As a student member of APA, I wasn't aware about this ethical controversy (guess I'm not well informed). So thanks to salon.com for putting this story together! It'll be interesting to see what goes down at the conference next month....

As a member of the American Psychological Association for nearly three decades, I am deeply ashamed that my association officially supports psychologists engaging in torture. Of course, those responsible for this policy will contort language and truth in an effort to label it something else - "consultation" on "interrogation," though chillingly clinical, sounds like a neutral activity. But when these "consultations" involve advising the military on things such as the best means to make use of a person's fears and vulnerabilities, on the use of methods such as sleep deprivation and the sexual assault of prisoners to break them down, there is no more honest word than "torture" to describe what they are engaged in. Essentially, the APA is endorsing its members committing war crimes.

Just consider for a moment how you would feel if you were being interrogated by the Gestapo, and you knew that behind the two-way mirror there were Nazi psychologists scrutinizing your every move and gesture and advising the interrogators how to more effectively break you down. Would you see them as somehow benign or neutral figures, just "advisors," as though they'd dropped by to help the Gestapo keep the plumbing working? Or would you know in your heart that those psychologists were as guilty of the crimes being committed against you as the men wielding the truncheons?

I will not be able to continue my membership in the APA unless its policy in support of torture is changed immediately. I know that many of my colleagues must feel the same.

Zimbardo is absolutely right. The APA president should be removed and a policy instituted to suspend the licenses of those who lend themselves to the torture machine. It's akin to the doctors who participate in executions; a patent violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

Alas, this only hints of the depth of professional entanglement with the aims of the current government. Academic psychologists live and die on their grant support. Recent changes in regulations and funding levels have badly squeezed their traditional sources -- the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). For serious grant money, they must now increasingly turn to, of all places, the Department of Homeland Security. Expect interesting results.

For once again breaking a story the mainstream media ignors. A psychologist can have his/her license revoked for giving bad advice to a neighbor but it's fine to help the national security state with its war crimes. Another example of how the terrorists have already won.

This is a very sad topic indeed. It's nice to know at least that something like ten or fifteen years from now this issue might be resolved in a court case somewhere. I feel sorry for the thousands of people in detention right now who are being subjected to torture at this very moment and for whom nothing at all can be done. In fact it is infuriating for me to read this article. It is infuriating because I doubt there is anything at all anybody can do to stop it. "They" know how to break a person down and they do it to innocent people who they believe are guilty. But even to say "break a person down" doesn't scratch the surface of the issue. "They" know how to destroy your sense of self, by putting you into excruciating stress positions or blaring loud music at you while you lie naked and freezing in an ice cold room or locking you in the dark for days on end or sexually humilating you or simulating drowning, in such a way that you lose all ability to resist the suggestions of the government interrogators. My question, the question I think absolutely must be asked, is what happens to the people who have been subjected to psychological torture after they are released from detention? Are they ever released? Suppose you have been tortured to the point of suffering a psychotic break but that you haven't really done anything at all to merit such treatment? Who could you turn to afterwards? Does the U.S. government then take responsibility for your mental health care afterwards? Does the U.S. government do anything to help these people it has tortured after it has satisfied it's torturous goals? Not at all. For one thing, nobody even knows who is being held by the government or who is being subjected to these techniques right now or even where they are being held. It's all classified, hence illegal to talk about publicly. I suspect that once the US military is finished torturing you they pretty much just dump you out onto the street to fend for yourself alone: broken, ruined and probably unable to even explain what exactly happened because it is all too humiliating. I doubt many of the victims of this kind of torture are receiving follow-up care or medication. And here's the saddest thing of all: the government can arrest and then torture anybody they want to torture because such torture does not really rise to the level of legal torture at all according to the Geneva Convention because the people who are being tortured are not soldiers in a recognized army. It's evil. It's horrifying. And apparently, it's all very patriotic. Semper Fi.

Only the "One Eyed Bandit" of FOX tv knows what to tell; to "Stay the course". My dearest friend Patricia was a wealth of Wisdom and departed this Planet on a Sunday, her 36th Anniversary as a noted Speaker for AA.

Of George Walker Bush, Pat said "He's on a 'Dry Drunk', long before seeing him in a Crawford, Texas Pick 'um Up, tipping a brew. Psycylops?

My deaest Patricia told me: ".never look a gift Horse in the mouth", and her generosity was a given. She must have been noting that as a reference to what George Walker Bush considered "My Base", but he had merely stolen the Governors' Mansion in Texas at that time.

By God's Grace, Patricia left before the other "Appointment" and today gives Thanks for her place in Heaven.

In Respect to Evangilists and in particular to Billie Graham, the Pulpit from which he speaks knows of the "TWELVE STEPS"; however, in his Blessings, the Reverend has no inclination of the "DRY DRUNK" running amuck.

Personally, having left College for almost eighteen years, before returning; that last Semester of Thirteen Psychology Credit Hours, sent me off to explore the 'Real World'.

I did see Guantanamo at the Northern horizon from Port au Pait, Haiti. Then and there the other Dictator Jean Claude sat. It seems that George Walker Bush wants what "President for Life", Jean Claude Duvalier and President Sadaam Hussaine had.

By the overthrow of President Aristide, from a FREELY ELECTED Haitian population, and the neverending battle to acquesce possession of the Nation of Iraq, by first elimination of both Heirs to the Iraqi Throne, perhaps George can acquire his Kingdom in the name of Freedom, Liberty and Democracy.

To give this Nation and the entire World a Break, further examination needs to be done that the Stretcher Bearers do not carry us all to HELL.