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The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry joins with other national and international organizations in calling on the American Psychological Association (APA) to respond directly and transparently to the claims in James Risen’s new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. We also call for an independent investigation into these allegations. Using primary sources, Risen has documented that the APA colluded with the CIA and White House officials to craft policy that stacked the deck to allow psychologists’ participation in the torture of enemy combatants by the U.S. Government, euphemistically known as “enhanced interrogations”.

ISEPP is aware of APA’s response to Risen’s book; however, that response does not directly address his claims and instead misdirects attention away from these serious allegations. The APA states, “...the association has taken numerous steps in the last decade to reiterate our strict prohibition against torture, ensure that all psychologists and federal officials were aware of the policy, and address any misconceptions about our position.” Still, the APA has yet to hold accountable any psychologists who were involved in torture, the most recent example is their refusal to investigate Dr. John Leso for his clear participation in these unethical behaviors. It is also unknown whether anything of substance has changed regarding psychologists who are currently providing support to these torturous interrogations.

The APA is the only remaining professional association of its kind that has not yet prohibited its members from having any role in the intelligence-gathering interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other black sites. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, have long since issued such a prohibition, while the APA continues to fight hard in retaining its long-standing historical ties with the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. intelligence agencies.

We urge all who are similarly concerned about maintaining an ethical psychology profession to join us in calling on the APA to transparently respond to Risen’s book, and to demand an independent investigation. Continued obfuscation by the APA will erode the profession of psychology, and continue to damage APA’s standing as the premier national organization for psychologists.

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry joins with Psychologists for Social Responsibility and the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology in denouncing the American Psychological Association’s recent refusal to take disciplinary action against military psychologist Dr. John Leso for his involvement in torturous interrogations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This is yet another in a line of failures by the APA to enforce the most basic ethical standards as outlined in their Ethical Principals of Psychologists and Code of Conduct and the long-standing APA stated policy against torture, effectively hollowing out their public statements that any APA member so involved will be held accountable. APA’s actions in this case weaken psychology’s reputation as a humane endeavor independent of governmental influence, and place in question APA’s standing as a legitimate national organization for psychology.

The extant evidence cannot be clearer. Documentation¹ confirms that Dr. Leso participated in the development, planning, and execution of coercive interrogation techniques on Mohammed al Qahtani during Dr. Leso’s tenure with the Behavioral Science Consultation Team in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, between June 2002 and January 2003. By all authoritative standards at the time of his actions, the interrogation techniques were considered torture and a violation of the APA Ethics Code. Even the U.S. convening authority on military commissions during the presidency of George W. Bush concluded Qahtani was tortured, which contaminated any evidence, and thus she declined to pursue prosecution for his alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

We urge the APA to reconsider their decision, to open a transparent and substantive investigation into this allegation, and to fulfill its promise to enforce the prohibition against psychologists engaging in torture. To do otherwise will set a very dangerous precedent.

¹ Refer to the February 10, 2014 statement by the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology for a detailed description of the evidence.

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) strongly supports the Position Statement on the Classification of Behaviour and Experience in Relation to Functional Psychiatric Diagnoses that was recently issued by the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) of the British Psychological Society (BPS).

We especially endorse the following elements of the Statement in which the DCP expresses:

A need for a paradigm shift in relation to the experiences (classified as diagnoses by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM] and the International Classification of Diseases: Classification of Mental and Behavioral Disorders [ICD]) towards a conceptual system not based on a disease model;

Concern over the limited reliability and questionable validity of the psychiatric diagnoses in the DSM and ICD;

Concern about the increasing medicalization of distress and behavior in both adults and children;

A call for an approach that fully acknowledges the growing amount of evidence for psychosocial causal factors, does not assign an unevidenced role for biology as a primary cause and that is transparent about the very limited support for the disease model in such conditions;

Recognition that psychiatric diagnosis obscures the link between people’s experiences, distress and behavior and social, cultural, familial and personal historical contexts;

Recognition that diagnosis can lead to an over-reliance on medication while underplaying the impact of (medication’s) physical and psychological effects;

A call for an approach that is multifactorial, contextualizes distress and behavior and acknowledges the complexity of the interaction involved in all human experience.

ISEPP applauds the British Psychological Society for sounding the alarm on the harm that is done by the classification system that is represented by the DSM and ICD and urges the American Psychological Association to take a stand, one way or the other, on that system.

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) today congratulated Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. Congress on passage of the Mental Health ACCESS Act. The Act was adopted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 that was recently passed by the Congress and signed by President Obama. Senator Murray introduced the Act in the summer of 2012.

The Act is designed to improve mental health treatment of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan by:

Providing enhanced oversight for Department of Defense (DOD) suicide prevention and resilience efforts;

Expanding services for the families of soldiers;

Improving the training and education of providers;

Increasing peer-to-peer counseling opportunities; and

Improving timely access to effective mental health services.

Reviewing existing research to determine safe and effective treatment of veterans and military members.

ISEPP has mounted an initiative called Operation Speak Up to work with the DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on improving the treatment of soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by stopping the use of psychotropic drugs as the primary modality of treatment and using non-drug approaches that have been proven to be safe and effective.

“Passage of this Act is a big step in the direction of improving the treatment of soldiers who are experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD),” said Chuck Ruby, Director of Operation Speak Up. “ISEPP is encouraged by recent moves by the DOD and VA to use non-drug approaches to helping soldiers suffering from PTSD. This is another move in that direction.”

Ruby said ISEPP is prepared to help the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration in the implementation of the Act’s provisions. “Our organization includes many mental health professionals who are experienced in the use of non-drug approaches to helping people recover from trauma,” he said. “We would like to help the DOD and VA in their commitment to provide safe and effective treatment to our soldiers.”

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) today commended President Obama for his August 31 Executive Order which calls for improved mental health services to veterans, service members and their families and called for increased use of non-drug approaches to treating soldiers experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

“We are especially pleased that the President is calling for the hiring of 800 peer counselors to help in the treatment of veterans,” said Al Galves, ISEPP Executive Director. “We believe that peer counselors and other non-medical approaches are crucial to helping soldiers readjust to civilian life.”

Galves applauded the creation of a National Research Action Plan and the Military and Veterans Mental Health Interagency Task Force and encouraged the Action Plan to include research which compares a cohort of soldiers who are treated without the use of psychotropic drugs to a cohort that is undergoing the standard treatment which uses drugs as a primary modality of treatment. “Psychotropic drugs do not treat the causes of PTSD and do nothing more than chemically lobotomize patients.” Galves said. “We need to be using safe and effective non-drug approaches that help soldiers recover from PTSD without the damaging side-effects and high relapse rates that are associated with the drugs. Included in such approaches are cognitive-behavioral methods and trauma-informed approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.”

Galves also called on the President to get behind Senator Patty Murray’s Mental Health ACCESS Act of 2012, which expands mental health services for veterans and service members and expands the use of peer counselors and services to the families of veterans and service members.

At its July 19, 2012 meeting the Board of Directors of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) voted unanimously to oppose prescription authority for psychologists. The Board gave the following reasons for its action:

Since psychotropic drugs impair mental and emotional functioning, address only symptoms and are very harmful, they are not good treatment for persons diagnosed with mental disorders.

Since psychotropic drugs are detrimental to effective psychotherapy and inimical to the use of psychotherapy in healthcare, their use is a threat to the profession of psychology.

The Act is designed to improve mental health treatment of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan by:

Providing enhanced oversight for Department of Defense (DOD) suicide prevention and resilience efforts;

Expanding services for the families of soldiers;
Improving the training and education of providers; Increasing peer-to-peer counseling opportunities; and Improving timely access to effective mental health services.

ISEPP has mounted an initiative to work with the DOD and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve the treatment of soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) by stopping the use of psychotropic drugs as the primary modality of treatment and using non-drug approaches that have been proven to be safe and effective.

ISEPP is encouraged by recent moves by the DOD and VA to use non-drug approaches to helping soldiers suffering from PTSD. Steps such as the Army Surgeon General’s recently released guidelines that discourage the use of psychotropic drugs and encourage non-drug approaches such as sensorimotor psychotherapy, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, cognitive processing therapy and other trauma-informed approaches, are especially important.

ISEPP strongly encourages the DOD and VA to continue to respond appropriately to the high rate of suicide and sudden cardiac arrest deaths of soldiers that have been linked to the use of psychotropic drugs. ISEPP believes the Health ACCESS Act of 2012 will be helpful in directing and supporting the DOD and the VA’s efforts.