Jean Maria Arrigo, a psychologist who led the American Psychological Association’s efforts to expose the role of psychologists in coercive interrogations of terror suspects in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, died on February 24 at her home in Alpine. California. She was 79.

The cause was complications from pancreatic cancer, said her husband, John Crigler.

a head about her as a whistleblower in The Guardian in 2015 it put it succinctly: “’A national hero’: a psychologist who warned against collusion in torture gets her due.”

Ten years earlier, Dr. Arrigo was appointed by the American Psychological Association, the largest professional group of psychologists, to a task force to investigate the role of trained psychologists in national security interrogations.

The 10-member panel was formed in response to 2004 news reports of abuses at the American-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, which included details of psychologists who assisted in interrogations that the International Committee said of the Red Cross, ‘amounted to torture’.

Dr. Arrigo later claimed that the APA task force was a sham — a public relations effort “to immediately extinguish the fire of controversy,” as she told fellow psychologists in a sensational speech. speech from 2007.

The task force met and deliberated for just three days in 2005, she revealed. It was full of members with Pentagon ties and conflicts of interest. Are conclusionwritten by the APA’s top ethics official, was that psychologists had an important role to play in interrogations, keeping them “safe, legal, ethical and effective” – deliberately broad language delivered by a Defense Department official.

Although the work of the task force, formally known as the APA Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security, was to be classified, Dr. Arrigo confessed what happened, spoke to journalists and handed over emails and documents to the armed Senate. Services committee.

She argued that the Geneva Convention, with its strict ban on torture, should guide psychologists, not the looser standards of the administration of President George W. Bush, whose lawyers had written secret memos indicating that “enhanced interrogation techniques” were intended to break the will of detainees. , including waterboarding or simulated drowning, were permitted.

After Dr. Arrigo had made her objections public, a former APA president attacked her in unusually personal terms, claiming that a “troubled upbringing” and her father’s alleged suicide explained her dissenting views. (Dr. Arrigo’s father was alive at the time).

“Without her participation as a whistleblower,” Roy J. Eidelson, former president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, said in an interview, “the APA would in all likelihood have continued to work covertly with the Department of Defense and the CIA. to support the involvement of psychologists in operations that we now know are abusive and torturous to detainees fighting terrorism.”

For years, Dr. Arrigo is part of a small group, the Coalition for an Ethical Psychologywhich criticized the APA’s close ties to military intelligence, dating back to World War I, when psychologists were hired to test and assess recruits.

The pre-September 11 military employed hundreds of clinical psychologists and provided large research grants. The APA’s critics said it was motivated in the Bush years by a desire for career advancement and lucrative contracts in military intelligence during the so-called war on terror. Defenders of the APA said psychologists’ advice during interrogations ensured they were conducted safely and ethically.

As reporting during the day and after the Bush years came to light, two psychologists developed the harsh interrogation techniques the CIA used in its black prisons after September 11, adapting a US Air Force program to steal pilots in case of capture, known as SERE , for survival, evasion, resistance and escape. SERE, which included waterboarding and sleep deprivation, was based on 1950s Chinese techniques that had led to false confessions by American prisoners.

Although the Bush administration claimed that harsh interrogations were justified, “there was a broad consensus among the professionals who knew best, who knew that SERE was torture,” according to the book “Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War.” by James Risen. , a national security reporter for the New York Times.

In 2015, an independent investigation of the APA’s work with the Pentagon confirmed most of Dr.’s criticisms. Arrigo and documented what she called “collusion” between the psychologists group and the Department of Defense. The APA had tried to “ingratiate itself” with the CIA and the Pentagon, the report found, which resulted in providing cover for unlawful interrogations.

The explosive report, commissioned by the APA board, found that the ethics office “prioritized the protection of psychologists – even those who may have engaged in unethical behavior – over the protection of the public.”

Dr.’s objections Arrigo, who is mentioned more than 150 times in the 542-page report, were suppressed in a “deliberate effort to curb dissent,” the report added.

The investigation caused upheaval at the APA, including the departure of its ethics director and other top officials. In 2015, the APA banned psychologists from assisting in interrogations of detainees held by military or intelligence agencies. The group’s then-president, Nadine J. Kaslow, told The Guardian said that Dr. Arrigo owed an apology. “I’m going to thank her personally when I see her,” said Dr. Kaslow. “I am going to personally apologize to her for the fact that other people have mistreated her.”

Jean Maria Arrigo was born in Memphis on April 30, 1944, the son of Joseph Arrigo, an Army officer who spent part of his career in military intelligence, and Nellie (Gephardt) Arrigo, a schoolteacher.

In addition to Mr. Crigler, Dr. Arrigo is survived by two sisters, Sue Arrigo Clear and Linda Gail Arrigo.

Dr. Arrigo’s first career was in mathematics; she received a BA in the subject in 1966 and an MA in 1969, both from departments at the University of California. She taught mathematics as an adjunct college professor for eleven years, including at San Diego State University.

She returned to school to train as a social psychologist, earning an M.A. and a Ph.D. in 1995. in 1999, both out Claremont Graduate University. Her doctoral research, she wrote in a resume, examined the “ethics of military and political intelligence, a theme I inherited as the daughter of an undercover intelligence officer.”

In 2004 she published “A Utilitarian Argument Against the Interrogation of Terrorists by Torture” in the journal Science and Engineering Ethics.

In 2016, Dr. Arrigo received the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which cited her “courage and perseverance in advocating ethical behavior among her fellow psychologists and the importance of international human rights standards and against torture.”

Dr. Eidelson, the author of “Doing Harm: How the World’s Largest Psychological Association Lost Its Way in the War on Terror” (2023) said in an interview that Dr. Arrigo was a quiet person, someone who few people would see as It is likely that she would oppose the national leadership of her profession.

She was “humble, gentle, careful, fact-oriented, no-nonsense,” he said. “Not everyone was happy with her, but the profession has benefited enormously from her commitment to the truth.”

Hands shaking as she covered her mouth, a woman looked at a gaping hole in the side of an apartment building, where the contents of apartments poured out the side.

Standing next to her was 29-year-old Ivanka Davydenko, dressed in a blue uniform with yellow “Psychologist” printed on both sides, her arm placed gently across the woman’s back.

She handed her a paper cup of water and asked how she could help. The woman’s son lived on the 18th floor of the building, she explained, and he wasn’t answering his phone. Most of that floor was gone.

“We help people because they are in a state of shock and don’t always understand what they need at the moment,” Ms Davydenko said. “We offer banal things: water, coffee, a blanket.”

Ms. Davydenko is part of a small team within the Ukrainian state emergency services, which provides psychological first aid in times of crisis in the capital Kiev. She arrived minutes after a Russian attack, early in the morning of June 24, in which Ukrainian air defenses destroyed incoming missiles, sending fragments into apartments.

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine have forced rescue crews to deal not only with fire, smoke and blood, but the rippling psychological effects felt by people who experience war. Public health experts warn that millions of Ukrainians are likely to develop mental illness as a result of the invasion, and that this number will only increase as the days of bombing, violence and grief continue.

Thus, Ukraine’s emergency services not only consist of firefighters, paramedics and police officers, but also psychologists, including Ms. Davydenko, to help people dealing with the immediate effects of shock or other acute mental health needs.

There are similar efforts in other cities, but with Russian missiles continuing to rain horror on the capital, the Kiev team may be the busiest.

“We used to respond to serious and large-scale emergencies, such as a gas explosion where many people had to be evacuated,” says Liubov Kirnos, the manager of the Kiev unit. “When the war started, we were on duty all the time, we didn’t leave the city.”

Like other care providers, the psychologists are on call. When an attack occurs, a coordination center sends a team to the location.

There, psychologists often find people crying, frozen in shock, or collapsing.

“When we meet someone for the first time, we ask, ‘What do you need now? How are you feeling now?’” Mrs. Kirnos said. Some people just ask the psychologists to stay around for a while. “They may be expecting their loved ones to be pulled out of the rubble,” she said.

Such was the case on June 24 with the mother who supported Mrs. Davydenko. The psychologist walked with her as she consulted a list of people who had been taken to hospital or were missing.

But as they walked away, a firefighter said in a low voice that there was nothing left on the 18th floor, where her son had lived.

Residents were asleep when the strike ripped open their building before dawn. The bodies of at least two victims had been thrown from the building, along with twisted metal, insulation and pieces of furniture, scattered in the parking lot below.

Dozens of people were in shock, Ms Davydenko said, including some who had seen dead bodies and others who were injured but did not fully understand that they were bleeding.

Ms. Davydenko and another colleague at the site would help about 45 people in about 12 hours.

Iryna Kuts, 62, went to Mrs. Davydenko with her daughter, still trembling with fright, asking for some water and a moment to talk.

Ms. Kuts described being shaken from her sleep in her 19th floor apartment, after which her room filled with smoke.

“We were just hugging, thinking we were going to suffocate,” she said. They eventually made their way down the stairs, aided by police officers, but stared at the ruins of their apartment building in a daze.

“We provide psychological first aid to people with anxiety, stress, crying, aggression,” explains Ms. Davydenko. “Then we work with people who stay on the benches, in the garden, because it’s like a second emotional wave hits.”

A young woman in a white top who had wandered around the parking lot sobbing was knocked over. The woman’s father, a resident, had survived the strike but refused to come out.

“Don’t worry, everything will be fine,” Mrs. Davydenko told her, holding her arm and adding that the fire department would help her father. “But you can’t go in – no one can.”

She waited for the father to finally emerge and the young woman to wrap her arms around his neck, crying.

Not everyone would have such a happy reunion. Later in the day, Ms. Davydenko accompanied the mother and her husband, who were looking for their son, to examine the badly mutilated remains of a body.

They were still waiting for official DNA confirmation, but the remains most likely belonged to her son, the psychologist explained.

The next day, city officials confirmed that five people had been killed in the strike.

Public health experts like Dr. Jarno Habicht, the head of the World Health Organization office in Ukraine, have warned of the war’s long-lasting and widespread effects on mental health. In an interview, he said an estimated 10 million people would most likely develop some form of mental health problem as a result of the Russian invasion.

The WHO estimate, based on an analysis of how other conflicts had affected mental health, is likely to increase as the war continues, he added. Stress-induced disorders, including anxiety and depression, are among experts’ top concerns.

The key to tackling mental health problems in Ukraine, Dr Habicht said, “is not waiting for the war to end.”

A handful of programs have sought to help Ukrainians, including one led by Olena Zelenska, the first lady, which aims to make high-quality, affordable mental health care available to people across the country.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Health, WHO and more than a dozen other partners have also started a program to train general practitioners in treating patients with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal behavior and substance abuse.

But programs like the emergency team of psychologists try to intervene early in moments of crisis.

“If you don’t deal with stress right away, it can turn into long-term stress, which can turn into PTSD,” says Ms Kirnos. “It’s meant to help people drive home the idea, ‘You were in danger, but now you’re safe.’ If we don’t do this right away, people could be trapped in this state.”

However, the burden can also be heavy for the person providing psychological care. Days after the missile strike on Kiev, Ms Davydenko said team members worked with their own therapists to process what they had seen.

“Of course,” she said, “I’m human too.”

Oleksandr Chubko And Oleksandra Mykolyshyn reporting contributed.