A theory of "learned helplessness" put forward by
Seligman, based largely on some pretty nasty animal experiments. Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness
initially was used to design a training program to help captured military personnel resist the
effects of torture. Later it served as a cornerstone of the design of the methods of torture used in
Abu Ghraib
and Guantanamo
Bay detention camp. For this purpose the theory of learned helplessness was “reverse-engineered”
to assist the interrogation of detainees (Torture
victims will bear psychological scars long after CIA report scandal fades Law The Guardian):
Jabuli and other torture survivors experienced a chilling process referenced in the US Senate
intelligence committee’s
report into CIA torture. Two architects of the CIA’s torture program, contractor psychologists
Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, called it by the antiseptic term “learned helplessness”. It means
that torturers break down an individual’s self-control, until he or she is emotionally and psychologically
unequipped to disobey.
The key finding is that the experience of being put in a position in which there is no possibility
of escape from harm or pain can lead to an overall fatalism and resignation, in which it is believed
that there is no point in trying to improve the situation. More generally, it can describe a belief
in one's own powerlessness, which renders futile any attempt to learn.
Typical experiments include the demonstration that dogs, confined in a cage where they have no possibility
of escaping shocks from an electrified floor, no longer attempt to escape such shocks when the opportunity
is presented (this bears a resemblance to the
anticipatory-avoidance
learning experiment): and that rats, which normally swim for 48 hours before drowning in a tank,
only manage eight hours after having been held tightly and long enough to cease struggling before being
put in the tank.
Learned helplessness might be viewed as a form of meta-learning. It sets out a general orientation
towards learning or actions rather than an account of how a specific item of knowledge or skill is learned
or not.
Learned helplessness as a technical term in animal psychology and related human psychology
means a condition of a human being or an animal in which it has learned to behave helplessly, even
when the opportunity is restored for it to help itself by avoiding an unpleasant or harmful circumstance
to which it has been subjected. Learned helplessness theory is the view that
clinical depression
and related mental illnesses
result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation (Seligman, 1975).
The American psychologist
Martin Seligman's foundational
experiments and theory of learned helplessness began at
University of Pennsylvania
in 1967, as an extension of his interest in depression. Quite by accident, Seligman and colleagues
discovered that the
conditioning of dogs led to outcomes that opposed the predictions of
B.F. Skinner's
behaviorism, then a leading
psychological theory (Seligman & Maier, 1967; Overmier & Seligman, 1967)
In part one of Seligman and
Steve Maier's experiment, three groups of dogs were placed in harnesses. Group One dogs were
simply put in the harnesses for a period of time and later released. Groups Two and Three consisted
of "yoked pairs." A dog in Group 2 would be intentionally subjected to pain by being given electric
shocks, which the dog could end by pressing a lever. A Group 3 dog was wired in parallel with a Group
2 dog, receiving shocks of identical intensity and duration, but his lever didn't stop the electric
shocks. To a dog in Group 3, it seemed that the shock ended at random, because it was his paired
dog in Group 2 that was causing it to stop. For Group 3 dogs, the shock was apparently "inescapable."
Group 1 and Group 2 dogs quickly recovered from the experience, but Group 3 dogs learned to be helpless,
and exhibited symptoms similar to chronic
clinical depression.
In part two of the Seligman and Maier experiment, these three groups of dogs were tested in a
shuttle-box apparatus, in which the dogs could escape electric shocks by jumping over a low partition.
For the most part, the Group 3 dogs, who had previously "learned" that nothing they did had any effect
on the shocks, simply lay down passively and whined. Even though they could have easily escaped the
shocks, the dogs didn't try.
In a second experiment later that year, Overmier and Seligman ruled out the possibility that the
Group 3 dogs learned some behavior in part one of the experiment, while they were struggling in the
harnesses against the "inescapable shocks," that somehow interfered with what would have been their
normal, successful behavior of escaping from the shocks in part two. The Group 3 dogs were immobilized
with a paralyzing drug (Curare),
and underwent a procedure similar to that in part one of the Seligman and Maier experiment. A similar
part two in the shuttle-box was also undertaken in this experiment, and the Group 3 dogs exhibited
the same "helpless" response.
However, not all of the dogs in Seligman's experiments became helpless. Of the roughly 150 dogs
in experiments in the latter half of the 1960s, about one-third did not become helpless, but
instead managed to find a way out of the unpleasant situation despite their past experience with
it. The corresponding characteristic in humans has been found to correlate highly with
optimism; however, not a naïve
Polyannaish optimism, but an
explanatory style that
views the situation as other than personal, pervasive, or permanent. This distinction between
people who adapt and those who break down under long-term psychological pressure was also studied
in the 1950s in the context of
brainwashing.
Other experiments were performed with different animals with similar results. In all cases, the
strongest predictor of a depressive response was lack of control over the negative stimulus. One
such later experiment, presented by Finkelstein and Ramey (1977), consisted of two groups of human
babies. One group was placed into a crib with a sensory pillow, designed so that the movement of
the baby’s head could control the rotation of a mobile. The other group had no control over the movement
of the mobile and could only enjoy looking at it. Later, both groups of babies were tested in cribs
that allowed the babies to control the mobile. Although all the babies now had the power to control
the mobile, only the group that had already learned about the sensory pillow bothered to use it (Finkelstein
& Ramey, 1977).
A similar experiment was done with people who performed mental tasks in the presence of distracting
noise. If the person could use a switch to turn off the noise, his performance improved, even though
he rarely bothered to turn off the noise. Simply being aware of this option was enough to substantially
counteract its distracting effect (Hiroto and Seligman, 1975).
A theory put forward by
Seligman, based largely on some pretty nasty animal experiments, that the experience of being
put in a position in which there is no possibility of escape from harm or pain can lead to an overall
fatalism and resignation, in which it is believed that there is no point in trying to improve the
situation. More generally, can describe a belief in one's own powerlessness, which renders futile
any attempt to learn.
Typical experiments include the demonstration that dogs, confined in a cage where they have no
possibility of escaping shocks from an electrified floor, no longer attempt to escape such shocks
when the opportunity is presented (this bears a resemblance to the
anticipatory-avoidance
learning experiment): and that rats, which normally swim for 48 hours before drowning in
a tank, only manage eight hours after having been held tightly and long enough to cease struggling
before being put in the tank.
Learned helplessness, although explored largely within the behavioural paradigm, is a form of
meta-learning, or what Bateson would call
learning II (or even
III). It sets out a general orientation towards learning rather than an account of how a specific
item of knowledge or skill is learned or not.
Its particular relevance has been explored to various forms of depressive illness, but it also
provides an elegant account of disaffection among students, who have "given up" on the formal educational
process as a way of learning anything. They have lost (or never gained) any sense of the connection
between their efforts in school or college and any meaningful achievement, and therefore (from the
educational standpoint) the major task for them is to re-establish this link. On a wider front, the
principle can be associated with the "culture of poverty" and the idea of a disenfrachised underclass.
Although the models could hardly be more different, there is a link with Mezirow's notion of "transformative
learning": participants in adult basic education, for example, need to re-evaluate their whole
position about their capabilities to learn, in order to be able to benefit from what is offered.
Seligman has since turned his attention to strategies for overcoming learned helplessness.
Burke attributed the phrase "trained incapacity" to Veblen; however, no one (including him) could
locate the phrase in a Veblen text. Burke reasserts his belief that "trained incapacity" is a phrase
from Veblen, but concedes
that it could come from Randolph Bourne, whom Burke had also been reading and whom Burke feels "was
[also] capable of such a turn."
Jabuli prefers solitude indoors, having lost all safety once before. When he does go out he seeks
crowded public spaces, so there will be witnesses if his tormentors reappear to kidnap him again.
Ten years on, time and distance have not healed the damage that comes from torture.
"You live with the fear that the people who tortured you may come back to torture you again,"
he said, "regardless of if you are in a safe country."
Triggers are everywhere, even a decade later. Armored vans on the street make him think of the
station where he was tortured. He fears intimacy, because he doesn't want someone to see him having
nightmares, or to watch him wake up crying. He worries he will not be "good enough to have a family".
More than a decade ago, Jabuli endured seven months in a torture chamber in a central African
country he asked the Guardian not to identify. (Jabuli is a pseudonym he recommended.) He was placed
in "stress positions": his elbows and ankles were bound to each other behind his back as he faced
downward, resulting in a pain so consuming that he could barely breathe.
"We lost hope. We gave everything, every decision, to others, to decide for you. Everything you
want, you let the other person decide," Jabuli said.
Jabuli and other torture survivors experienced a chilling process referenced in the US Senate
intelligence committee's report into CIA torture. Two architects of the CIA's torture program, contractor
psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, called it by the antiseptic term "learned helplessness".
It means that torturers break down an individual's self-control, until he or she is emotionally and
psychologically unequipped to disobey.
Recovering from learned helplessness, according to psychologists, physicians, aid workers and
activists interviewed by the Guardian, is an arduous process, with results as varied as the people
who undergo it. It can last a lifetime, and is full of setbacks, if it succeeds at all.
Whatever outrage over CIA torture exists in the US and internationally will eventually fade. John
Brennan, the CIA director, pleaded on Thursday for the country to move on. Survivors of torture do
not have that luxury.
"These are issues that they're going to have for the rest of their lives," said Stephen Xenakis,
a psychiatrist and retired US army brigadier general.
Learned helplessness is a term attributed to a 1972 paper by the psychologist Martin Seligman.
Seligman noticed a long-term behavioral impact on dogs subjected to electric shocks.
"Uncontrollable" traumas bred "passivity in the face of traumatic events, inability to learn that
responding is effective, and emotional stress in animals, and possibly depression in man," Seligman
wrote.
The Senate report, parts of which were released on Tuesday, documented the impact of the learned-helplessness
that the CIA sought to inflict. Detainees in Afghanistan would cower when the doors to their cells
opened. Some, in the opinion of one CIA interrogator, "literally looked like a dog that had been
kenneled". Abdel Rahman al-Nashiri, who was waterboarded and threatened with a power drill, would
tremble at the sight of the interrogations chief, as psychologists discussed instilling within him
what they called a "desired level of helplessness".
Men and women who have experienced torture are most often irrevocably changed, say medical professionals
who have treated survivors. Depression, anxiety, personality shifts, hallucinations and suicidal
thoughts can manifest and persist years afterward. Freedom itself, with its onslaught of decisions,
can overwhelm people whose captors conditioned them to give their lives over to another's control.
"You become a passive person," Jabuli said.
Learned helplessness compels people to blame themselves for their treatment. Self-esteem has to
be relearned. Guilt can be overwhelming: the guilt of missing out on their families' lives, or of
release from prison while others remain tortured.
Others, like those who resisted or protested in jail, can become angry, or frustrated over the
impotence inflicted upon them. Khalid el-Masri, an innocent man whom the CIA tortured, was arrested
in 2007 in Germany for setting a supermarket on fire.
William Hopkins, a consulting psychiatrist for the UK-based torture rehabilitation center Freedom
From Torture, has treated victims of waterboarding. Many develop extreme hydrophobia, he said.
"One guy told me, 'I cannot go in water, I cannot go for a swim, I cannot let my head go underwater
again, that's too terrifying, that will bring back the memories,'" Hopkins said.
Years after his waterboarding, Hopkins's patient couldn't bear to "pull a jumper over [his] head.
He used a cloth to bathe himself, as taking a typical bath or shower was unbearable."
Every medical professional interviewed by the Guardian said people's recovery to learned helplessness
varies widely. Polly Rossdale, who runs the human-rights group Reprieve's initiative to help released
Guantánamo detainees, said that giving survivors basic choices ("We could go for a walk now or walk
later, what would you rather do?") was critical to restoring a modicum of mental and emotional health.
So is finding people to trust – with whom they can talk safely about their experiences. Yet torture
survivors can find themselves shunned, compounding their internalized blame.
"The stigma is huge," Rossdale said, particularly for Guantánamo detainees. Men released from
the US detention facility are often resettled into unfamiliar countries, and struggle to find or
hold jobs and to get access to medical care.
"Even in places that have significant Muslim populations, where they may have experienced some
degree of discrimination themselves, they don't want to be tarred with the same brush, they don't
want people to think, 'Oh, Muslim equals terrorists.' The stigma is huge, and that's very difficult
for men to overcome," Rossdale said.
However difficult it is for torture survivors to live their lives after captivity, it is much
harder for torture survivors who remain detained.
Not all of the estimated 39 men whom the CIA tortured are now free. Over a dozen of them remain
at Guantánamo. Indefinite detention without charge, experts said, compounds the effects of learned
helplessness, as people steadily lose control over their fates.
Vincent Iacopino, an internist with Physicians for Human Rights, said torture survivors still
in captivity required trusted medical staff for their conditions to improve. Yet the medical staff
at Guantánamo, where he has examined detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, are "not seen as friendly", he
said.
"They're viewed as the enemy of the detainees. They're people who, as far as they're concerned,
participated in their abuse. There's really not an opportunity for [Guantánamo detainees] to receive
a therapeutic environment. The combination of continuing to be detained, having been tortured, and
not having health professionals to be helpful almost precludes the possibility of healing," Iacopino
said.
Cheryl Bormann represents Walid bin Attash, whom the CIA hung from the wrists and denied sleep
for over five straight days, with only a four-hour rest. He is now facing a military tribunal for
the 9/11 attacks, a charge that carries a death sentence.
"How can a man who has been tortured so that he is a victim of 'learned helplessness' unlearn
that conditioning? How can Mr Bin Attash ever overcome the effects of more than three years of tortured
conditioning?" Bormann said.
Jabuli said he doubts he will ever again be the person he was before torture.
"There's still something missing. I'm still struggling to properly understand, and to build a
life," he said.
Talking to other survivors has helped him heal, Jabuli said. He is about to take his first trip
to see his family back home in the decade since his ordeal began.
"If I don't do anything, then the people who torture me have won. What they did was silence me.
That's what they wanted to do," he said.
IanB52 14 Dec 2014 02:04
I believe that psychological collapse was an intentional part of the "interrogation", so that
the detainees became so catatonic or helpless that they would never be able to reveal to the world
what had been done to them. Another evil and heinous way of covering up torture, more torture.
mtracy9 -> Light_and_Liberty 14 Dec 2014 16:07
Bush and Cheney lied America into war. Cheney likely orchestrated the 9/11 attacks to provide
an excuse to get the wars going in the Middle East. The smoking gun is the collapse of Building
7.
Cat Mack -> Light_and_Liberty 14 Dec 2014 16:01
What is wrong with you? Is revenge an answer to everything? Someone hurt us so we are going
to torture others (mostly people with no involvement in 9/11). This sort of attitude is precisely
why the rest of world thinks the U.S. is crap.
ronnewmexico -> Light_and_Liberty 14 Dec 2014 15:50
Which is exactly what Dick Chaney just said on meet the press..
22% of those tortured in this fashion, of this group were found innocent…….so once again how
is that not torture???
We suffered the atrocities of the various prior war world war one and two with thousands of
our kind killed by heinous means to include mustard gas, and in world war 2 numerous tortures
by torturers of the German and Japanese kind….die we torture in kind…no never it would have been
un-American. The only tortures that did ever occur on our side were rogue operations by those
incensed in the heat of war and never officially sanctioned were those…
It is clear chaney has lost his moral bearings and knows not now what this country for many
many years was all about.
Light_and_Liberty 14 Dec 2014 15:31
So much sympathy for the psychological scars of terrorists but none for the family of the 2,752
Americans who died on 9-11.
Can anyone imagine these people having nightmares about their loved one's final minutes? Is
that torture? You bet it is.
How about we do whatever it takes so innocent people are not subjected to that kind of torture
-- the torture of deciding to jump or burn to death. And the torture of that image playing out
in the minds of fathers, mother, brothers and sisters.
ondelette -> WalrusHat 14 Dec 2014 14:52
If more people vote, they become the people the candidates most have to please. Right now,
it's a no-brainer that elected officials don't have to pay attention to the vast majority of the
citizens, because the vast majority of the citizens don't vote. So they instead pay attention
to those who can truly determine whether or not they get to have another term: the moneyed class.
That can be stopped by voting and by participating in the nominations process and by protest on
the streets where it counts instead of on the internet where it doesn't.
The American system of democracy contains no quorum for elections. Not voting isn't a boycott
unless it has clearly defined demands and the ability to deliver the votes if those demands are
met. You don't have either. In that case, what your non-vote means is described by the rule for
no-quorum elections: Qui tacit consentire videtur, ubi loqui debuit ac potuit. -- Silence implies
consent, when one ought to have spoken and was able to.
consciouslyinformed -> consciouslyinformed 14 Dec 2014 12:20
Please take note: I wrote Milgram, in error. The psychologist I meant to write, was Martin
Seligman, who developed the construct of learned helplessness.
Dr. Seligman has been affiliated with The University of Pennsylvania for decades. He is now
the co-founder of positive psychology, which focuses on how an individual could shape one's thinking
is inextricably connected to how one imagines the future both influences both the present and
the future thinking of individuals.
Dr. Seligman has written over two hundred professional articles, along with many books, in
psychology.
I apologize for any confusion my hastily written comment with the error, may have caused the
readers of Cif.
ronnewmexico -> JohnTMaher 14 Dec 2014 12:20
No one deserves to be tortured even the torturers themselves deserve not such pains inflicted
in kind upon them.
The consequence of such things in the future….it is PTSD they will suffer though they will
not call it such. Doing or seeing the awful things of war it does that invariably and always.
It starts when they put the gun under the bed to sleep. It ends when alcohole or drugs are necessary
to sleep at all…and on and on.
It is not pleasant their fate. I do not revel in it…but fate it is theirs to hold. NO studies
will be done nor records will be kept as it works agaiinst this thing of torture they are so for…but
it will nevertheless be true..
That is theirr unkind fate….restless spirts for every hour of their waking days for the rest
of their lives…to that they are sentenced. Those that torture.
The man who by deed killed the most even consequent to STalinism and that thing of evil. He
started out sort of OK. He gradually eroded into a thing that could little be said to resemble
human. He was a hero and afforded all that that bought in that totalitarian state, many years
ago….that was his fate…mindless in the end, totally completely…. insane..killers those who order
others to do such thing do not want his story told…but it is and true it is…they know not what
webs they weave these torturers.
leochen24551 14 Dec 2014 11:32
I joined the Army in the Sixties, so Vietnam was my war. We lost over 58,000 American Combat
Soldiers and Marines in that failed and very tragic effort.
Today, we have corrupted ourselves by committing War Crimes against our prisoners of war. For
we are in a war; our War on Terror -- which is truly our War OF Terror.
And if it's anything like our decades War on Drugs, it will not end well for us.
It will not "save lives". It is not making America "safer". It has multiplied -- Multiplied
-- the number of folks around the world who now hate us, who now scorn us, who will seek Revenge,
who will be as Merciless with us as we have been Merciless with our Prisoners of War.
In WWII, we prosecuted and executed -- by hanging -- our defeated enemies in Nazi Germany and
in Japan for torturing and killing their American Prisoners of War.
Today, the CIA Leadership is tap dancing furiously around their unbelievable and depraved torture
programs. The CIA says that it was useful and effective.
Really? Details please!
What additional "intelligence" can the CIA get from waterboarding someone 183 times?!
Make NO Mistake. We have created a host of implacable enemies who will seek and find ways to
extract Revenge upon us, our War on Terror, our CIA, our NSA, our FBI, our Pentagon, our Secret
Service all -- all -- not withstanding.
Blame whom we wish, but we Americans will suffer the consequences of what the CIA has done
to our prisoners of war in the name of our National Security.
Blame whom we wish, but God help any American Combat Soldiers and Marines who fall into the
hands of our enemies -- who become their prisoners of war.
ondelette -> consciouslyinformed 14 Dec 2014 11:03
Milgram's learned helplessness?
The term was Martin Seligman's. The same Seligman who brought together psychologists after
September 11th, and shopped the idea of "enhanced interrogation" to the government, resulting
in the hiring of Jessen and Mitchell.
Somehow I doubt that someone who researches something in a focused way forgets who's theory
they were dealing with.
zelazny -> WatchEm 14 Dec 2014 11:03
"By focusing attention on the CIA, there is a tendency to assume all other parties are 'innocent',
which is not the case."
And not only not the case, but the essence of the problem. Obama cannot prosecute W, Cheney
or anyone else for torture, because he has engaged in on going torture at Guantanamo and other
black sites.
The same problem with war crimes. Since WWII every US president has engaged in massive war
crimes in violation of the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions. One war criminal cannot prosecute
the prior war criminal, so the war crimes continue administration after administration, in a true
demonstration of Arendt's banality of evil.
WatchEm -> IanB52 14 Dec 2014 03:13
IanB52 - I find it really disturbing that not only will the U.S. refuse to prosecute those
involved in the torture, but that they refuse any kind of restitution or even apology to the people
they harmed. This is the exact opposite of justice.
The problem with prosecutions is again, torture. It is somewhat problematic when the prosecutor
(i.e. the nation state), has acknowledged involvement in homicides and torture. This has been
the problem for years where there have been attempted trials, albeit 'military trials', with U.S.
Army JAG officers acting as defence counsel. Numbers of these officers have refused/resigned as
defence counsel when they witnessed the terms imposed by the court and restrictions placed on
them while they attempted to represent the accused.
Totally agree, this has nothing to do with justice in any civilised nation and is much on par
with Stalin show trials.
Incredibility, there are a few further 'trials' scheduled in the near future. The publication
of the recent report will obviously have a bearing on future trials and if there has been a genuine
offence committed by the accused, it is probably going to make a conviction even harder and more
contentious. Torture regimes gave up the right and are unfit to try anyone - particularly when
they admitted being involved in torture, rapes and homicides.
Agree.. real justice is honest, transparent and not malicious. I'd seriously doubt that the
Rogue Regime of the West is capable of comprehending real justice - it is not only my opinion,
but more relevant, the opinion of U.S. Army JAG Corps officers who appear to have higher moral
standards than those of their employers.
Agree, the assumption that the world should now move on, without any accountability, and forget
the crimes against humanity of the US, is totally ludicrous and off this planet. The stage has
not yet been reached where the full extent of criminality as been acknowledged - at a rough guess,
only 8% at most has been addressed by the US legislature. The CIA alone are not the only guilty
parties - add the "justice department", US military, FBI, outsourced criminals and of course,
the principle instigators of a policy of state sponsored torture.
Regardless of any utterances from the USG, a number of their crimes are still continuing today
and they are in no position to being talking about 'moving on'.
Overall, forget 'moving on' - this saga will still be rolling on for 10-30 years or more until
justice has been served.
The men,
identified as Bruce Jessen and Jim Mitchell, had no experience with interrogations or counterterrorism,
according to the report. They had, though, taught special forces how to resist torture through the
Department of Defense's SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance Escape) schools.
In the experiments, dogs that were repeatedly given mild electric shocks eventually became inert
and did not attempt to escape them. Evidently, Seligman and Maier theorized, the dogs had learned
to be helpless because they discovered their actions did not prevent the shocks.
For humans, this would be coming to believe that no matter what a person does, he or she cannot
change a situation.
Seligman went on to use that theory on human reaction to adversity, and today he is considered
a top expert on happiness and learned optimism.
But Jessen and Mitchell, according to the Senate report, quoted Seligman's theories as useful
in breaking CIA detainees into a state of helplessness, apparently with the aim of getting them to
reveal information.
Guantánamo detainee
Zain Abidin
Mohammed Husain Abu Zabaydah, for example, became so helpless that he "slowly walked on his own
to the water table and sat down." When his interrogator snapped his fingers twice, he "would lie
on the water board," according to the report.
Seligman told Al Jazeera in an email message that while he does not consider himself an expert
on interrogation, he feels that the objective should be "to get at the truth, not at what the interrogator
wants to hear."
"I think learned helplessness would make someone more passive, less defiant and more compliant,
but I know of no evidence that it leads reliably to more truth-telling," said Seligman, currently
the director of University of Pennsylvania's Positive Psychology Center.
"I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression,
may have been used for such dubious purposes," said Seligman. "Most importantly, I have never and
would never provide assistance in torture. I strongly disapprove of it."
How psychologists formerly involved in SERE training decided to co-opt this research as official
CIA interrogation strategy isn't fully understood.
New Yorker
reporter Jane Mayer said that Seligman told her he gave a talk at a Navy SERE school in San Diego
in 2002, but that it focused on helping U.S. soldiers resist torture. Seligman's learned helplessness
theories "were cited admiringly soon after by James Mitchell, the psychologist whom the CIA put on
contract to advise on its secret interrogation protocol,"
she told Harper's magazine.
The American Psychological Association recently told Reuters that, while Mitchell and Jessen were
not APA members and therefore outside the association's disciplinary process, they should be held
"fully accountable" for human rights violations. The APA called their techniques "sickening and reprehensible."
Mitchell, for his part, told Reuters that the CIA report was "a bunch of hooey." Jessen did not
respond to Al Jazeera requests for comment.
"The use of interrogative abuse had been comprehensively studied by every major regime, East and
West, going back to World War II," he said. "And it's been repeatedly been found to not work. It
just doesn't work."
While he has signed protective orders not to speak about any of the cases, he told Al Jazeera
that research has shown that the CIA's techniques "would lead to serious psychiatric problems, depression,
PTSD, that these men would suffer, that the effects would be chronic."
"We said that, even though it leaves no marks, it constitutes torture," he said.
Miles says that beyond the traumatizing effects, interrogational torture eventually causes a detainee
to lie to stop the pain - and it also eliminates any ability to recruit him or her for future intelligence.
"It seems like almost out of the hat, they [Jessen and Mitchell] drew learned helplessness without
even looking at the fact that this is a proven failed method for interrogation," he said. "And then
they set up a secret interrogation system built out of inexperienced interrogators, told them this
was the way to go, and then got the green light."
These techniques also inspire the countries of the tortured detainees to torture U.S. captives,
Miles said, as retaliation for the violation of the Geneva Conventions and other human rights pacts.
"Basically what we've said is, an executive order can essentially waive these [treaties], which
is music to the ears of Kim Yong Un, [Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe, and [Syrian President
Bashar] al-Assad," said Miles.
...But Mayer's study also shakes the reassuring conservative assumption that, if pushed, the poor
can become self-sufficient through work. Precisely because many long-term welfare recipients aren't
as competent or disciplined as middle-class parents, they may not find and keep jobs, let alone well-paying
ones. The thrust of Mayer's grim analysis is to support the existence of a permanent "culture of
poverty," an argument first advanced in the modern American context by political scientist Edward
Banfield in a 1970 book.
Banfield split the poor into two groups. Some simply lacked money. These
included many disabled and unemployed people, and some single mothers who had been widowed, divorced
or abandoned. These people had middle-class values and could benefit from government income support.
They could usually recover from a setback (job loss, divorce). Then there was the true "lower class,"
who would "live in squalor . . . even if their incomes were doubled," Banfield wrote, because they
had a "radically present-oriented" outlook that "attaches no value to work, sacrifice, self-improvement,
or service to family, friends or community."
According to a number of those interviewed for this Review, the Agency's intelligence on Al-Qa'ida
was limited prior to the initiation of the CTC Interrogation Program. The Agency lacked adequate
linguists or subject matter experts and had very little hard knowledge of what particular Al-Qa'ida
leaders–who later became detainees–knw. This lack of knowledge led analysts to speculate about
what a detainee "should know," vice information the analyst could objectively demonstrate the
detainee did know.
You are at a disadvantage with your enemy detainee if you
1. lack his language skills
2. lack his subject matter
3. lack knowledge of the detainee himself
The detainee in question will tell you what he thinks you want to hear. The worst part? You will
never know if you fully extracted all you wanted out of the detainee, and as such, you will continue
torturing him until you finally feel satisfied he has nothing else of value for you. This, however,
could go on for a long time, because each time you press more, the detainee will tell you even wilder
tales hoping the next tale will finally get you to stop torturing him. Of course, with each new tale,
since you don't actually know what else the detainee is holding back, with each new tale he tells,
you press even further. Finally, of course, the detainee's psyche collapses into learned helplessness
and is now completely useless, for information and as a human being. You've destroyed him. Since
you came into this without actually knowing what the detainee knows, all you've ended up doing is
destroying the mind of another human being.
This paper links the sociological work of Ball on the analgesic subculture-a subculture of Appalachian
poverty-with the sociological research of Merton on adaptation, the social psychological research
of Seeman on alienation, and the psychological research of Seligman on learned helplessness. We suggest
that
(1) Ball's cultural explanation work has not been pursued because it has not been integrated with
relevant structural and relevant psychological theory and
(2) the analgesic subculture of Appalachia is an extreme intensification of the consequences of
alienation resulting in a psychology of learned helplessness.
Subject: Re: [SOCIAL] Fwd: Torture and the Strategic Helplessness...
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:56:43 -0700
Cc: Www, Bbb
Indeed.
This writing exposes the contradiction in the APA. There's an interesting direction regarding
"learned helplessness" not being addressed here, however.
I suggest people look at the work of Tom Scheff on how to engage "shame." E.g. his new book
Goffman Unbound.
The APA leadership has shamed us and our profession with its strategic helplessness.
Unacknowledged shameful behavior such as unethical support for interrogation torture involvement
by [some] psychologists has been "brought to the surface" by the good work of the "Ethical APA"
group. But the article raises a new layer of the "resistance" involved.
It is time for the APA to clarify that psychologists may not ethically support in any
way abusive or coercive interrogation tactics in any settings.
Still, in a climate of "unacknowledged shame" and a rich history of developing "positive psychology"
to oppose "learned helplessness" in a clinical/treatment framework, I submit Seligman in 2002 was
entitled to take the protestations of the CIA/SERE people "at face value," pending
seeing what they meant. If he'd continued on that path, then the blogger complaints about him as
"2nd APA Pres. on the torture track" might have merit.
It is also time to identify and hold publicly responsible the individual psychologists who
have created the institution that the APA has now become.
Yes.
It is time to hold these psychologists accountable for developing the widespread and systematic
moral failures in the organization�s current infrastructure.
To do so would seem to require looking at the "clinical gaze" practicum embraced by the APA
Practice Organization and see how behavior management - far from supporting
creative maladjustment as
Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated to the APA - often supports deliberately or incidentally
practices accommodating "normality" by training 'clients' to "learned helplessness."
Where is the boundary with "reverse SERE?" These discussions (so far) have not addressed
nor defined that as a problem, to the extent required. And I question that the institutional protections
needed are in place.
Indeed, if we do not do this, then we, too, are complicit with torture.
Exactly. And then it's necessary to regain the trust of the "client/survivor" people who have
had the acquaintance/experience of "treatment
can be torture."
Italian Democratic Psychiatry has been looking this question "in the eye" for decades.
Abstract: Recently, a leading sociologist claimed that the phrase "trained incapacity"
does not appear in the works of Thorstein Veblen. Kenneth Burke, who attributed the phrase to Veblen
in Permanence and Change, was later unsure of its origins. This essay shows that, indeed,
Veblen did coin the term, using it particularly in reference to problematic tendencies in business.
Burke, on the other hand, gave the term an expansive application to human symbol-using generally.
IN A 2003 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS to the American Sociological Association, Robert Stallings challenged
conventional wisdom and charged that the widespread attribution of the term "trained incapacity"
to Thorstein Veblen is erroneous. Stallings reported that he himself had spent a significant amount
of time searching for the term in Veblen's works, to no avail; thus, he was comfortable in challenging
anyone to "find the term 'trained incapacity' in any of the published works of Thorstein Veblen."
Given his certainty that the term could not be located, he suggested that the connection of "trained
incapacity" with Veblen was an example of misattribution in sociology (Stallings 1).
Kenneth Burke made good use of the term "trained incapacity," devoting an entire section to it
in his book Permanence and Change. Here he typically attributed the phrase to Veblen, although
he later admitted uncertainty as to its origins. As early as a 1946 letter to David Cox, Burke noted
that he had tried to remember where he had first heard the phrase "trained incapacity," and even
returned to Veblen's books, but was unable to determine where he had originally found the term ("Letter
to David Cox" 1). Asked in the 1983 "Counter-Gridlock" interview about the term, Burke stated that
he either took the term from Veblen or from Randolph Bourne, who Burke states he was reading at the
time he was also reading Veblen (Burke, On Human Nature 336).
Veblen did in fact coin the phrase "trained incapacity."1 In this essay, I clarify
its genealogy and explain Veblen's particular use of the phrase. I then compare Veblen's use of the
phrase in discussing problems in business and organizations with Burke's own use, which explored
the concept within the broader context of symbol using generally. I argue that Burke drew upon Veblen's
initial idea, but teased out its larger implications for human symbol users much more thoroughly
than Veblen.
Veblen's Use of Trained Incapacity
Despite Stallings' assurance that the term "trained incapacity" cannot be found in any of Veblen's
published works, Veblen did indeed coin the phrase. It appears first in his 1914 book, The Instinct
of Workmanship and the Industrial Arts (IWIA), though the roots of the concept in Veblen's
thinking go back at least as far as his 1898 essay in the American Journal of Sociology. This
essay, with the similar title of "The Instinct of Workmanship and The Irksomeness of Labor" ("IWIL"),
was largely incorporated into his 1914 book. The essay considers whether humans are predisposed to
loathe or to enjoy work. Veblen notes that most economists of his time assumed the former (187),
while his essay makes a case for the latter.
Veblen's argument draws upon evolution theory to suggest that it would hurt the survival of the
species if humans loathed and avoided work. He attempts to explain how purposes of survival, goal-directed
behavior supporting that survival, and habits of mind and thought have shaped humans as creatures
with an "instinct of workmanship." One of the consequences of this shaping is that humans have evolved
to think easily and habitually about things that support this instinct of workmanship (and, thereby,
our survival). The implications of this evolutionary imperative, Veblen argues, are significant for
human action, thought, and social judgment:
What men can do easily is what they do habitually, and this decides what they can think and
know easily. They feel at home in the range of ideas which is familiar through their everyday
line of action. A habitual line of action constitutes a habitual line of thought, and gives the
point of view from which facts and events are apprehended and reduced to a body of knowledge.
What is consistent with the habitual course of action is consistent with the habitual line of
thought, and gives the definitive ground of knowledge as well as the conventional standard of
complacency or approval in any community. ("IWIL" 195)
On this last point, Veblen makes ethical judgment a product of this evolutionary process, insisting
that "[w]hat is apprehended with facility and is consistent with the process of life and knowledge
is thereby apprehended as right and good" (195).
Business people develop their own particular habitual lines of thought and action, leading to
problems in their focus on business purposes, as Veblen shows sixteen years late i>The Instinct of
Workmanship and the Industrial Arts. He notes: "It is but a slight exaggeration to say that [business]
transactions, which govern the course of industry, are carried out with an eye single to pecuniary
gain,-the industrial consequences, and their bearing on the community's welfare, being matters incidental
to the transaction of business" (351). Veblen insists that "an eye single to pecuniary gain" puts
workers, the community, and business people at cross purposes. It is not simply that different interests
are at stake; it is that businesspeople are trained to ignore larger concerns associated with "the
industrial situation." As Veblen explains it, coining the new phrase:
Of course, all this working at cross purposes is not altogether due to trained incapacity on
the part of the several contestants to appreciate the large and general requirements of the industrial
situation; perhaps it is not even chiefly due to such inability, but rather to an habitual, and
conventionally righteous disregard of other than pecuniary considerations. (IWIA 347)
Here "trained incapacity" is distinguished from the "righteous disregard of other than pecuniary
considerations," but they actually function as two sides of the same coin, as the focus on pecuniary
interests leads business people to ignore other concerns, such as "the large and general requirements
of the industrial situation."
That the singular focus on pecuniary interest is a type of trained incapacity is confirmed in
the comments that follow this passage, where Veblen insists that even workers who are employed in
modern factories may suffer from this pecuniary "blindness"-which he also calls "a trained inability"-though
not quite as badly as their bosses:
It would doubtless appear that a trained inability to apprehend any other than the immediate
pecuniary bearing of their manoeuvres accounts for a larger share in the conduct of the businessmen
who control industrial affairs than it does in that of their workmen, since the habitual employment
of the former holds them more rigorously and consistently to the pecuniary valuation of whatever
passes, under their hands; and the like should be true only in a higher degree of those who have
to do exclusively with the financial side of business. (347-48)
Four years later, in Higher Learning in America (HLA), Veblen complains about one
kind of training that leads to blindnesses through the overall focus and specialization of business
schools:
[These schools'] specialization on commerce is like other specializations in that it draws
off attention and interest from other lines than those in which the specialization falls, thereby
widening the candidate's field of ignorance while it intensifies his effectiveness within his
specialty. The effect, as touches the community's interest in the matter, should be an enhancement
of the candidate's proficiency in all the futile ways and means of salesmanship and "conspiracy
in restraint of trade" together with a heightened incapacity and ignorance bearing on such work
as is of material use. (HLA 152)
This concern over business students' "widening…field of ignorance" is discussed in a footnote
in a chapter concerning the larger, inherent problems with business schools being housed in universities.
Although Veblen does not use the phrase that he coined four years earlier, he appears to be dealing
with the same problem as the trend toward specialization in business schools sacrifices the breadth
of knowledge that more traditional colleges attempt to impart, creating a kind of blindness in business
school graduates that has negative consequences.
Although Veblen discusses trained incapacity as a way to account for problems in the modern industrial
organization, Veblen's concerns point beyond an interest in business. In part, this is because he
perceives the impact of business practices as wide-ranging, since he holds that business is "a modern
force upon cultural growth" (Theory of Business Enterprise vii). Additionally, Veblen's sociological
and cultural investigations led him to explore concepts related to or drawing upon trained incapacity.
For example, Veblen's discussion of human nature in The Theory of the Leisure Class (TLC)
offers a broader theoretical backdrop for understanding how business people's focus on pecuniary
interests becomes a kind of trained incapacity. He argues that humans are agents "seeking in every
act the accomplishment of some concrete, objective, impersonal end" (TLC 15). Veblen describes
this need for accomplishment as a driving force underlying trained incapacity. It is the focus on
a specific goal or end that causes the worker to perceive only what directly affects the specific
goal. It is this "end focused" part of every human psyche that allows for humans to have goals, and
also makes it possible for such a focus to become an incapacitation. More simply, if a population
did not have a specific end to be trained to accomplish, it could not suffer from trained incapacity.
In addition to this need to work toward a goal, Veblen asserts that such goals are parts
of a larger complex present in humans. The need for an end to work toward is not socially constructed
or culturally imposed; a need for a goal is part of the human need for a "sense of purpose," which
Veblen highlights in Instinct of Workmanship. This sense of purpose is the
part of the human condition that Veblen refers to as the "instinct of workmanship" (IWIA 27).
This sense of purpose, which underlies human goal seeking, provides the impetus for "trained incapacity."
Because Veblen establishes purpose as something that is innately part of the human condition, he
implies that incapacity, which is attendant to that sense of purpose, is also something tied to being
human.
Veblen further attaches action (behavior) to instinct (thought) by stating that man has a purpose
that is innate, and that this purpose is reflected in man's behavior. For Veblen, recurring instinctual
thoughts are reflected in recurring or habitual actions. This link between thought and action is
key to "trained incapacity"; humans may be trained to value certain ideas which are then acted upon.
As I noted earlier, Veblen's "Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor" argues that "a
line of action constitutes a line of thought" (195). Frequent repetition of an action leads to a
lack of thought in undertaking that action-a kind of incapacitation. A worker's training includes
ensuring his or her acceptance of preferred goals, leading that worker to take action in support
of those preferred goals. It is those actions (and therefore those thoughts), to the exclusion of
others, that causes incapacitation. Thus, for Veblen, human nature provides an impetus toward
goal-seeking behavior, while specific training regimens (as in business schools) can build on those
impulses to make particular goals and values preeminent in guiding human action. Such training, in
turn, is the root of trained incapacity.
This thought-behavior link highlights the place of habit in trained incapacity. Without the initial
thoughts, the behavior would never take place, but once these thoughts have been ingrained, behavior
can cease being the result of a carefully considered process and instead occur automatically. Veblen
states that "man is a creature of habits and propensities" (IWIA 193). Since a habitual action
is easier and faster, it is preferred by both the trainer and the trainee, but, in switching from
thoughtful action to action out of habit, incapacitation may insinuate itself. Action prompted by
habit may be faster, but it does not take into consideration other incidents or actions that are
not allowed for in the training.
A move away from habit is a move toward inefficiency. Once a regimen is learned, less thought
is required to perform the task and less time is required to complete the task. The more thought
that goes into an action, the more time the action will take. Whereas efficiency increases as the
amount of thought and questioning decreases, there is also a concomitant increase in rate of incapacitation.
Not only is inefficiency bad for assembly line work, for example, it is also "innately distasteful"
according to Veblen (HLA 197). In fact, inefficiency goes against what it means to be human;
according to Veblen, humans recoil from inefficiency. Thus, Veblen asserts, humans both seek accomplishment
and shun inefficiency. As humans and human organizations become more successful at achieving efficiency,
they become less aware of the unintended and unsought consequences of their actions. To the extent
that "training" (e.g., education, work experience, socialization) supports this efficiency, it supports
a blindness to broader concerns, a "trained incapacity." Veblen, offers no solution to this problem,
but he notes how it influences modern culture (Spindler 49). In fact, in keeping with his typical
worldview, Veblen seems resigned to the fact that this training phenomenon is a problem that will
always plague humankind.
The next section considers Burke's references to "trained incapacity" and to Veblen, establishing
how and when Burke gives Veblen credit for his ideas, and discussing how Burke works to take Veblen's
initial concept and to extend and adapt it to his own sociological theory.
Burke's Extension of Trained Incapacity
Kenneth Burke speaks about trained incapacity in an entire section in Permanence and Change
appropriately titled "Veblen's Concept of 'Trained Incapacity'" (7). While the phrase trained
incapacity is mentioned only in Burke's Permanence and Change, references to its author,
Thorstein Veblen, occur throughout Burke's many texts. Permanence and Change is the first
place Burke refers to Veblen. Here Burke speaks of "trained incapacity" as a phrase he believes was
coined by Veblen (7). Burke does not give a specific source or page citation, but instead simply
attributes the phrase to Veblen. Burke defines the phrase as "that state of affairs whereby one's
very abilities can function as blindnesses" (7). Burke illustrates this concept with a modified Pavlovian
example of training chickens, showing how training can "work against" any trainable animal. He notes
that chickens trained to come for food upon hearing a bell may suffer trained incapacity when the
same bell is used to call them for punishment (7).
Burke notes that Veblen "generally restricts the concept to the care of business men who, through
long training in competitive finance, have so built their scheme of orientation . . . they cannot
see serious possibilities in any other system of production and distribution" (7). Because he is
exploring the concept, rather than simply deploying it to explain one aspect of business culture,
Burke is more explicit than Veblen in asserting that trained incapacity "properly applies to all
men," not just those in business. Burke notes that this phenomenon is so predictable and evident
throughout the population that it even "seems to be experimentally verifiable" (10).
Burke argues that trained incapacity is also a way to discuss "matters of orientation" without
using the terms escape and avoidance (9). That is, Burke says that there is no need
to assume that the chickens in his example "refuse to face reality" or that they are using an "escape
mechanism," if their illogical behavior can be explained as a form of trained incapacity (10). Finally,
Burke notes that trained incapacity is identical to John Dewey's notion of "occupational psychosis,"
insisting that the terms are "interchangeable" (48-49).
While the term trained incapacity is only cited in Permanence and Change, Veblen
and his philosophy appear in two other texts of Burke's-Philosophy of Literary Form (PLF)
and Rhetoric of Motives (RM). Burke refers to Veblen in his book, Philosophy of
Literary Form, urging that Veblen, along with Marx and Bentham, consider "material interests"
of both "private and class structure" (111). Burke notes that such interests are a part of the "contexts
of situation." These contexts significantly shape action, yet they are constantly in flux, giving
rise to paradoxes. Thus, following Veblen, Burke asserts that contexts are "opportunities to get
ahead [and] are also opportunities to fall behind" (PLF 247). Burke suggests adopting different
perspectives on a situation to see the opportunities and pitfalls that various contexts offer.
By the time a more mature Burke wrote Rhetoric of Motives in 1950, he had moved beyond
Veblen's observations and was looking to construct a more comprehensive theory. At this point Burke
insists that Veblen's "terminology of motives" is too limited in scope, and that his tendency to
rationalize wide areas of human relationships is a mistake (RM 127). More specific to our
concerns here, Burke insists that Veblen's distinction between pecuniary motive and instinct of workmanship
is "neither pliant nor comprehensive enough" (RM 127). Burke sees Veblen's "pecuniary motive"
not as dramatistic, but instead as a "special case of linguistic motive" (RM 129). He also
describes Veblen's work as "a superficial rhetoric in human relations" (RM 129). Veblen's
psychology, according to Burke, is "not so much dramatistic, as dramatized" (RM 127). Finally,
Burke urges that Veblen is "rhetorically bland," using "satire masked as science." Veblen uses partisan
words, according to Burke, but then wants there to be "no partisan connotations," something that
Burke finds ludicrous (RM 132).
If Veblen failed to develop a comprehensive theory of human culture, he nonetheless laid important
groundwork for Burke's own work. And Burke gives him credit, though he is vague (and later, forgetful)
about the sources from which "trained incapacity" was drawn. Specifically, Burke gives authorial
credit to Veblen throughout the "trained incapacity" section in Permanence and Change. Not
only does the title of the section indicate Veblen is the source of the idea of trained incapacity;
the section begins with the statement "Veblen had a concept of 'trained incapacity'" (7). However,
since Burke failed to cite any specific page number or even a particular text of Veblen's, we must
reconstruct his sources.
When Burke discussed the concept of trained incapacity in his "Counter-Gridlock" interview, he
obviously had in mind Veblen's discussion of the concept in HigherLearning in America. As
I noted above, Veblen discusses the situation of the education of business students in America in
a footnote in Higher Learning. Veblen urges that because these students are taught business
methods and are taught to be exclusively economically motivated, the students are unable to see larger
social concerns (HLA 152). Veblen sees these students as unable to think beyond their training
as business people.
Burke is also discussing Veblen's Higher Learning example when he writes about "business
men" in Permanence and Change (7). Burke's reference to Veblen is not specific, but the content
he discusses is unique to a footnote in Veblen's Higher Learning. Additionally, Burke must
have either read or been exposed to The Instinct of Workmanship and the Industrial Arts, where
Veblen first used the phrase trained incapacity in 1914. Again, Veblen was describing the
behaviors of those operating in the business community and industry, noting their failure "to appreciate
the large and general requirements of the industrial situation" (IWIA 347).
One reason Burke might have been unclear about the origins of the term is that the source of Burke's
own notion of the meaning of trained incapacity is derived from Higher Learning, where Veblen
does not use the phrase, but discusses the concept. It is likely then that after reading the Higher
Learning passage Burke connected it with the phrase that he had read earlier in Instinct
of Workmanship and the Industrial Arts.
In any case, Burke quickly leaves Veblen's narrow use of the phrase behind, expanding it to include
broad sociological and cultural implications. Veblen's singular use of the phrase trained incapacity
in The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts did not indicate that
it carried more than a concern for business, business students, and a culture that relies on them.
Likewise, his reference to the concept of trained incapacity in Higher Learning in America
also appears to restrict the term to businesses and business students. Veblen's larger body of work,
however, while not using the term trained incapacity specifically, does support a broader
application of the term. What is of value here to Burke scholars is that Burke manages to take this
one phrase and one description and understand it in terms of Veblen's larger sociological research,
drawing his own conclusions about the broad potential for the concept.
Burke's reference to chickens suffering from trained incapacity may sound absurd, but it clearly
makes the point that trained incapacity is not restricted to business students, industrial workers,
or even humans in general. Indeed, it follows on Burke's opening example of a trout that learns a
valuable distinction between "food" and "bait," examining critical distinctions at the most basic
level of meaning. Burke's use of trained incapacity not only expands Veblen's use of that term, but
provides a fecund concept that probably contributed to Burke's thinking about orientation, perspective
by incongruity, terministic screens, and other concepts that make up Burke's theory of the symbol-using
animal.
The article is one of the results of a master's thesis completed at the University Of Minnesota
Department Of Rhetoric under the advisement of Dr. Art Walzer. A related paper was presented at
the Triennial Kenneth Burke Conference in 2005. The author would like to thank the editors and reviewers
of KB Journal-particularly Clarke Rountree-for their aid in taking this manuscript from a bulky
thesis to its present state.
Note
1 That Veblen did indeed use this phrase was verified by John Gagnon, who successfully
tracked it down in The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts after
its "absence" was discussed on the Kenneth Burke discussion list.
Works Cited
Burke, Kenneth. Attitudes Toward History. 1935. Berkeley: California UP, 1984.
---. Counter-Statement. 1931. Berkeley: California UP, 1968.
---. Grammar of Motives. 1945. Berkeley: California UP, 1969.
---. Language as Symbolic Action. Berkeley: California UP, 1966.
---. Letter to David Cox. 14 Aug. 1946. (Hugh Dalziel Duncan Papers, Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale, Special Collections, Collection #17-25-F1 Special Collections/Morris Library)
http://www.lib.siu.edu/spcol/inventory/part1.htm
---. On Human Nature: A Gathering While Everything Flows 1967-1984. Ed. William Rueckert
and Angelo Bonadonna. Berkeley: California UP, 2003.
---. Permanence and Change. 1935. Berkeley: California UP, 1984.
---. Rhetoric of Motives. 1950. Berkeley: California UP, 1969.
Spindler, Michael. Veblen and Modern America: Revolutionary Iconoclast. Sterling: Pluto
Press, 2002.
Stallings, Robert. "President's Column." UnScheduled Events: International Committee on Disasters.
21.N2 (2003): 9 pars. 4 Jan. 2004
Veblen, Thorstein. The Higher Learning in America. 1918. New York: Sagamore Press, 1957.
---. The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts . New York: Macmillian,
1914.
---. "The Instinct of Workmanship and the Irksomeness of Labor." American Journal of Sociology
4 (1898).
---. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: MacMillian, 1899.
LEARNED HOPELESSNESS
There is a wealth of unsorted info and articles on this topics out there; please editors or somebody
with power start the learned helplessnes page so I can help build it up. I think I hav eproben my
point enough with this info.
Please help add this vital and missing concept via getting the references
and distinctions in the right format and contrasts with learned helplessness. I can't do this alone
as not a a wikipedia expert in references and not a psychologists. -Preceding
unsigned comment
added by
talk) 21:24, 30 November 2010 (UTC)
Besides the obvious linguistic similarity why is "learned hopelessness" related to learned
helplessness as a distinct topic worthy of its own section, much less article? In the only half-way
notable source I looked up they called "learned hopelessness" an extreme form of helplessness,
eg:
here and called "learned pessimism" a mild case of learned helplessness. It doesn't appear
to be a distinct condition but, rather, a clever play on words for variations of degrees of learned
helplessness (and uncommonly used as such.) One source I found accreditted the term to
Martin Seligman, the
source for the theory on
learned helplessness.
Indeed many of the sources I saw, poor as they were, seem to use hopelessness as a synonym for
helplessness. Perhaps
learned hopelessness
should redirect to Cybermud
(talk) 01:56, 11
December 2010 (UTC)
This man should be persecuted for crimes against nature. - Preceding
unsigned comment
added by
talk) 04:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)
I have reinserted the statement that the experiments were animal cruelty over Doc's objection.
It seems fairly obvious to me that the infliction of pain that will in no way benefit the animal
itself is clearly cruel (if it was done to a human it would clearly be considered cruel, so doing
it to an animal is obviously "animal" cruelty.) I realize not all accept that inflicting pain on
animals during testing is animal cruelty, but many do and we can have that criticism of the experiment
included in the article. If you seek citation, for starters
here is
a NYT editorial arguing to that effect.
Roy Brumback 23:14,
13 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm deleting the references to animal cruelty; they constitute a value judgment that is not
germane to the article and manifestly violate WP:NPOV. If you'd like to discuss the cruelty aspect
of the experiments, start a new subsection called "allegations of animal cruelty" and specify
what published source (i.e. not yourself, WP:NOR) makes those arguments. The most we could say
about the experiments while still being npov is the factual description, viz, that the experiments
intentionally caused pain to animals, not for their own benefit, but for purposes of research
which has produced results recognized as scientifically useful.JSoules
(talk) 22:53, 22
December 2007 (UTC)
We can certainly say that various people have criticized these experiments as animal cruelty.
talk) 10:53,
30 December 2007 (UTC)
As a compromise, I'm leaving the first reference to "animal cruelty" although I disagree with
it. However, the line in the next paragraph, "In part two of the Seligman and Maier cruelty experiment..."
is too much. If you referred to 'the cruel Seligman and Maier experiment', that would be grammatically
correct, but it was not an experiment in cruelty. They were not inflicting pain on these dogs
for giggles and grins. We innoculate human babies and I had my dog spayed. The infants and puppies
didn't ask for the pain, nor do they understand why it was inflicted upon them, but that does not
make it cruel. It is done for a purpose. Seligman's dogs did not benefit, but it was done for a purpose.
In 1967 nobody knew what the psychological outcome would be. The editorial you reference (which is
mainly concerned with food animals) says at one point "'Learned helplessness' is the psychological
term,". THIS is the experiment where that term comes from!
talk) 03:39, 17
November 2007 (UTC)
It was clearly an experiment to see what happened when you did cruel things to these dogs
to see how they reacted based on what they believed they could do about stopping the pain
that was being inflicted on them. How can you say that inflicting pain on something just to see
what happens is not cruel? Because it had a purpose? Nazi experiments had a purpose and gained
scientific knowledge, but they were still cruel. And just because you are not inflicting the pain
for amusement does not mean its not cruel. And the author of the editorial clearly lists these
specific experiments as cruel, as do several other sources, which I can cite if you wish.
talk) 04:36,
17 November 2007 (UTC)
There's quite a difference between inflicting pain just to see what would happen, and inflicting
pain as part of a controlled scientific experiment. "Cruelty" suggests that the experimenters
received pleasure from the mere infliction of harm, which I doubt is the case. They'd probably
be thrilled if there was a way to get the data without inflicting any pain. I think a better
description might be "inhumane," or perhaps even "barbaric," as these words can describe the
process of the experiments without implying any malicious intent from the experimenters.
""Cruelty" suggests that the experimenters received pleasure from the mere infliction
of harm" No it doesn't; you're confusing 'sadism' with 'cruelty'. Cruelty according to the
Collins English dictionary: "1. deliberate infliction of pain or suffering. 2. the quality
or characteristic of being cruel." 'Cruel', however, is defined as inflicting pain/suffering
without pity, so it depends whether the experimenters felt any pity for the animals, or
were just cold automata when inflicting the pain (which would be sociopathic). -Preceding
unsigned
comment added by
89.243.49.144 (talk)
18:12, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
I can't deny the potential benefits to experiments on learned helplessness but share the concerns
mentioned above when it comes to the lack of humanity of learned helplessness experiments without
consent. Animals cant, don't and wouldn't consent to experiments where they are repeatedly tortured
until and after they lose hope and feel helpless. I oppose censorship and would never support restricting
information on this subject but torturing animals should be banned regardless of potential benefits.
Torturing intelligent animals such as dogs, cats and apes should be banned at the very least, if
a blanket ban on torturing mammals or animals in general seems excessive or unrealistic at this time.
Changing the status of drugs such as hydroxyzine from prescription to over the counter could reduce
the demand for animal experiments as this antihistamine is far safer and better tolerated than any
of the antihistamines currently sold OTC. [1]
NicholaiXD (talk)
18:50, 8 March 2013 (UTC)
Helplessness in People and their Health & Social Problem and Immunization[edit]
These sections are poorly written and even seem to draw the wrong conclusions from the research
that they cite.
They're also very biased in favour of those wielding social power in cruel fashion, aiding
and abetting the blaming of the individual for causing her/his own consequences post-cruelty,
and thereby allowing those with social power to escape not only responsibility for what they've
done, but the necessary actions to repair the damage they've caused to individuals, groups, nations,
and the world. -Preceding
unsigned comment
added by
89.243.49.144
(talk) 18:17,
11 September 2009 (UTC)
Can I just say "yes" to this entire discussion, especially the comment above? The entire idea
of so-called "learned helplessness" is incredibly offensive. - Preceding
unsigned comment
added by
talk) 11:44, 7 September 2014
Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side, has refocused attention on psychologists' participation
in Bush administration torture and detainee abuse. In one chapter Mayer provides previously undisclosed
details about psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen's role in the CIA's brutal, "enhanced
interrogation" techniques. These techniques apparently drew heavily on the theory of "learned helplessness"
developed by former American Psychological Association President Martin Seligman. (Seligman's work
involved tormenting dogs with electrical shocks until they became totally unable or unwilling to
extract themselves from the painful situation. Hence the phrase "learned helplessness.").
Mayer reports and Seligman has confirmed that, in 2002, Seligman gave a three-hour lecture to the
Navy SERE school in San Diego. SERE is the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape program,
which attempts to inoculate pilots, special forces, and other potential high-value captives against
torture, should they be captured by a power that does not respect the Geneva Conventions. For reasons
that are not clear, Seligman reportedly was not invited to the presentation by the Joint Personnel
Recovery Agency (JPRA) that runs this program, but directly by the Central Intelligence Agency itself.
In responding to reports of his lecture to SERE psychologist, Dr. Seligman has confirmed the presence
of both Mitchell and Jessen at his lecture. He also apparently asked his hosts if the lecture would
be used for designing interrogation techniques. Seligman reports that they refused to answer his
inquiry on the grounds of military security. Despite the reply, Seligman concluded that his presentation
was intended solely to help SERE psychologists protect US troops. He also states unequivocally that
he is personally opposed to torture.
The American Psychological Association (APA), the organization of which Seligman was president in
1999, echoed Dr. Seligman's statement in a press release. The release denied allegations that Dr.
Seligman knowingly contributed to the design of torture techniques. The APA, in its recent statements,
neither denied nor addressed any of the other reports suggesting that the work of psychologists –
including that of Seligman, Jessen, and Mitchell – was used to torture detainees.
The only comment APA made about Jessen and Mitchell was that because they are not APA members they
are not within the purview of the APA's ethics committee.
What we do now know, from a report issued
by the Defense Department's
Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and from
documents released during
recent hearings
by the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), is that these SERE techniques, designed to ameliorate
the effects of torture, were "reverse engineered," transformed from ensuring the safety of our own
soldiers, to orchestrating the abuse of detainees in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq. These documents
reveal, further, that certain SERE psychologists shifted roles from supervising protective SERE programs
to overseeing SERE-inspired abusive interrogations. Several reporters have named Mitchell and Jessen
(former SERE psychologists under contract) as responsible for this "reverse-engineering" that was
used at secret CIA "black sites". The Senate Armed Senate Committee reported that other psychologists
played a role in the "reverse-engineering" of SERE techniques for the Department of Defense at Guantánamo
Bay and in Iraq. Senator Carl Levin, in his
introductory comments
to the hearings stated:
"a… senior CIA lawyer, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA's CounterTerrorism Center,
went to [Guantanamo] attended a meeting of GTMO staff and discussed a memo proposing the use of aggressive
interrogation techniques. That memo had been drafted by a psychologist and psychiatrist
from [Guantanamo] who, a couple of weeks earlier, had attended the training given at Fort Bragg by
instructors from the JPRA SERE school…While the memo remains classified, minutes from the meeting
where it was discussed are not. Those minutes … clearly show that the focus of the discussion was
aggressive techniques for use against detainees."
The psychologist referred to in Levin's opening remarks was APA member, Maj. John Leso, whose recommendations
at that meeting included "sleep deprivation, withholding food, isolation, loss of time…[to] foster
dependence and compliance". Also reported in the hearings was that psychologist Col. Morgan Banks
had
provided training in abusive SERE techniques to Guantánamo interrogators. Col. Banks, while not
an APA member, was appointed to the APA's
Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) task force on interrogations. APA has yet to
comment upon the startling revelations of psychologist complicity from these committee hearings.
According to Maye em>The Dark Side, and other reporters over the past three years, in the weeks
following Seligman's lecture, Mitchell made liberal use of the "learned helplessness" paradigm in
the harsh tactics he designed to interrogate prisoners held by the CIA. One prisoner was repeatedly
locked in a fetal position; in a cage too tiny for him to do anything, other than to lie still in
a fetal position. The cage was evidently designed not only to restrict movement, but also to make
breathing difficult. In periods where the detainee was outside of the cage, the torture mechanism
always remained in plain view so the detainee was constantly aware of his pending return to the device.
Another detainee was suspended on his toes with his wrists manacled above his head. This detainee,
however, had a prosthesis that agents removed so that he either balanced on one foot for hours on
end or hung suspended from his wrists.
Most detainees were subjected to long periods of isolation,
often in total darkness, and often while naked. Human contact in these periods was minimized. In
one case, the only human contact for a detainee occurred from a single daily visit when a masked
man would show up to state, "You know what I want," and then disappear.
Based on these media reports and government documents, it seems likely that Dr. Seligman's work on
"learned helplessness" was used to aid the development of these torture techniques following his
presentation at the SERE school.
APA's response to the Seligman matter is perplexing. If Dr. Seligman's
report is accurate, and he was kept from knowing how the CIA would be using his material because
he did not have security clearance, Seligman was evidently duped. At a minimum, one would hope the
APA would be concerned enough about this deception to sound a cautionary alarm against psychologists'
naive engagement with government programs potentially involved in interrogation abuses.
Instead, the APA has put extraordinary effort into maintaining and expanding opportunities for psychologists
to serve US intelligence and security institutions. As the APA's Science Policy Insider News
(SPIN) proudly announced in January 2005, "Since 9/11 psychologists have searched for opportunities
to contribute to the nation's counter terrorism and homeland security agenda."
These efforts included cosponsoring a
conference with the CIA to investigate
the efficacy of enhanced interrogation techniques, including the use of drugs and sensory bombardment.
Among the reported organizers of that conference was APA member Kirk Hubbard, Chief of the Research
& Analysis Branch, Operational Assessment Division of the CIA. Hubbard recruited the "operational
expertise" for that conference. Among the attendees to this "by-invitation-only" conference were
Mitchell and Jessen. (Hubbard also helped organize the event at which Seligman spoke and to which
Mitchell and Jessen were invited.)
In addition, the APA co-sponsored a conference with the FBI during which it was suggested that therapists
report to law-enforcement officials information obtained during therapy sessions regarding "national
security risk." And just this past June, APA's efforts included
lobbying for the retention of
"invaluable behavioral science programs within DoD's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) as
it reorganizes and loses personnel strength." For those who are not familiar
with this issue, the CIFA program was closed down because of numerous scandals, including: misuse
of national security letters to gain
access to private citizen's financial information without warrants, the resignation of a Congressman
accused of accepting bribes in exchange for CIFA contracts, and, according to the
New York Times, the collection of a wide-reaching domestic "database that included information
about antiwar protests planned at churches, schools and Quaker meeting halls." The CIFA psychology
directorate, although a top secret operation, was known for its
risk assessments of Guantánamo detainees, including feeding questions to interrogators.
The
issues of psychologist involvement in "national security" efforts are complex. Although there may
be appropriate and ethically acceptable ways for psychologists to participate in such activities,
even a cursory historical awareness indicates that such involvement is often ethically problematic.
Whether for good or for ill, the CIA has a long record of tapping academic scientists as witting
and unwitting consultants and researchers, and of providing protection through cover stories and
secrecy. For example, the 1977 Senate investigation of the CIA Behavioral Modification Project (called
MKULTRA) disclosed that the CIA had contracted with researchers at over 80 universities, hospitals,
and other research-based institutions through a front funding agency. In the Senate hearing, the
Director of Central Intelligence stated: "I believe we all owe a moral obligation to these researchers
and institutions to protect them from any unjustified embarrassment or damage to their reputations
which revelations of their identities might bring."[i]
But these are not just ploys of the past. Recently, Dr. Belinda Canton, a long-time CIA intelligence
manager and a member of the 2005 President's Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United
States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, recommended opportunistic use of scientists as
an approach to management of uncertainty: "Identify academics and scientists who may have
insights" and note where "opportunities exist to exploit scientific cadre."[ii]
This history, along with the current, well-documented authorizations for detainee abuse, should have
provided sufficient warning to APA leaders and to individual psychologists about the moral risks
in aiding the national security apparatus, especially under the present U.S. administration. But
the APA has not taken the lead in helping psychologists confront these dangerous ethical situations.
To the contrary, the APA has been insensitive to the use of psychological techniques in torture and
to the role of psychologists in aiding that torture. This insensitivity itself has shocked many psychologists
here and abroad.
In 2006, Time magazine released the interrogation log of Guantanamo detainee
063, Mohammed al-Qahtani. This log demonstrated that al-Qahtani had been systematically tortured
for six weeks in late 2002 and 2003. The log also alleged that psychologist and APA member Maj. John
Leso was present at least several times during these episodes. The APA said nothing about this alleged
participation of an APA member in documented torture. It is at least 23 months since ethics complaints
were filed against Dr. Leso and still the APA has remained silent.
In May 2007, the Defense Department declassified the Office of Inspector General report, documenting
the role of SERE psychologists in training military and CIA personnel in techniques of abuse that
"violated the Geneva Conventions." The APA responded with silence. When we inquired about the APA's
reaction, we were told that the organization needed time to "carefully study" the report. It has
been 14 months, and to date no APA leader has commented upon the Report.
The APA leadership has failed psychologists and failed the profession of psychology. It has also
failed the country. When ethical guidance was required, the APA put its ethical authority in the
hands of those involved in the questionable practices that needed investigation. When the evidence
became overwhelming that psychologists helped design, implement, and standardize a U.S. torture regime,
the APA remained silent. When it was reported that the use of psychological paradigms such as 'learned
helplessness' have guided psychologists' manipulation of detainee conditions, the APA continues to
ignore or discount these reports. They instead assert that psychologists presence' at CIA black sites
and detention camps "assures safety." When it became clear that the APA should offer a strong voice
and a clear policy prohibiting psychologists' participation in operations that systematically violate
the Geneva conventions and international law, the APA leadership raised concern that a "restraint
of trade" lawsuit might be brought against them. These arguments, of course, do not pass the red
face test in any discerning forum of world opinion.
These are not our values. The APA leadership has shamed us and our profession with its strategic
helplessness. It is time for the APA to clarify that psychologists may not ethically support in any
way abusive or coercive interrogation tactics in any settings. It is also time to identify and hold
publicly responsible the individual psychologists who have created the institution that the APA has
now become. It is time to hold these psychologists accountable for developing the widespread and
systematic moral failures in the organization's current infrastructure. Indeed, if we do not do this,
then we, too, are complicit with torture.
References
[i] U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence and Subcommittee on Health
and Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources. (1977) Project MKULTRA: the CIA's
program of research in behavioral modification. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington,
DC. Pp. 7, 12-13, 123 & 148-149.
[ii] [Canton, Belinda. (2008). The active management of uncertainty. International Journal
of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, 21 (3): 487-518.]
For years, the varied mental health professions in the United States have been fighting turf wars.
Psychiatrists tried to keep psychologists from being able to conduct therapy or, more recently, from
prescribing psychotropic medications. Psychologists fought for rights to conduct these treatments.
Psychologists, in turn, fought the attempts of their Masters-level colleagues for professional recognition.
Social workers, mental health counselors, and psychoanalysts each fight for recognition against opposition
from others.
These battles are fought out through traditional legislative lobbying and pressure. They are,
however, also fought through showing one group's value in furthering the interests of the powerful
and through organized representatives of each profession maintaining access to non-legislative corridors
of power. Thus, keeping in favor with the powerful and not alienating them can be a central aspect
of a profession's strategy of advancement.
In this decades-long struggle, the profession of psychology has tried to distinguish itself in
various ways. One of these ways is through emphasizing its scientific character. Thus, representatives
of organized psychology have been at pains to demonstrate the value of the "science of psychology"
to the powerful in industry and in government, including the military and the national security establishment.
In addition, psychology's value to the education establishment has been emphasized, as has its value
in industrial relations and marketing. World War II provided many opportunities for psychology to
demonstrate its value to the war effort including through the screening of soldiers, the development
of propaganda techniques to motivate the home front and to undermine enemy morale, the use of human
factors engineering to improve airplanes, and the treatment of psychological casualties from the
war.
The post-World War II development of a militarized national security state provided many further
opportunities for psychology to garner attention to its contributions to the art of propaganda and
the development of useable high-tech weapons through human factors engineering, among numerous others.
One particularly disturbing area where psychologists were attempting to demonstrate their value
was in the development of sophisticated techniques of interrogation that could obtain information
from unwilling captives through the application of behavior modification techniques based on psychological
science. Historian Alfred W. McCoy has shed light in this area in his recent book
A Question
of Torture and in numerous articles and interviews. He documents the decades-long CIA effort
to utilized psychological expertise to develop forms of torture that could break down the personality
of detainees, rendering them, it was hoped, incapable of withholding desired information. Many of
these technique were utilized during the Vietnam conflict and in the various brutal U.S.-supported
counterinsurgency campaigns in Latin American in the 1970s and 1980s.
Such applications of psychological knowledge posed thorny issues for organized psychology, always
on the lookout for new ways of demonstrating psychology's value to the powerful. While their morally
objectionable quality made direct endorsement impossible, to straightforwardly condemn these applications
would run the risk of alienating precisely those decision-makers who might be impressed with the
potential contributions of psychology as a science and as a profession. Thus, silence about such
abuses of psychology is what one would expect from the American Psychological Association, the country's
largest representative of organized psychology and silence is what was observed.
The Global War on Terror, launched after 9-11, provided yet another opportunity to experiment
with these behavioral science-based torture techniques. The establishment of a detention center at
Guantánamo for those detained during the Afghanistan war and other battles in the "Global War on
Terrorism" provided a particularly favorable environment. A total institution was created who inmates,
the detainees, have, at least in the administration's opinion, absolutely no rights and where all
aspects of their daily life can be monitored and controlled. The administration's legal doctrine
emphasized that essentially anything short of direct murder was legally acceptable.
Various "behavioral scientists" from psychology and psychiatry were brought in to help the development
of this total institution devoted to complete destruction of the personality. In 2005 it was revealed
by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the New York Times that mental health professionals
were serving as consultants on Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, BSCT (colloquially referred
to as "biscuit" teams) at Guantánamo, designed to advise interrogators. These teams consult in every
aspect of interrogation. As the New Yorker's Jane Mayer told Democracy Now!, one psychiatrist determined
that a particular inmate would be allowed seven toilet paper squares a day, while another inmate
who was afraid of the dark was deliberately kept almost totally in the dark. Another consultant behavioral
scientist, psychologist James Mitchell, recommended that interrogators treat a detainee in such a
way as to generate a form of helplessness known as "learned helplessness."
Authors M. Gregg Bloche and Jonathan H. Marks noted in their 2005 NEJM article that interrogations
at Guantánamo are often designed to increase stress by means verging on, or even constituting torture:
"Military interrogators at Guantánamo Bay have used aggressive counter-resistance measures
in systematic fashion to pressure detainees to cooperate. These measures have reportedly included
sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation, painful body positions, feigned suffocation, and beatings.
Other stress-inducing tactics have allegedly included sexual provocation and displays of contempt
for Islamic symbols."
They go on to note that:
"Since late 2002, psychiatrists and psychologists have been part of a strategy that employs
extreme stress, combined with behavior-shaping rewards, to extract actionable intelligence from
resistant captives."
Recently, the United Nations Committee against Torture went further and stated that "detaining
persons indefinitely without charge, constitutes per se a violation of the Convention" Against Torture.
Thus, according to this official body, the existence of Guantánamo in its present form is itself
illegal. They went on to join the many organizations and institutions, including most recently, the
European Parliament, to call for Guantánamo's closing.
[More information on the interrogation techniques used by American forces at Guantánamo and elsewhere,
as well as on their effects on the psychological well-being of those subjected to them, can be found
in the Physicians for Human Rights report:
Break Them
Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces.]
Even leaving aside the general issue of whether interrogations of the kind conducted at Guantánamo
are ever morally acceptable, the participation of mental health professionals in them is potentially
in conflict with the ethics codes governing the psychiatric and psychological professions, those
of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. The Abu Ghraib
scandal with its graphic photographic evidence shone a bright spotlight on the abuses that occurred
in American detention facilities in this Global War, and after the horrors occurring at Guantánamo
and the role of mental health professionals in them were widely reported on, silence by the psychological
Association became more difficult to maintain. Pressure mounted for both the Psychological and Psychiatric
Associations to do something about psychologists and psychiatrists aiding the torturous interrogations
occurring at Guantánamo.
After an extended period of discussion and debate, on May 22, 2006, the American Psychiatric Association
endorsed a policy statement that unambiguously stated that under no circumstances should psychiatrists
take part in interrogations, at Guantánamo or elsewhere. The crucial section states:
"No psychiatrist should participate directly in the interrogation of persons held in custody
by military or civilian investigative or law enforcement authorities, whether in the United States
or elsewhere. Direct participation includes being present in the interrogation room, asking or
suggesting questions, or advising authorities on the use of specific techniques of interrogation
with particular detainees."
The American Psychological Association, in contrast, has adamantly refused to endorse any such
statement, saying only that psychologists should behave ethically. Initially, the organization did
what organizations often do when embroiled in unwanted controversy: they appointed a Task Force.
The Task Force was given a broad mandate to look into what position the Association should take regarding
psychologist involvement in national security interrogations in general. This mandate may have had
the effect of diluting the Task Force's focus on the abuse at Guantánamo and psychologists' involvement
in them.
This Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security included members of
the Peace Psychology division of the Association, but it also included psychologists engaged in national
security and military activities. (One source claims that four members, out of about eight, were
connected to the military. Another source believe a smaller number of members had military or national
security connections. A third source, a published article by an Association Division President, states
that 6 of 10 members "had ties to the Department of Defense."
Oddly, the membership of the Task Force was kept private, "because of concerns expressed about
their personal safety," as it was explained by a former member who refused to elaborate further.
However, it has been established that the Task Force included Colonel Louie (Morgan) Banks, identified
by Jane Mayer in the July 7, 2005 New Yorker as a psychologist involved the Pentagon's Survival,
Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program which trains military personnel considered likely
to be captured in resisting extreme abuse by their captors. Strangely, for one serving on a policy-recommending
body, Col. Banks is not even a member of the Association. Frank Summers, an activist in attempts
to change Association policy, succinctly stated the problem with Banks being on the Task Force when
he recently wrote in an email "Isn't putting him on the TF equivalent to Cheney being in charge of
energy policy? " In addition to Banks, some accounts state that at least one other Task Force member
had connections to Guantánamo, but I have been unable to get unambiguous confirmation of this.
Like the membership and its process of appointment, information about the deliberations of the
Task Force was also kept private; members agreed to let the Task Force's report stand on its own
and not to discuss its deliberations. The report does indicate that agreement was not reached on
several issues. Other accounts indicate that a weak initial draft was strengthened by pressure from
unhappy Association members.
In June, 2005 this Task Force issued its final report. In a highly unusual procedure, the Association's
Board of Directors immediately formally adopted the report without the usual discussion and approval
by the broader-based Council of Representatives. This report explicitly stated that it is ethical
for psychologists to engage in national security interrogations:
"It is consistent with the APA Ethics Code for psychologists to serve in consultative roles
to interrogation and information-gathering processes for national security-related purposes."
While the report reiterated that psychologists should not be involved in any way in "torture or
other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," the Task Force stated that it was not charged to conduct
any type of investigation, and thus formed no opinion as to whether any unethical behaviors had occurred.
The Task Force further concluded that no modifications to the Association's Ethics Code were required
to deal with the issues of psychologists serving in the various national security roles. Strangely,
given the origins of the task force in the controversy about abuse (aka torture) at Guantánamo, the
report makes no mention of that or any other specific facility.
It appears that the non-military well-meaning members of the Task Force were outmaneuvered by
APA officials who gave it such a wide charge involving all types of national security roles that
members did not dare say that psychologists should abstain completely from involvement in national
security related activities. Once put in this position, the members ended up stating platitudes akin
to the reassurances from the U.S. government that the United States would never engage in torture.
Like the Bush administration, the APA leadership has refused to define "torture or other cruel, inhuman,
or degrading treatment," giving the Task Force's edicts no force to actually shape policy.
At a late stage in the Task Force's existence, after their report was issued, as they were to
turn to clarifying some details in an Ethics Casebook entry, one of the non-military members, Mike
Wessells resigned, stating :
"continuing work with the Task Force tacitly legitimates the wider silence and inaction of
the APA on the crucial issues at hand. At the highest levels, the APA has not made a strong, concerted,
comprehensive, public and internal response of the kind warranted by the severe human rights violations
at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay."
Wessells explained that he was not complaining directly about the Task Force, which:
"had a very limited mandate and was not structured in a manner that would provide the kind
of comprehensive response or representative process needed."
Needed, rather, was:
"a strong, proactive, comprehensive response affirming our professional commitment to human
well-being and sounding a ringing condemnation of psychologists' participation not only in torture
but in all forms of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees, including the use or
support of tactics such as sleep deprivation."
Of course, such a "strong, proactive, comprehensive response" has never come from the Association.
As a further indication that the Task Force report did not mean that the Association was actually
interested in doing anything real about psychologists' participation in torture, and as a sign of
support for George Bush's National Security State, then APA President Ronald F. Levant traveled to
Guantánamo in October, 2005. The Press Release announcing the trip indicated how far the Association
was willing to go to support the camp that Amnesty International calls "the gulag of our time." It
made clear that the Association leadership never intended to put a stop to psychologists' involvement
in Guantánamo. To the contrary, President Levant was quoted as saying:
"'I accepted this offer to visit Guantánamo because I saw the invitation as an important opportunity
to continue to provide our expertise and guidance for how psychologists can play an appropriate
and ethical role in national security investigations. Our goals are to ensure that psychologists
add value and safeguards to such investigations and that they are done in an ethical and effective
manner that protects the safety of all involved.'"
Eighteen months after the Abu Ghraib scandal brought the horrors occurring in American detention
facilities to the world's attention, after even the mainstream press had numerous articles about
how Gen. Miller of Guantánamo brought his special breed of brutality to Iraq with recommendations
to "Gitmoize" Abu Ghraib, the Association Press Release contained no acknowledgement that anything
out of the ordinary was going on at Guantánamo. As President Levant gushed:
"'This trip gave me an opportunity to ask questions and observe a brief snapshot of the Guantánamo
facility first hand,' Levant stated. 'As APA's work in studying the issues presented by our country's
national security needs continues, this trip was another opportunity for the Association to inform
and advise the process.'"
The Association's campaign to defend Guantánamo and psychologists' participation there continued
under the next Association President, Gerald Koocher. One month after assuming office, President
Koocher devoted his monthly Presidential column in the Association's APA Monitor to defending the
organization and its refusal to do anything in response to the horrors well-documented as occurring
at Guantánamo. In Orwellian fashion, he entitled his defense of inaction in the face of barbarity:
"Speaking against torture." In this column he attacked Association critics while trying to change
the subject:
"A number of opportunistic commentators masquerading as scholars have continued to report on
alleged abuses by mental health professionals. However, when solicited in person to provide APA
with names and circumstances in support of such claims, no data have been forthcoming from these
same critics and no APA members have been linked to unprofessional behaviors. The traditional
journalistic dictum of reporting who, what, where and when seems notably absent."
Thus, the ethical policy issue of participation of psychologists in the illegal activities at
Guantánamo was changed to one of personal culpability. Could it be proven that a given named psychologist
engaged in a particular proscribed behavior. Through this ruse the Association tried to negate all
press, United Nations, and NGO criticism. In the absence of an explicit ethics complaint against
an individual, the Association would do nothing. As the Association officials knew well, the names
of most psychologists offering their "services" at Guantánamo, as well as details on what those services
are is a closely guarded secret.
In this same article President Koocher then used a common technique of embattled leaders as he
implicitly attempted to rally the psychologist community against the hated other, the psychiatrists:
"Many of our psychiatric colleagues have offered interpretive criticism, although their professional
association has yet to agree on an official position. One proposed draft before the psychiatric
association includes an itemization of specific prohibited tactics they deem as torture. When
carefully scrutinized, their draft bears a remarkable resemblance to our position, although no
journalist has yet commented on this point. Likewise, no journalistincluding those critical of
the PENS reporthas commented upon an interesting irony: Despite psychiatrists' opposition to
prescription privileges for psychologists, the psychiatric association's list of forbidden coercive
techniques omits any mention of the use of drugs, implicitly allowing such practices."
In a recent debate with critics, Koocher utilized yet another defense that seems destined for
greater use now that pressure is growing on the Association to act. He made a distinction between
those psychologists providing health services to detainees, who, he claimed, were forbidden from
using information thus gained to aid interrogators, and those behavioral scientist consultants who
are not there to tend to detainees and are therefore free to aid interrogation. However, even Koocher
had to admit that all psychologists are bound by the principle of "do no harm." He, of course, failed
to explain how participation in the workings of an institution designed to destroy the personalities
of those incarcerated there could ever meet the "do no harm" principle."
The campaign of the American Psychological Association to deflect criticism of psychologists'
involvement at Guantánamo has been unrelenting. Concerned members pressed for an independent investigation
to clarify what psychologists actually did at Guantánamo, but the Association refused. Members pushed
for a change to the ethics code stating that psychologists did not follow laws or orders when to
do so would violate basic human rights, but were met with the argument that such a statement could
be used against psychologist practitioners in lawsuits. Critics attempted to have the Association
explicitly state that international law should be consulted in addition to United States law on such
issues as the definitions of human rights and their violation or the definition of torture and inhuman
behavior; they failed. The Association leadership announced that they would develop an ethics casebook
entry clarifying acceptable and unacceptable behavior in psychologist-assisted interrogations, but
have so far not followed through.
There matters stood when the June 7, 2006, New York Times brought word that the Association's
position was carefully noted by the Pentagon, and that, from now on, the military would prefer psychologists
over psychiatrists:
"Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, told reporters
that the new policy favoring the use of psychologists over psychiatrists was a recognition of
differing positions taken by their respective professional groups.
The military had been using psychiatrists and psychologists alike on behavioral science consultation
teams, called 'biscuit' teams because of the acronym, to advise interrogators on how best to obtain
information from prisoners.
But Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, recent past president of the American Psychiatric Association, noted
in an interview that the group adopted a policy in May unequivocally stating that its members should
not be part of the teams.
The counterpart group for psychologists, the American Psychological Association, has endorsed
a different policy. It said last July that its members serving as consultants to interrogations involving
national security should be 'mindful of factors unique to these roles and contexts that require special
ethical consideration.'"
For many activist psychologists in the Association who had patiently played the organization's
game of Task Force, Board discussion, input here, input there, while no substantive change in Association
policy occurred, this news was the proverbial straw that broke the camels back. Members who had been
urging caution and a one-step-at-a-time approach for months suddenly found themselves urging withholding
dues. Within days, an email campaign to the Association's President Koocher was launched and 300
emails were sent in 48 hours. Koocher responded with derision and condescension, while explicitly
endorsing psychologists' duty to aid the National Security State. One version of the letter he sent:
"You are dead wrong.
The APA has not been silent.
The APA Board of Directors understands and appreciates that its members have strong opinions
about psychologists' involvement in interrogations, and that their opinions are not uniform. Please
recognize that interrogation does not equate to torture and that many civilian and military contexts
exist in which psychologists ethically participate in information gathering in the public interest
without harming anyone or violating our ethical code. Please also examine press reports with healthy
skepticism and seek facts, rather than reflexively engaging in letter-writing campaigns predicated
on inadequate access to the data.
The Board has adopted as APA policy a Task Force Report, which unequivocally prohibits psychologists
from engaging in, participating, or countenancing torture or other cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment. As the basis for its position, the Task Force looked first to Principle A in the Ethical
Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, "Do No Harm," and then to Principle B, which
addresses psychologists' responsibilities to society. Both ethical responsibilities are central
to the profession of psychology. By virtue of Principle A, psychologists do no harm. By virtue
of Principle B, psychologists use their expertise in, and understanding of, human behavior to
aid in the prevention of harm.
In both domestic and national security-related contexts, these ethical principles converge
as psychologists are mandated to take affirmative steps to prevent harm to individuals being questioned
and, at the same time, to assist in eliciting reliable information that may prevent harm to others.
It is critical to note that in addressing these issues through a Task Force report, the American
Psychological Association was responding to psychologists in national security settings who had
approached APA seeking guidance in the most ethical course of action. The Board views as its responsibility
supporting our colleagues and members who are striving to do the right thing. The Board encourages
its members who have different points of view on this or any issue to make their positions known,
and welcomes the opportunity for further discussion of this issue at the August Council meeting."
Ignoring the "you are dead wrong," an introduction that was even more tasteless when used just
a few days after the suicide of three hopeless inmates in the Guantánamo hell-hole, the note made
clear to wavering members that the Association leadership intends to continue business as usual,
that no action on the moral challenge of our time will come unless the members force it.
At this moment leadership in opposition was taken by the Social Justice section (Section 9) of
the Division of Psychoanalysis (Division 9; truth in packaging warning: I'm a member of this Section).
Within hours of Section members receiving the Koocher email, members who had been willing to work
within the Association structure decided that as one member put it in an email on the Section's listserv,
"It's time for us to accept . [the] view that the APA leadership is fully participatory in the problem
of using obfuscation and propaganda to justify current military aims and methods."
Quickly Section members to launch a petition drive demanding a change in Association policy. A
Petition was quickly written and launched on June 15th [at
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/483607021]
and attempts began to spread the word to members throughout the diverse Association. [Another truth
in packaging warning: I am one of the authors of the petition and am listed as its sponsor.]
In the weeks since then a range of organizations, including the Divisions of Social Justice of
various Association divisions and others outside the Association, including Physicians for Human
Rights and the Ignacio Martín-Baró Fund have initiated discussions on a coordinated strategy to change
Association policy. Initial agreement was obtained on supporting attempts to have the Association,
at its August convention, reiterate its statements that members should not participate in torture
or abusive interrogations. There seems to be nothing in this statement that would be opposed by the
Association leadership, who likely will claim this is already Association policy. The question remains
open whether this group will go further and try and get the Association to state that members may
not participate in interrogations of detainees from the Global War on Terrorism in any capacity and
under any circumstances. It seems unlikely that this group will take the additional step of demanding
the Association call for the closing of Guantánamo and similar institutions.
I suspect that changing Association policy will require modification of the tactics thus far used
by critics. To date, most objections from within the Association have been framed fairly narrowly
in terms of the details of the ethics code and what it says, or should say, about psychologist's
participation in coercive interrogations. This approach gets one into the realm of legal reasoning
and detailed interpretation of texts. As hundreds of years of legal argument demonstrated, such reasoning
can lead to many different conclusions, depending on where the reasoner is trying to go. And Association
officials have demonstrated their ability, even their genius, to bend moral reasoning to support
their position that psychologists' have a right, perhaps even a duty, to serve at Guantánamo and
similar facilities. [See, for example, the decidedly different, but both well-presented arguments
by President Koocher in a
Democracy Now!
interview on June 16: , and by Association Director of Ethics Stephen Behnke, posted at around the
same time: http://www.apa.org/releases/PENSfinal_061606.pdf]
While critics need to rebut these detailed arguments, the battle will not be won at that level, just
as major social changes are seldom decisively won in court without accompanying social changes occurring
outside the courtroom.
Association members critical of current policy have been highly resistant to openly denouncing
Guantánamo for the concentration camp that it is. They have by and large so far not joined in any
organized fashion those, such as the U.N. Committee Against Torture, who state clearly that a total
institution imprisoning people "indefinitely without charge", where the inmates have no rights, no
protections, virtually no ability to control any aspect of their environment, is itself torture.
Psychologists, indeed moral human beings, simply have no role in such an institution. To be there
in any capacity is to do harm. The arguments so far have been akin to a Nazi-era medical society
objecting solely to doctors serving in the death camps, and not to the existence of the death camps
themselves. I believe that this is a mistake.
The participation of psychologists at Guantánamo is not simply a professional issue. It is a major
moral challenge for the very concept of using knowledge for good and not for evil. If this participation
continues, psychology will have lost its soul, just as our entire country is in danger of loosing
its soul as we turn away from these evils being committed in our name.
As Association members, and non-members, develop a more aggressive approach to changing Association
policy, they should keep in mind this history. It makes clear that the commitment of Association
leaders to demonstrating the value of psychology through furthering some of the most sordid aspects
of the national security state is deep and long-standing. The last couple of days have brought further
evidence of the close ties between the Association and the military; critics have learned that only
one only one person was invited to address the August Association convention on the Guantánamo issue,
General Kiley, the Surgeon General of the army who drafted the report that recommends using only
psychologists for interrogations. Geberal Kiley will only respond to questions submitted in advance.
Given the close ties between the psychological Association and the military, it clear Association
that will not be changed easily. Change will require extended pressure, using a wide range of tools,
in order to impact such a deep seated policy. It remains to be seen if the activist members will
be able to maintain the energy and passion aroused by recent news and events, or whether they will
again lapse into that state of "learned helplessness" that Association behavior appears designed
to induce.
STEPHEN SOLDZ, a researcher and psychoanalyst, is Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation,
and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. He is a member of Roslindale
Neighbors for Peace and Justice and founder of Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice. He maintains
the Iraq Occupation and Resistance
Report web page. He can be reached at: [email protected].
The dogs wouldn't jump. All they had to do to avoid electric shocks was leap over a small barrier,
but there they sat in boxes in a lab at the University of Pennsylvania, passive and whining.
They had previously been given a series of mild shocks and learned they could do nothing to stop
them. Now, they had given up trying. In the words of the scientists, they had "learned helplessness."
The
release of
a Senate report on interrogation techniques used by the
Central Intelligence Agency has revived interest in that study, one of the most classic experiments
in modern psychology. It and others like it, performed in the 1960s, became the basis for an influential
theory about
depression and informed the development of effective talk therapies.
Nearly a half-century later, a pair of military psychologists became convinced that the theory
provided a basis for brutal interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, that were supposed
to eliminate detainees' "sense of control and predictability" and induce "a desired level of helplessness,"
the Senate report said. The architects of the C.I.A.'s interrogation program have been identified
as James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.
A History of the C.I.A.'s Secret Interrogation Program
The Central Intelligence Agency used waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other techniques on
dozens of the men it detained in secret prisons between 2002 and 2008.
OPEN Graphic
"My impression is that they misread the theory," said Dr. Charles A. Morgan III, a psychiatrist
at the University of New Haven who met Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Jessen while studying the effects of
stress on American troops. "They're not really scientists."
One of the researchers who conducted the initial studies on dogs, the prominent psychologist Martin
E. P. Seligman, said he was "grieved and horrified" that his work was cited to justify the abusive
interrogations.
It is not the first time that academic research has been used for brutal interrogations, experts
said. After the Second World War, the intelligence community began to study methods of interrogation,
often financing outside psychiatrists and psychologists.
"A lot of the early work came out of psychoanalysis," or Freudian thinking, said Steven Reisner,
a psychologist in New York and co-founder of the
Coalition for an Ethical Psychology,
which opposes the profession's participation in coercive interrogations. "Studies of sensory deprivation
and sleep deprivation induced a
psychosis, in which people lost control of what they said and what they thought." At that point
they might begin to cooperate - or so the theory went, Mr. Reisner said.
One interrogation guide derived in part from such research, the C.I.A.'s "Human
Resource Exploitation Training Manual," set forth the so-called D.D.D method of interrogation,
for Debility, Dependency and Dread. "The purpose of all coercive techniques is to induce psychological
regression in the subject by bringing a superior outside force to bear on his will to resist," the
manual reads.
Some of the techniques in the manual - isolation, sleep deprivation, threats - were also used
in the post-9/11 interrogations and are cited by the Senate report. "It's very similar to what we're
hearing about now, and it's astounding that the agency didn't use the research it had already paid
for," said Stephen Soldz of the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, referring to D.D.D. He
is an outspoken critic of psychologists' participation in interrogations.
The American Psychological Association, divided
and convulsed by the revelations of members' participation in the interrogation program, has hired
an independent auditor to investigate ties between the association and the intelligence agency. Debates
over psychologists' role at the base in Guantánamo Bay and so-called black sites have raged for years
within the association.
The two architects of the C.I.A. interrogations were convinced that they would uncover intelligence
that would save lives, their colleagues have told reporters, and that their methods were justified
by the events of 9/11 and afterward.
So, too, were psychologists within the agency. In an article titled "Psychologists
and Interrogation: What's Torture Got to Do With It?" Kirk M. Hubbard, a psychologist formerly
with the C.I.A., wrote, justifying the methods, "We no longer live in a world where people agree
on what is ethical or even acceptable, and where concern for other humans transcends familial ties.
When adolescents carry bombs on their bodies and plan suicides that will kill others, we know that
shared values no longer exist."
The Senate report concludes that the brutal techniques
did not add valuable information to what had been already obtained through less coercive means.
Critics of the report, in Congress and in the C.I.A., say the conclusions do not tell the full story.
Academic research on interrogation - whether it is "learned helplessness" or other methods - cannot
be tested in an ethical way in the real world, and provides little guidance for effective questioning,
experts say.
Severe stress disrupts people's thinking, and fast. Dr. Morgan recently studied American troops'
levels of compliance and suggestibility after the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE)
course, a training exercise that includes what he calls a "mini-exposure" to many of the interrogation
techniques the C.I.A. was using, including confinement and sleep deprivation. The result: a subset
became more compliant, but the vast majority also became more suggestible when given misinformation.
"Essentially you're making people less reliable and more stupid," he said. "You can see
the problem."
Some experienced interrogators emphasize the value of establishing rapport with a detainee, and
obtaining information on the basis of trust, rather than cruelty. "As both an interrogator and someone
who has served in senior intelligence positions, I would not trust any information obtained through
the employment of D.D.D. or learned helplessness," said Steven M. Kleinman, an interrogator who worked
in Iraq and has been critical of the C.I.A.'s program.
Correction: December 15, 2014
An article on Thursday about psychology experiments that architects of the Central Intelligence
Agency's interrogation program drew on as the basis for brutal techniques misstated the name of an
association of psychologists. It is The American Psychological Association (not Psychology). And
the article misstated the middle initial of a psychologist who conducted early studies on "learned
helplessness" in dogs. He is Martin E. P. Seligman, not Martin J.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, said
in a statement on Wednesday that while he welcomed the release of the Senate report, he hoped it
would lead to accountability of those who ordered, enabled, or carried out torture. "The convention
lets no one off the hook - neither the torturers themselves, nor the policy-makers, nor the public
officials who define the policy or give the orders."
Second, can the International Criminal Court prosecute these cases?
In principle, yes, though the prospects of a prosecution, experts say, are exceedingly slim and
a political hot potato. Even though the United States has not signed the treaty that created the
tribunal, the court can prosecute the most serious crimes in countries that have signed it, like
Afghanistan, where some of the torture was said to have occurred.
Indeed, in early December, the court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the first time confirmed
that she was "assessing available information" on the American military's "enhanced interrogation
techniques."
"While continuing to assess the seriousness and reliability of such allegations, the office is
analyzing the relevance and genuineness of national proceedings by the competent national authorities
for the alleged conduct described above as well as the gravity of the alleged crimes," the prosecutor
said in a report summarizing the work of her office.
Graphic: A History of the C.I.A.'s Secret Interrogation Program
Poland, long suspected of having an American-run "black site" for terror suspects, also falls
under the court's jurisdiction. A former Polish president, Aleksander Kwasniewski, on Wednesday confirmed
the existence of the secret prison on his country's territory, saying that it was part of an effort
to build Polish-American trust.
Jordan J. Paust, professor of international law at the University of Houston, said that any of
the 122 countries that have submitted themselves to the authority of the I.C.C. could arrest a torture
suspect and then turn him or her over to The Hague-based tribunal. The prospect of a prosecution
overseas, he said, could be even more likely, because of the Obama administration's reluctance to
prosecute, which he called a major disappointment.
But for Ms. Bensouda, who has had enormous difficulty even gaining custody of some of her most
high-profile defendants, let alone winning convictions, the prospect of going after Americans could
prove especially tricky. The court is still new, and fragile, said one of her former colleagues,
Alex Whiting, and picking a fight with the United States could be "damaging" to the court's standing
in the world.
"On the other hand the legitimacy of the court depends on it reaching a point where it treats
countries alike," said Mr. Whiting, who was the prosecution coordinator in The Hague from 2010 until
last year and now teaches law at Harvard University. "The court is in a very difficult position on
this."
Besides, trying a case that involves torture, especially in a place like Afghanistan, is likely
to be difficult, he and others said, especially if the United States refuses to cooperate in furnishing
evidence of who did what and who gave orders. A case against the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta,
fell apart, Ms. Bensouda said, because she could not muster sufficient evidence to proceed.
The third and final question: Can a C.I.A. officer suspected of torture - or even the former C.I.A.
boss, Michael V. Hayden - be arrested while visiting Europe, under universal jurisdiction laws? Again,
in principle yes, though diplomatically, that seems unlikely anytime soon. Several countries have
laws on the books that allow them to try those accused of human rights abuses. Spain in 1998 sought
to prosecute the former Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, on these grounds.
Diane Orentlicher, a law professor at American University, said that countries that pursued cross-border
justice most aggressively have since limited the reach of their laws. "That said, efforts to invoke
universal jurisdiction or to persuade states where torture occurred to prosecute those responsible
are likely to continue as long as the United States is seen as falling short of meeting its own responsibilities
to ensure accountability," she argued.
Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President George W. Bush gives the C.I.A. authority
to capture, detain and kill Qaeda operatives around the world.
2002, February
Mr. Bush signs an executive order that says Common Article 3 of the
Geneva Conventions, which prohibits "mutilation, cruel treatment and torture," does not apply to
Qaeda or Taliban captives.
March
Abu Zubaydah becomes the first detainee in C.I.A. custody, and his interrogations are videotaped.
The C.I.A. initially thought him to be a Qaeda official but later retracted that view, according
to the Senate report.
August
A memo issued by Jay S. Bybee, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal
Counsel, gives the C.I.A. after-the-fact authority to use harsh interrogation techniques.
August
C.I.A. officers
use waterboarding
at least 83 times against Abu Zubaydah. The Senate report says he provided more information in
the first months of his interrogation - before the enhanced techniques - than in the months when
enhanced techniques were used.
September
Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee are briefed on the C.I.A.'s enhanced
interrogation techniques. Later in the month, leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee are briefed
on the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah. The Senate report says that the C.I.A. ignored requests for
additional information by Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida.
November
Coercive interrogations, including waterboarding, of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a
detainee, are videotaped.
November
Gul Rahman, another detainee in a separate facility, dies while being held and
interrogated.
End of the year
Videotaping of interrogations ends.
2003
January
C.I.A. inspector general begins an investigation of the program.
January
After 40 men had already been detained, formal guidelines for interrogations and
detention sites are issued by George J. Tenet, the C.I.A. director, according to the Senate report.
February
The top lawyer at the C.I.A. informs the leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence
Committees about the interrogation tapes. Committee leaders advise against destroying the tapes.
March
The C.I.A.
uses waterboarding
at least 183 times against
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The last official report of waterboarding was in March 2003, but CIA documents suggest other waterboarding
may have taken place.
September
Secretary of State Colin PowelI and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are briefed
for the first time on the specifics of the C.I.A.'s interrogation program.
2004
May
The C.I.A. inspector general completes
a report
that challenges the legality of some interrogation methods. He finds that interrogators were exceeding
the rules imposed by the Justice Department and questions the effectiveness of the program. Mr. Tenet,
the C.I.A. director, orders a temporary halt to the harshest methods.
May
The top lawyer for the C.I.A. discusses the tapes with Justice Department officials
and White House lawyers. What the lawyers tell him is in dispute, but they do not explicitly prohibit
the destruction of the tapes.
June
The 2002 Justice Department memo is rescinded by the new head of the Justice Department's
Office of Legal Counsel, Jack Goldsmith. He resigns that day.
December
Daniel Levin, the acting head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel,
issues a new memo denouncing torture and broadening its definition. He is soon replaced.
Through 2004
According to the Senate report, at least 113 men were detained through 2004; after
that, only six additional detainees were held under the program.
2005
May
The newly appointed head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, Steven
G. Bradbury, issues classified memos that endorse the harshest interrogation techniques used by the
C.I.A.
The House
approves a Senate
measure to outlaw cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in American custody. The C.I.A. director
writes a memo to the White House saying that the agency would carry out no harsh interrogations without
new approval from the Justice Department.
2006
April
Mr. Bush receives his first C.I.A. briefing on the enhanced interrogation techniques,
according to the Senate report. The agency's records state that he expressed discomfort with the
"image of a detainee, chained to the ceiling, clothed in a diaper and forced to go to the bathroom
on himself."
June
The Supreme Court
rules
that Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions applies to all American detainees.
September
Members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence other than the chairman
and vice chairman are briefed on the program on the day Mr. Bush reveals it to the public in a speech.
September
Mr. Bush
reveals
the existence of the program and says it led to information on
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who were eventually captured. He announces the transfer of
detainees to the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. After that, the C.I.A. holds a small number of detainees
in secret at a different facility for several months at a time before also moving them to Guantánamo
Bay.
October
Mr. Bush signs the Military Commissions Act, which creates new rules for prosecuting
and interrogating terror suspects. He says the rules would enable the C.I.A. to resume the once-secret
program.
2007
July
Mr. Bush
issues an executive order allowing the C.I.A. to use some interrogation methods that are banned
for military interrogations but that the Justice Department has determined do not violate the Geneva
structures. A legal memo is released in conjunction with the order.
November
According to the Senate report, the C.I.A. does not use enhanced interrogation
techniques after Nov. 8, 2007.
December
The New York Times
reports on
the destruction of the interrogation video tapes.
2008
April
According to the Senate report, no detainee is held by the C.I.A. after April 2008.
2009
January
Soon after being sworn into office, President Obama
signs orders
to close the detention at Guantánamo Bay, end the secret prisons and ban methods of physical pressure
still used by C.I.A. interrogators overseas.
April
Justice Department memos written in 2002 and 2005 are
released.
August
The 2004 C.I.A. inspector general report is
released.
2012
April
Senate committee leaders
reject claims that enhanced interrogation methods helped the C.I.A. find Osama bin Laden.
The bitter infighting in the C.I.A. interrogation program was only one symptom of the dysfunction,
disorganization, incompetence, greed and deception described in a summary of the Senate Intelligence
Committee's report. In more than 500 pages, the summary, released on Tuesday, paints a devastating
picture of an agency that was ill equipped to take on the task of questioning Al Qaeda suspects,
bungled the job and then misrepresented the results.
... ... ...
On the other side were James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, two former military psychologists who
had advised the agency to use waterboarding and other coercive methods. With the support of C.I.A.
headquarters, they insisted that Mr. Nashiri and other prisoners were still withholding crucial information,
and that the application of sufficient pain and disorientation would eventually force them to disclose
it. They thought the other faction was "running a 'sissified' interrogation program," the report
says.
If those questioning Mr. Nashiri just had "the latitude to use the full range of enhanced exploitation
and interrogation measures," including waterboarding, Dr. Jessen wrote, they would be able to get
more information. Such treatment, he wrote, after the two previous months of extremely harsh handling
of Mr. Nashiri, would produce "the desired level of helplessness."
The report said the agency had evidently forgotten its own conclusion, sent to Congress in 1989,
that "inhumane physical or psychological techniques are counterproductive because they do not produce
intelligence and will probably result in false answers." The Democratic Senate staff members who
studied the post-Sept. 11 program came up with an identical assessment: that waterboarding, wall-slamming,
nudity, cold and other ill treatment produced little information of value in preventing terrorism.
It makes me sick to read about some of the interrogation techniques used at Guantanamo Bay, where
the CIA applied Martin Seligman's theory of 'learned helplessness' to try and break the spirit of
the inmates (most of whom have still yet to be charged with any crime).
Seligman didn't know his ideas were being applied there. Ironically, his theory of 'learned optimism'
is now being imparted to every US soldier through the Pentagon's Comprehensive Soldier Fitness programme,
this time with Seligman's active participation. Build us up, break them down. That's the spirit.
Here is a Huffington Post article by Peter Jan Honigsberg, professor of law at the University
of San Francisco, and the author of Our Nation Unhinged: The Human Consequences of the War on Terror:
"The first day I was at Guantanamo, they put me in a little cage. There was a toilet hole and
I thought this is the bathroom and they will then take me to my cell. Later, they brought me food.
'Why food?' I thought, 'This is a bathroom.' Only the next day did I realize this was my cell
where I was to stay." - Ayub Muhammed
On August 22, 2009, the Witness to Guantanamo Project completed its first round of 16 in-depth
filmed interviews of former Guantanamo detainees in five countries: Albania, Bosnia, France, Germany
and England. Each in-depth interview was 2+ hours in length. Three men did not want their faces
shown. We hope to film hundreds of interviews of former Guantanamo detainees. We are determined
to document the systematic human rights abuses and rule of law violations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The empirical evidence we gathered during this journey confirmed information found in the recently
released CIA Inspector General's Report and memos regarding CIA's strategies and techniques of
torturing and otherwise mistreating detainees.
It was very difficult to hear each man's story. The narratives were mesmerizing, powerful,
compelling, unnerving and heartbreaking.
The CIA's intention to create a climate of "learned helplessness," that is, of shattering
the men's spirits, emerged throughout the interviews. For example, the guards and interrogators
did their best to try to break a detainee who was a fourth level black belt karate expert and
another detainee who was a former boxer. The US personnel forced a hose down the throat of the
karate expert and poured water into the hose. They hung the former boxer by his wrists for five
days. On the other hand, a detainee who "went with the flow" and was not a "physical threat,"
had a relatively easier experience. He had already learned the value of "helplessness."
The complicity of the medical profession was a reoccurring theme. The boxer who was hung by
his wrists for five days was let down periodically to be examined by a doctor. Then he was hoisted
up again. He passed out on the third day, but they continued to hoist him up for two more days.
Two other men described how they were interrogated during surgery. Each man was under a local
anesthetic. Any detainee who wanted medical care needed to go through his interrogator. One man
refused to ask for dental work because he did not want to ask a favor from his interrogator. Some
prisoners who expected to have cavities filled, had their teeth pulled instead.
While brutal treatment was always intense at Bagram and Kandahar air bases, Guantanamo was
described by many of the men as a "psychological prison." Some men were held in isolation for
nearly the full time that they were at Guantanamo - over four years in isolation for one man.
Initially, prisoners were placed in isolation for five days. But, when the military learned that
people could easily tolerate the relatively short periods of isolation, the military increased
the length to weeks, months and even years. One man, who was afraid of isolation and willing to
say anything that the interrogators wanted to hear, was advised by other inmates that isolation
became less frightening with each return visit.
The prisoners responded to the treatment that they received in different ways. Some resisted.
One beat up a guard, others spit at guards. Still others threw feces. One prisoner told us that
when he was treated unfairly he resisted in order to make himself feel better. There was a community
of spirit among some prisoners. If one person was mistreated, others would refuse to eat or strike
in support of him. Several detainees used the word "solidarity" to describe their relationship
with other prisoners.
Some men endured detainment in Guantanamo by reflecting on their families, their religion,
stories in the Koran, and the value of patience. Others accepted their "fate," believing that
they could not change it. Still others relied on "hope," expecting that they would ultimately
be released because they knew they were innocent.
When we asked people to describe their worst experiences, we were surprised by several of the
responses. Two people told us that their worst experience was observing others beaten while
they could do nothing about it. Another person's worst experience was the unknowing of what
would happen in the future. A Uyghur described his feeling of betrayal by the United States. The
Americans had assured him that any information he gave to U.S. officials would not be passed on
to the Chinese. When he was later interviewed by Chinese officials in Guantanamo, the Chinese
diplomats repeated to him all that he had told the Americans.
The men did not only lose years of their lives while being held in Guantanamo. Their lives
going forward are also, for many, similarly lost. Many of the detainees told us that they have
been unable to obtain employment. Once a prospective employer hears that the men are former detainees,
the opportunity for employment disappears. In addition to not finding work, the Uyghurs in Albania
are also facing the prospect of losing their homes. Albania, with a grant from the U.S., has been
paying their rents for the past two years. However, the payments are up in October, and it is
not clear whether Albania will continue to pay their rents. If not, the Uyghurs may be out on
the street or back at the refugee center.
The men agreed to be interviewed for different reasons. The reasons included speaking for history
(that is, assisting us in creating an archive) and hoping that others who are still in Guantanamo
will soon be released. One man participated because he wanted to "plant a tree for the next generation."
He also told me that "the world is one hand with many fingers."
If there is a term that best describes the experience of interviewing these men, it is witnessing
their humanity. Guantanamo is about people. Their humanity is what I will remember best.
The role that Martin Seligman personally played in this process is somewhat unclear (despite the
reaction of some
of the blogosphere). He has
stated that the allegation
that he provided assistance in the process of torture is completely false, and that his only involvement
with the psychologists who developed the torture methods was when he gave a lecture to the military
in a different context:
"I gave a three hour lecture sponsored by SERE (the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape branch
of the American armed forces) at the San Diego Naval Base in May 2002. My topic was how American
troops and American personnel could use what is known about learned helplessness and related findings
to resist torture and evade successful interrogation by their captors. I was told then that since
I was (and am) a civilian with no security clearance that they could not discuss American methods
of interrogation with me. I have not had contact with SERE since that meeting."
Whatever the truth is, post-September 11 has been a dark period for human rights, democracy and
psychology. It appears that psychological models for understanding human distress have been used
by the unscrupulous to devise methods to harm and terrorise those deemed to be "the enemy".
Martin Seligman may not have been involved in this, but sadly it seems that the fruit of his intellectual
efforts have been, in a manner contrary to their stated purpose.
Carol Smaldino, August 30, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Hello, I'm a social work therapist interested in the underbelly of the beast so to speak and
write for the Huffington Post. I've been meaning to write on Resilience and Resilience and I'm
in the process of writing a book and doing therapy. Part time here and part time in Italia, love
to collaborate, and share, how odd, am speaking a bit on bullying from the inside out…
uggh the Seligson stuff makes me nauseous and he is quoted big time in September Harper's Bazaar…..would
love to converse with you if it seems right….
