Two years ago, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association adopted new guidelines that discourage their members from participating directly in the interrogation of prisoners and detainees. But the U.S. Army is pushing its psychiatrists to skirt some of those guidelines, according to an essay in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The essay’s authors — Jonathan H. Marks, an associate professor of bioethics and law at Pennsylvania State University; and M. Gregg Bloche, a professor of law at Georgetown University — filed open-records requests to learn about the military’s interrogation practices. They unearthed a 2006 memorandum that sets policy for the Army’s “behavioral-science consultation teams.”

The memo includes dozens of rules for the protection of detainees, including bans on sensory deprivation and “all cruel and degrading treatment.” But it also contains a few elements that Mr. Marks and Dr. Bloche find alarming. Contrary to the guidelines of the psychiatric and medical associations, the memo assumes that Army psychiatrists will be physically present during interrogations, and that they will help design the interrogations of specific detainees.

The memo also specifies that members of the teams should have expertise in the theory of “learned helplessness,” which has allegedly figured in some of the most abusive interrogations at the Guantánamo Bay detention center.

Meanwhile, members of the American Psychological Association have until Monday to vote on a resolution that would tighten the group’s interrogation guidelines. —David Glenn