Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective

Guantánamo and other US detention facilities are illegal and immoral institutions. They appear to be designed to break people down, to destroy them, whether they are innocent or guilty, whether they have any intelligence value or not. It is possible that they are intentional experimental facilities designed to develop and test new behavior manipulation techniques. In any case, they clearly constitute a hell on earth, the "gulag of out time" as Amnesty International described Guantánamo. It is well past time that the United States start respecting those lofty human rights sentiments spouted by our leaders and enshrined in our laws and binding international treaties.

It is also long past time that psychology as a profession, along with the other health professions, starts contributing to the building of respect for humanity rather than aiding the creation of hell. As Harry Stack Sullivan clearly stated long ago: " We are all much more simply human than otherwise." Surely we, as psychologists and psychoanalysts, should be leaders in recognizing the humanity of all, even those identified as alleged "terrorists." Surely, carrying out our duties as psychologists, as citizens, and as human beings is of far greater importance than is maintaining our professional access to the levers of power. If not, then humanity has no need of our profession.

This is based upon a talk delivered, March 17, 2007 at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California (PINC) conference: UNFREE ASSOCIATION: The Politics and Psychology of Torture in a Time of Terror

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