The 542-page report, which examines the involvement of the nation’s psychologists and their largest professional organization, the American Psychological Association, with the harsh interrogation programs of the Bush era, raises repeated questions about the collaboration between psychologists and officials at both the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon.

The report contains the findings of an investigation led by a ex- federal prosecutor and appears to represent the most detailed examination to date of the complicity of psychologists in interrogation programs that at times relied on torture.

The New York Times, which first reported today on the independent report by the firm Sidley Austin, noted that the CIA’s own health professionals criticized the interrogation practices, but they were rebuffed by the outside psychologists.

The report, completed this month, concludes that some of the association’s top officials, including its ethics director, sought to curry favor with Pentagon officials by seeking to keep the association’s ethics policies in line with the Defense Department’s interrogation policies, while several prominent outside psychologists took actions that aided the CIA’s interrogation program and helped protect it from growing dissent inside the agency.

In particular, a CIA contract psychologist with close ties to the association played a key role in “clearing the way” for a colleague, Jim Mitchell – widely considered one of the architects of the controversial interrogation program – to continue his involvement in it even after others in the agency had protested that his work was unethical.

After the Hoffman report was made public on Friday, the American Psychological Association issued an apology.

“The organization’s intent was not to enable abusive interrogation techniques or contribute to violations of human rights, but that may have been the result”, said Nadine Kaslow, who led an independent review committee that commissioned the report.

The Post reports the investigation also found that “current and ex- APA officials” had pertinent interactions with the CIA between 2001 and 2004 when the agency used waterboarding and other extreme measures to try and get information from prisoners at the camp.

The association’s board of directors issued a series of recommendations Friday that it hopes the APA’s governing Council of Representatives will adopt later this year. The statement also outlines a number of reforms that the group’s board has recommended, including a rule “prohibiting psychologists from participating in interrogation of persons held in custody by military and intelligence authorities”.

But the reckoning with psychologists’ institutional complicity in torture may not stop there.

The report comes about seven months after a report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on the CIA’s use of torture techniques during the war on terror.

An APA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment, the Guardian said.

US psychology agency conspired with the torture program of government