Quick note: most of the information here that is not my opinion is from the American Psychological Association (https://www.apa.org/ethics/code) unless otherwise denoted.
I know I'm tardy to the party, but I've been watching Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath. One of the people interviewed is Brandon Reisdorf, who suffers from bipolar disorder (Season 1, Episode 8). I have always been extremely anti-Scientology, and this episode just really solidified that, for several reasons, but before I can get into that, I feel like I need to provide some context.
The APA code of ethics is derived from the Nuremberg Code, which was established following the Nuremberg Trials. The Nuremberg Code has several important tenets (this information comes from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill https://research.unc.edu/human-research-ethics/resources/ccm3_019064/). :
- Informed consent: "The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion, and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision."
- Beneficence: "The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature"
- Respect for People's Rights and Dignity: "During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible"
Of course, this is not the full list. These are the main tenets that were incorporated into the APA Code of Ethics. For the full list, please visit the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (link above).
As many are probably aware, even after the Nuremberg Code was adopted, there were several very unethical studies conducted, especially in psychology. To name a few:
- Stanley Milgram's Obedience Study (https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/behavior/social-psychology/v/milgram-experiment-on-obedience)
- Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment (https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/behavior/social-psychology/v/zimbardo-prison-study-the-stanford-prison-experiment)
These studies aren't even all of them. They're just the most notable. You may be asking yourself, why exactly are they unethical? I will be giving a breakdown. First, you need to know the 5 Principles of Ethics put forth in the APA Code of Ethics:
- Beneficence and Nonmaleficence: The studies we conduct must provide good to the community at large (essentially, it needs to be worth the risk that it poses to participants). Do no harm. That part's pretty self-explanatory.
- Fidelity and Responsibility: We must build relationships of trust with the general public and other scientists, and uphold professional standards of conduct. In other words, don't make the field of psychology look bad
- Integrity: Promote accuracy, honesty, and truthfulness in science, teaching, and practice. In other words, don't do things like forging data, misrepresenting/misinterpreting data, or misreporting data. The last one is especially important because sometimes scientists won't report the results that go against their hypotheses, and they'll only report the ones that support their hypotheses, and that's not okay.
- Justice: Your study must equally benefit everyone, not just one group of people. This one is a touchy subject because most psychological studies are conducted on WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) samples. In fact, most focus on psychology students at universities because that's the sample they can get. This brings up a lot of cultural issues, individualistic vs. collectivistic, translation of materials, etc. that I will get into in another post. It absolutely needs to be talked about, but I would be doing it a disservice by not dedicating an entire full-length post to it.
- Respect for People's Rights and Dignity: Respect for people's privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination. For anyone that has ever participated in a scientific experiment, you're probably familiar with the process of confidentiality forms. For anyone not familiar, essentially, the person conducting the experiment must ensure that your responses in the study cannot be linked to you in any way. Additionally, participants must be allowed to leave the experiment at any point that they choose, and they cannot be forced or coerced into participating in the study.
Milgram violated these principles because he did not properly debrief his participants, violating their right to informed consent. He did not tell them the true nature of his study or reveal the fact that he used deception after their data had been collected, leading many of them to experience long-term negative effects. They thought they had electrocuted someone. I don't know about you, but that would haunt me too. He also did not respect their rights and dignity because the participants felt coerced into staying in the study and participating.
Zimbardo, just oof. He did the same thing as Milgram, but he also actively caused harm to his participants. Additionally, he did not promote integrity because he generalized his results to represent the inherent evil present in every human. Even though his study included exclusively white, college students at STANFORD in the 70s. Yes, Phil because white guys at Stanford represent literally every person ever (please note the sarcasm).
How is this related to Scientology? I'm glad you asked. In his interview, Brandon discusses how the "church" tried to treat his mental illness using their own method, not one backed by actual psychological research. Additionally, they had people without a license in therapy or psychiatry administer the procedure. As you can probably guess, this directly violates the first principle: Beneficence and Nonmaleficence. They actively did harm by refusing to provide actual psychological treatment for a mental illness. They also violated the principle of Integrity. They did not promote accuracy in practice because they used a method not backed by psychological research when other practices (actually backed by psychological research) were available outside the "church", but he wasn't allowed to utilize those. He had to use the treatment prescribed by the "church." I say "church" because it's less of a religion and more of a cult.
I want to finish this post by saying if you ever feel like a therapist or psychiatrist is not adhering to the principles of ethics, FIND A DIFFERENT ONE!!! Report any practitioner of psychology or psychiatry you think is unethical. If it's a psychiatrist (e.g. holds a medical degree), you can report them to your state's medical board. You can report either a psychologist or psychiatrist to the APA if they are a member, which most are. For more information, please visit https://www.apa.org/ethics/complaint
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