they quickly relapse.
  
  
• Regardless of any beneficial effect, there is always a permanently deleterious effect on memory. This consists of erasure of a good deal of pre-shock memory and dimming of more, and it frequently includes also a permanent reduction in retentiveness for post-shock experience and learning.
  
  
• These two effects in combination---the temporary feeling of well-being and the permanent harm to memory---imply that ECT "works" by damaging the brain. These are the classic symptoms of acute brain injury by any means---strokes, asphyxiation, concussion, carbon monoxide poisoning, etc. In all these events, the patient feels very well for a while but can't remember. If further evidence were needed of the principle at work in ECT's beneficial effect, it could be noted that the memory loss from ECT has always the distinctive pattern of brain damage forgetting (recent memories hardest hit) and that ECT is sometimes followed by other brain damage phenomena (examples common among our members are impairment of sense of direction and a touch of aphasia, or difficulty saying the words you meant to say).

As a vehicle for communicating these few salient points about ECT to future patients, we have incorporated them (along with other information) in a model informed consent statement which we should like to see sponsored by the FDA or some governmental body. All CTIP members have endorsed the statement.

They also note that:

ECT is one of a number of drastic psychiatric treaments, including insulin coma and psychosurgery, that relieve suffering temporarily. All of them "work" by destroying brain tissue. That is their common denominator. In ECT both the electrical shocks and the grand mal seizures are destructive. For some still unknown reason, reducing the size of the brain not only reduces the amount of stored memory but also counteracts states of physical pain and any kind of emotion.

Psychiatrist sets man free days before he tortures, rapes, and kills his daughter

We presuppose that there is a public safety function for detaining people who are disturbed. We also have noted many times that ineffective and/or harmful treatments, especially due to the marketing of modern snake oil, contributes to the problem. We now have a report where we are moved to ask again, do these folks even know what they are doing? A report from the Courier Mail in Australia

A man was cleared by a psychiatrist to leave a Brisbane hospital's mental health unit just nine days before he allegedly raped and murdered his 10-year-old daughter.

But Queensland Health did not report the man – who had spent two weeks as an involuntary patient in the hospital's mental health unit – to the Department of Child Safety. This was despite him having sole custody of his four children aged between six and 10.

The family was known to Child Safety after complaints in previous years from neighbours as well as by a teenage child in the family.

The man, 39, sat expressionless in the dock of the Brisbane Magistrate's Court yesterday when he appeared on charges of rape, murder and indecent treatment.

It is believed the Bardon man – who cannot be named for legal reasons – lost his job as a funeral director several weeks ago and had since been unemployed.

The gruesome rape and murder – during which the girl was bound and her head roughly shaved – allegedly took place in a bedroom of the family's rented holiday home on Bribie Island on New Year's Eve.

Defence lawyer Neil Lawler told the court his client had been subject to an involuntary treatment order but did not currently need to be transferred to a mental health facility.

The Courier-Mail has learned the man was admitted to the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital as an involuntary patient on December 8 after police picked him up at Brookside Shopping Centre during a "manic" episode. He had tried to charge $17,000 on a credit card with a much lower limit, and had to be subdued by capsicum spray after becoming aggressive.

An officer was injured during the incident, receiving bruising to his back and to his neck.

Until this incident, the man had been unknown to mental-health authorities.

A psychiatrist at RBWH assessed the man as fit for discharge on December 22.

His family had reported him as being "back to normal" during two days' leave as part of his treatment and he had returned to the hospital for further observation before being released.

The release of all patients subject to involuntary treatment orders is assessed by the Mental Health Review Tribunal. It was unclear last night whether the man's case had come before the tribunal.

He had previously suffered throat cancer, a condition which – in some cases – can be linked to manic episodes.

The man was released on medication, including an anti-psychotic drug known as Risperidone, but it was unknown whether he continued to take the drug after discharge.

Child Safety last night insisted it was unaware of the man's mental health problems. But doctors said they were under no obligation and had no reason to report the man to Child Safety authorities.

A Child Safety spokesperson said the family was known to authorities as a result of "low-level concerns which did not meet the threshold for an official notification".

It is understood that two of the complaints about the father came from an older child in the family.

The Courier-Mail was told that a small group of neighbours had met two years ago to discuss concerns about the level of verbal abuse that the children allegedly suffered from their father.

A neighbour said Child Safety was contacted and departmental officers had visited the house. The department last night did not answer questions put to it about the neighbours' alleged concerns.

The department's handling of the case will be reviewed and an independent child death review will be conducted.

The review will then be scrutinised by the Child Death Case Review Committee, chaired by the Commissioner for Children and Young People, Elizabeth Fraser.

But acting Opposition Leader Mark McArdle said: "I'm not satisfied with an internal investigation.

"There is now an overwhelming case for a full investigation into the department and for any inquiry to be held."

Outside the court yesterday, Mr Lawler said the man had been assessed by a mental-health worker after the murder but further investigation would be needed into his mental state.

Magistrate Chris Callaghan adjourned the case for another mention on March 10 when the accused man will not have to appear.

He was remanded in custody and must apply to the Supreme Court if he wants bail.

The man will be housed at the Arthur Gorrie Remand and Reception Centre in the meantime, where he will be psychiatrically assessed and treated.

"It's a near certainty that (this case) will proceed to the Mental Health Court and that it will take some significant time for that to be arranged," Mr Lawler said.

It is understood the man was divorced from the dead girl's mother – who still lives in Brisbane – and that he has cared for their children for several years.

The mother is believed to have a serious criminal history.

The three surviving children – boys aged seven and nine and a girl aged six – are in the care of their grandparents.

Child victim 'sweet and lovely'

A 10-year-old girl allegedly murdered by her father was "a sweet and lovely child" and a "peacemaker", according to her school deputy principal.

"She was really loved by all the teachers and students," the teacher said. "She was a real peacemaker on the playground. If anyone was having problems she would run to us because she didn't like any disruption.

"She loved coming to school and was always punctual, always happy to be there. She will be very sadly missed."

The girl, who cannot be identified in Queensland, was yesterday mourned by neighbours in the inner-city suburb of Bardon.

One neighbour said she had often seen the children playing together at the front of the house they had lived in for three years, and described her as "full of life".

"She was a happy little thing always jumping and skipping – she was just lovely," the neighbour said.

"The children were beautiful young children, they always played happily together and they were a lovely lot of kids.

"It came as a big blow to all of us – we never thought it would come to anything like this."

A mother at the primary school the girl attended said she was a kind child whose face would always light up when she was spoken to.

Another neighbour said that she and two other people from the street had become concerned about the children and contacted the Department of Child Safety.

"The kids were little when they first came here, but we didn't get to know them," she said. "We did finally between us notify Family Services because we were concerned."

An Education Queensland spokesman said their thoughts were with the family.

The Psychologists and Gitmo

Recently a major 2003 Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures [SOP] manual was posted on the wikileaks web site. Ignored by most major sources for a week, Reuters, has picked up on the leak Thursday (Nov 15) and the New York Times on Friday (Nov 16). This has lead to among other things an interesting article in Harper's Weekly attacking the APA:

Of all the major professional organizations addressing the torture and prisoner abuse issue, one has an unbroken record of clear ethical evasion. It has adopted a new professional mantra, it seems: hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Just a few days ago Major General Geoffrey Miller’s operations manual for Guantánamo was posted on the internet. It got a lot of attention because it contained provisions making clear that certain detainees were not to be identified to or permitted access to the Red Cross. That was, of course, a criminal act. And why was the Red Cross being kept away? The circumstances make the answer to that question readily apparent: they were being tortured, and the Bush Administration was extremely eager to conceal that fact as long as it could.

But this manual contains a number of less dramatic, but still extremely important disclosures. And among them is the use of isolation and sensory deprivation techniques as a means of “preparing” detainees. It’s been clear for some time that the CIA favors this over the truly “rough stuff.” And legal scholars and ethicists have also been clear that these practices may also constitute torture over sustained periods, and certainly constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

Now psychologist Dr. Stephen Soldz has taken a close look at the manual, and applied it retroactively to the debate inside of the American Psychological Association. And it provides further information suggesting that the organization’s leadership, which is filled with individuals with unmistakable financial and business ties to the U.S. Government, has misled the membership in an effort to protect the Bush Administration and its torture practices.

[extensive quote from Dr. Steven Soldz, link to original article here]

And how did all of this play within the APA? As Soldz notes, it is now apparent that from the outset of the debate the APA leadership pursued a strategy of protecting the actual techniques of abuse which were being used in Guantánamo. And we have specific reason to believe that some in the APA leadership had actual knowledge of those techniques.

The leadership pursued its plan by involving a key military officer who was probably an author of these processes as its voice in presenting the matter.

[...]

This information has erased any doubt as to the role played by the APA throughout this process. The APA alone among all professional organizations dealing with the issue has provided cover to the Bush Administration’s program of torture and official cruelty. It is an abettor of the procedures adopted and used, not a professional organization exercising detached and objective ethical oversight of its members. It has brought the reputation of psychologists in America down several pegs. And it has a lot of explaining to do–both to its members, and to the public as a whole.

Also of interest in this extensive and detailed article regarding the impact this is having on the APA (Page 1, Page 2.) entitled "APA On the Road to Damascus?". It seems that the APA is struggling with the practical application of the concepts of ethics and Human Rights vs the short term profits in their political ties.

Top 10 most bizarre medical experiments

From a longer article in the Guardian, includes some psychiatric classics

Top 10 most bizarre experiments

Elephant receives massive dose of LSD to see if it induces temporary madness.
Conclusion: LSD is fatal to elephants

Aircraft passengers told they are about to die in crash make more mistakes in written test.
Conclusion: Extreme stress harms cognitive ability

Two-headed dogs created by Soviet surgeon, above, but die within a month.
Conclusion: Tissue rejection makes animals incompatible

Psychologist begins experiments on son to test if laughing is spontaneous when tickled.
Conclusion: Laughing is an innate response to tickling

A room of nail-biting boys is played a recording or spoken announcements to break the habit while they sleep.
Conclusion: Sleep learning is possible. Others prove otherwise

To test if people can sleep through anything, volunteers have their eyes taped open and bright lights shone in their eyes.
Conclusion: The men dozed off in 12 minutes

People asked to smell ammonia, put hands in a bucket of frogs and watch porn.
Conclusion: Disgust has no single expression.

Doctor rubs vomit from yellow fever patients into open wounds and drinks it.
Conclusion: Mistakenly claims it is not infectious

Animal corpses placed on seesaw to restart circulation and bring them back to life.
Conclusion: Two animals survive with blindness and brain damage

Fake female turkey dismantled limb by limb to find minimum that a male will mate with.
Conclusion: Male turkeys aroused by a head on a stick, but not a headless body

Frankenstein's Children: Modern Torture's Scientific Bible

Of course our interest is in the criminality and lack of morality displayed by these experts on the mind when working for a government (not just the US government)

A frightening and detailed review of a book that is best described by this quote:

What if there was a book that dispassionately looked at the history and methodology of torture? What if this book looked at human physiology and psychology and tried to scientifically establish how to best break another human being and bend him or her to your will? What if this book were written by top behavioral scientists and published in the United States? And, finally, what if the studies published in this book were financed by the U.S. government?

Look no farther, there is, or rather was, such a book. Published in 1961 by John Wiley & Sons, The Manipulation of Human Behavior was edited by psychologists Albert D. Biderman and Herbert Zimmer. This book, unfortunately, cannot be found online, nor was a second edition or printing ever made (not surprisingly). But I will provide a review here, and an introduction into the nightmare world of science, torture, and politics that helped shape our modern world and today's news.

In recent months, it went on-line and and can be viewed at Internet Archive:

The Manipulation of Human Behavior - The text is copyright 1961, but not renewed (and therefore expired in the US). HTML formatting from unknown source.

We include this summary of the text:

The titles of the book's essays are bone-chilling in their scientific bland exactitude. Here they are, with authors, for the record:

1. The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects Brain Function, by Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr., Assoc. Professor of Clinical Medicine in Psychiatry, New York Hospital

[I have come to see over the past months of research that this essay by Hinkle is often referenced, and is key in understanding later methods of psychological and modern torture.]

2. The Effects of Reduced Environmental Stimulation on Human Behavior: A Review, by Phillip E. Kubazansky, Chief Psychologist, Boston City Hospital

3. The Use of Drugs in Interrogation, by Louis A. Gottschalk, Assoc. Professor of Psychiatry and Research Coordinator, Cincinnati General Hospital

And because you probably can't wait, and to juice up this account, I'll admit, yes, this is the chapter that goes into LSD, mescaline use and all that. Gottschalk found enough data in the research literature to find that LSD-25 might have "possible applications... to interrogation techniques".

The conclusions reached on mescaline hold equally for the possible applications of this drug to interrogation. As a tool in the advancement of knowledge of psychopharmacology, LSD-25 is a drug on which clinical and experimental research is likely to continue. (pp. 123-124)

Likely to continue..." An ironic understatement?

4. Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information, by R. C. Davis, Professor of Psychology, Indiana University

5. The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation, by Martin T. Orne, Teaching Fellow, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard University Medical School

An aside: Some of you may recognize Martin Orne as the psychiatrist of the famous poet Anne Sexton, who in the early 1990s released the tapes of her psychotherapy sessions with him to a biographer, precipitating a storm of controversy.

6. The Experimental Investigation of Interpersonal Influence, by Robert R. Blake and Jane S. Mouton, Professor of Psychology, University of Texas, and Social Science Research Associate, University of Texas, respectively

7. Countermanipulation Through Malingering, by Malcolm L. Meltzer, Staff Psychologist, District of Columbia General Hospital

Six of the essay contributors were psychologists; two were psychiatrists.

Doctor Returns Award to the American Psychological Association-- Because it Sanctions Torture

Via the Intelligence Daily a doctor voices her concerns.

I am writing to inform you that I am returning my Presidential Citation dated 2/02/06 and awarded to me by then President of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Gerald Koocher. I have struggled for many months with this decision, and I make it with pain and sorrow. I was honored to receive this award and proud to be a member of APA. Over the years I have spoken at national conventions many times and had enjoyed an excellent relationship with the APA and its staff. With this letter, I feel as if I am ostracizing a good friend.

I do not want an award from an organization that sanctions its members' participation in the enhanced interrogations at CIA Black Sites and at Guantanamo. The presence of psychologists has both educated the interrogation teams in more skillful methods of breaking people down and legitimized the process of torture in defiance of the Geneva Conventions.

The behavior of psychologists on these enhanced interrogation teams violates our own Code of Ethics (2002) in which we pledge to respect the dignity and worth of all people, with special responsibility towards the most vulnerable. I consider prisoners in secret CIA-run facilities with no right of habeas corpus or access to attorneys, family or media to be highly vulnerable. I also believe that when any of us are degraded, all of human life is degraded. This letter is as much about us as it is about prisoners.

In our Ethics Code we agree to promote honesty and accuracy. Our involvement in these projects has been secretive and dishonest. Finally, as psychologists we vow to do no harm. Without question, we violate this oath when we allow people in our care to be deprived of sleep or subjected to sensory over-stimulation or deprivation.

I cannot accept the August 19, 2007 Reaffirmation of APA's Position Against Torture (Substitute Motion Three.) Under this motion, psychologists will be allowed to continue working on interrogation teams that are not subject to the Geneva Conventions. This motion places our organization on the side of the CIA and Department of Defense and at odds with the United Nations, The Red Cross, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. With this reaffirmation we have made a terrible mistake.

I know that the return of my Presidential Citation from Dr. Koocher will be of small import, but it is what I can do to disassociate myself from what I consider to be a heinous policy. All of my life I have tried my best to stand up for those with no voices and no power. The prisoners our government labels as enemy combatants are in this category.

I return my citation as a matter of conscience and in the hopes that the APA will reconsider its current unethical position. We have long been a wonderful organization that respected human rights and promoted tolerance, kindness, and peace. Nothing is more fundamental to our core orientation and professional service to others than our commitment to all people's inherent dignity, safety and welfare. I hope my letter may be useful in restoring the APA to its long-respected and important stance as a beacon of integrity and kindness for all human beings.

Respectfully,

Dr. Mary Pipher

Backlash Grows on Psychologist Torture Resolution

from the Daily Kos, with lots of extended quotes from the relevant links

My thanks to the ever-energetic Stephen Soldz (whose blog "Science, Psyche, and Society" is must reading) for bringing attention to some major fallout over the American Psychological Association's scandalous so-called anti-torture resolution. This resolution formally condemned torture and cruel, unusual, inhumane and degrading forms of behavior inflicted on detainees in Bush's phony "war on terror". But its fine print gave the stamp of approval to certain forms of torture, including sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, isolation, and even the use of psychotropic drugs on prisoners if not used for the immediate purpose of eliciting information. And the APA put its stamp of approval on psychologists working in settings where basic human rights, like habeas corpus, are not respected.

Soldz has written to colleagues to publicize the editorial in the Houston Chronicle yesterday, "Human wrongs: Psychologists have no place assisting interrogations at places such as Guantanamo Bay"

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In addition to newspaper condemnations of APA's pathetic resolution, prominent psychologists are responding as well. Well-known psychologist and author Mary Pipher, of Reviving Ophelia fame, has taken up the cause. She has chosen to return an APA Presidential Citation she received in 2006 from then-APA president Gerald Koocher. Koocher has been a big supporter of the current APA position on allowing psychologists to work in Bush's coercive and inhumane detention camps.

Dr. Matt Israel of the Rotenberg Center and his Electric Shock Program for Kids

Food deprivation. Isolation. Electric shocks. Inside the taxpayer-funded program that treats American kids like enemy combatants. The main feature in Mother Jones this week is an expose about Dr. Matt Israel of the Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts and his Electric Shock Program for Kids, running under the title of School of Shock They ask the question: Eight states are sending autistic, mentally retarded, and emotionally troubled kids to a facility that punishes them with painful electric shocks. How many times do you have to zap a child before it's torture?

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

Their sidebar articles include:

• Nagging? Zap. Swearing? Zap: New York's Investigations of the Rotenberg Center
  
• Why Can't Massachusetts Shut Matthew Israel Down?
  
• The Cult That Spawned the Tough-Love Teen Industry
  
• Experts on Self-Injurious Kids Challenge Dr. Israel's Methods
  
• What Works for Troubled Teens?
  
  
• Photo Essay on the Rotenberg Center
  
• Primary Sources

The main articles are too long to even begin to quote in full here, we will probably be featuring the sidebars over the next few days.

The most effective treatments used by the psych industry for troubled teenagers have these things in common: They use family-based therapies; they treat adolescents with empathy, dignity, and respect; and, except for very short periods of emergency stabilization, they keep teens at home. Things that should be common sense to begin with.

Psychologists are the last of the medical professionals willing to support the interrogation of "high-value" detainees

In a rebuke of President Bush, the American Psychological Association has resolved to condemn brutal CIA and military interrogations. Psychologists are the last of the medical professionals willing to support the interrogation of "high-value" detainees, and so this is a definite change in course. But it might not be so simple as issuing an official statement. As seen in this Salon News Article:

The American Psychological Association, the world's largest professional organization of psychologists, is poised to issue a formal condemnation of a raft of notorious interrogation tactics employed by U.S. authorities against detainees during the so-called war on terror, from simulated drowning to sensory deprivation. The move is expected during the APA's annual convention in San Francisco this weekend.

The APA's anti-torture resolution follows a string of revelations in recent months of the key role played by psychologists in the development of brutal interrogation regimes for the CIA and the military. And it comes just weeks after news that the White House may be calling on psychologists once again: On July 20, President Bush signed an executive order restarting a coercive CIA interrogation program at the agency's "black sites." Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has indicated that psychological techniques will be part of the revamped program, but that the interrogations would be subject to careful medical oversight. That oversight is likely to be performed by psychologists.

In fact, given what promises to be the continuing involvement of psychologists in coercive interrogation, there is intense infighting within the organization about whether simply condemning abusive tactics is enough. Some of the APA's 148,000 members think the anti-torture resolution put forward by APA leadership is too weak, and they are putting intense pressure on the organization's leadership to go a step further and ban psychologists from participating in detainee interrogations altogether. They have introduced their own resolution proposing a moratorium. "I and others think that a moratorium is essential to try to tell the government that psychologists are not going to participate in the interrogation of enemy combatants," said Bernice Lott, a member of the Council of Representatives, the APA's policy-making body. Others oppose the moratorium because they think psychologists must be involved in the interrogations to prevent abuse -- and because the government may just choose to use non-APA members for its interrogations, as has already happened.

Whether or not the APA imposes a moratorium at this weekend's convention, its Council of Representatives is likely to approve the resolution condemning specific interrogation techniques. A draft of the resolution obtained by Salon includes "an absolute prohibition" on psychologists directly or indirectly participating in interrogations that involve a list of coercive measures, including, but not limited to, mock executions; water-boarding; sensory deprivation; "hooding"; forced nudity; sexual humiliation; rape; cultural or religious humiliation; exploitation of phobias or psychopathology; stress positions; dogs; physical assault; slapping and shaking; exposure to extreme heat or cold; induced hypothermia; psychotropic drugs or mind-altering substances; isolation and sleep deprivation; threats of harm or death, or threats to members of an individual's family.

And even without a moratorium, adopting a resolution condemning specific interrogation techniques -- including some allegedly used by the CIA -- could be interpreted as a rebuke of the agency and the White House. Stephen Soldz, a faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, supports a moratorium. But he said the new condemnation of specific harsh tactics would in itself be "an advance because it would be a blow to the CIA." (The military last September disavowed the tactics and embraced a new interrogation field manual that expressly prohibits the coercive methods, but the CIA, under Bush's new executive order, seems to be going ahead full steam.)

But how much of a rebuke it would be is debatable. "It is somewhat of a rebuke, because it does name some interrogation techniques that have been used or advocated by the White House and the CIA," said Neil Altman, a former member of the APA's council. "But it still allows psychologists to continue to be part of a process which overall is cruel, inhuman and degrading," he added. "There is no due process. It is indefinite detention without being charged. The entire setting is cruel, inhuman and degrading."

[...]

But it is unclear whether an APA resolution will have any effect on real-world interrogations conducted by the CIA. Salon reported in June that two CIA-employed psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were in the cross hairs of Senate investigators looking into the genesis of the brutal, and very similar, post 9/11 interrogation regimes developed by the CIA and the military.

Mitchell and Jessen are part of a cabal of psychologists associated with the military's secretive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program. The program trains soldiers to resist torture if captured by exposing them to brutal techniques employed by Cold War adversaries who would violate the Geneva Conventions to provoke confessions: water-boarding; forced nudity; stress positions; lengthy isolation; sleep deprivation; sexual humiliation. The plan was to reverse-engineer those techniques for use on real detainees.

The military employed the same game plan at the same time, suggesting high-level government coordination. A previously classified Department of Defense inspector general report released in May detailed efforts in 2002 by the Army Special Operations Command's Psychological Directorate to reverse-engineer SERE training for use at Guantánamo, including a September 2002 "SERE psychologist conference" at Fort Bragg to brief staff from Guantánamo on the use of SERE tactics.

But Mitchell and Jessen, the psychologists who helped the agency, are not APA members. So a resolution might not matter much to men like them.

[...]

Psychiatrists as Film Critics call 'Hostel II' painfully compelling

From the Boston Globe. Where in a collection of psychiatrists are not terribly disturbed by what could be called the cutting edge in 'torture porn' a slasher flick called 'Hostel: Pasrt II' First the introduction:

On a recent afternoon, five shrinks sat inside a movie theater and watched as a naked lady, hanging upside down over a bathtub, was tortured to death by another nude woman using a scythe.

This was not some twisted version of a Harvard Med School retreat. It was a screening of "Hostel: Part II," the latest slasher flick by Newton native Eli Roth.

Sheldon Roth, the filmmaker's father and a professor of psychiatry at the medical school, organized the outing at the Globe's request. He recruited four others -- two men and two women -- to analyze the film by his son, a writer/director considered to be at the forefront of a genre not so kindly referred to as "torture porn."

"This is one of the most misogynistic films ever made," a New York Times reviewer wrote of the original "Hostel" last year.

None of this worried Sheldon Roth. [Psychiatrist father of the film director]

While we expect that professionals in the field on the human mind to be capable of handling some pretty grim stuff, this does not mean we would expect them to take pleasure in the perverse. But we forgot, these are psychiatrists.

There wasn't much chatter in the theater. The shrinks sat quietly, watching the action as the lead characters, three college-age women taking a tour of Slovakia, were stalked, captured, and eventually offered up to the violent deviants paying to live out their fantasies in a grimy factory building.

Kennedy took a certain amount of pride in not turning away from the screen.

"I had heard about the first 'Hostel' and my kids had said, 'Mom, you're never going to be able to get through this,' " she said.

Fabricant admitted she had to close her eyes during a scene in which a young child was killed. She also found the scythe tough to take. She was asked about another scene, in which a man is castrated by one of the college girls with an pair of scissors.

"I watched that," she said, and the others laughed.

As film critics, they were far more forgiving than the national press. The doctors -- Roth's father was excluded from the vote -- gave the young filmmaker two 3-star rankings, a 3 1/2, and a 4. Gutheil said he was very impressed by Roth's use of insider film references, which included casting Ruggero Deodato, the director of the controversial 1980 film "Cannibal Holocaust," as a cannibal.

[...]

[One psychiatrist] said that while he would encourage fans of horror films to see "Hostel: Part II," he would not recommend it be shown in prisons. Serial killers would also not be a good target audience.

"By fusing the erotic and violent, there are ways you create fantasies that become a playground for serial killers," he said.

The therapists said they did find Roth's characters compelling, particularly Stuart, the haplessly beaten-down family man who directs his anger at a stranger meant to look like the wife he hates and can't confront.

"Displacement," said Hoffer.

"It's subtle," Gutheil joked, "but it's there."

Does Eli Roth have a problem with women? None of the shrinks thought so.

Sheldon, his father, wrapped up the debate, noting that relationships are always complicated.

"I can say I've been married over 40 years," he said, " and I have a lot of learning to do."

Somehow I cannot help but think that such a creative exercise of cruelty would be disturbing to most normal rational folks. There is also traditional folklore that the children of mental health professional, such as psychiatrists, are often the weirdest and craziest kids on the block. [Note that the film maker is a psychiatrist's son]

Thus I find it worrisome that these professionals were so tolerant or admiring of a film of this genre, in a time when we all could wish for a less violent world.