The 9/11 attacks on the United States have motivated psychologists to advance counterterrorism and related operations through psychological principles and skills. These operational psychologists seek to legitimize adversarial interventions against targets by prioritizing societal welfare over traditional, individual-focused principles of psychological ethics. In this essay, we distinguish adversarial operational psychology, which facilitates deceptive and coercive operations, from collaborative operational psychology, which optimizes personnel performance in high-risk operations. Our analysis finds that adversarial operational psychology is largely unsupported by the American Psychological Association Ethics Code, that its potential benefits are exceeded by the likelihood of irreversible harms, and that its military necessity is undemonstrated. We offer a three-factor framework for distinguishing between adversarial and collaborative operational psychology, and we recommend institutional separation of these roles so that professional psychologists do not serve in adversarial capacities.

Commissioned amidst allegations of collusion between American Psychological Association officials and Central Intelligence Agency and Department of Defense officials involved in the enhanced interrogation programme, the July 2015 Hoffman Report documented a decade of collusion between American Psychological Association and Department of Defense officials in unethical national security interrogations. However, interrogation support is but one of numerous areas where psychologists are directly aiding military and intelligence operations, an area known as operational psychology. The ethical issues posed by the larger field of operational psychology have received little public discussion apart from apologia by operational psychologists themselves. To stimulate public review of operational psychology, leaders of the movement to remove psychologists from national security interrogations convened, in September 2015, a group of experts to work towards a consensus set of principles to guide future discussion. Participants included psychologists, physicians, and social scientists; military and intelligence professionals; and attorneys, ethicists, and human rights advocates. The discussion also drew upon years of dialogue between participants and military health and intelligence professionals. The workshop produced "The Brookline Principles on the Ethical Practice of Operational Psychology," with implications for the profession of psychology and for civil society. KEYWORDS APA, Hoffman Report, interrogations, PENS Report, torture 1 | BACKGROUNDIn the wake of the 9/11 attacks, there were increased demands for psychologists to aid U.S. military and intelligence operations, roles that have come to be known as "operational psychology" as they contrasted from traditional health provider and personnel selection roles for military psychologists. Among these roles was participation in national security interrogations conducted by the military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), interrogations that sometimes constituted torture.

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Torture interrogation does not yield reliable information. The popular belief that "torture works" conflicts with effective non-abusive methodologies of interrogation and with fundamental tenets of psychology. These were the conclusions reached at a meeting of recently retired, senior U.S. Army interrogators and research psychologists who met to rethink the psychology of torture. This article introduces the military interrogators, the psychologists, and the themes explored. In the process, this article explains why competent interrogators do not require a definition of torture, discredits the "ticking bomb scenario," and outlines the studies that comprise the meeting report, Torture is for Amateurs.