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submitted by Jennifer Kaupp, Ph.D., Summer 2008 Stephen Soldz, Ph.D. sent the following announcement about a rally planned for the APA Convention in Boston, Saturday, August 16, 12-2 pm. Speakers include Drs. Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner, Ghislaine Boulangier, Bryant Welch, and Dan Albers. This rally has been endorsed by APA Division 39, Section IX (Psychoanalysis and Social Responsibility). Based on MBPA’s long-held position denouncing psychologist involvement in military interrogations and rendition teams, and our participation last year, we have again offered our endorsement. Psychologists for an Ethical APA Calls for Protest Outside APA Convention "A government is not the expression of the will of the people, but rather the expression of what the people will tolerate." Kurt Tucholsky We as psychologists and American citizens have become aware that our government has adopted torture and the denial of human rights for detainees as official policy. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, rendition and CIA "black sites" have irrevocably entered our language and consciousness. Waterboarding, sexual and religious humiliation, and denial of habeas corpus have become symbolic of a climate of disdain for human rights and human decency that has infected our government and been absorbed into our social fabric. During the last several years, we have also become aware that psychologists have played central roles in the Bush regime of torture and detainee abuse. As has been documented by numerous journalists and official government reports, psychologists helped develop, implement, standardize, and disseminate abusive interrogation techniques that have led to torture. Other psychologists responsible for treating detainees, along with other health professionals, failed to act against abuses being committed upon those they were ethically obliged to heal and protect. Given the central role of our profession in perpetrating and abetting these abuses, the rest of us who represent the field bear a special responsibility to do all we can to stop the abuses and voice our objection. Our professional association, the American Psychological Association, has failed us. While we expectantly listened for a clear moral voice opposing complicity with our government's abuses, the APA engaged in a pattern of denial, deceit and distraction in support of its policy keeping psychologists engaged in interrogations at detention centers where human rights and international laws have been grossly and systematically violated. When we needed an ethics policy that underscored the importance of ethical behavior, the APA created a revised code which allowed the following of unethical laws and regulations, and which removed protections for research participants when permitted by law or government regulation. When we needed deep ethical discussion, the APA appointed an ethics task force dominated by military-intelligence psychologists, most of whom served in precisely those interrogation settings under debate. When we needed clear statements condemning ongoing U.S, government abuses, the APA passed resolution after resolution condemning "torture" and "cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment" while failing ever to condemn, or even acknowledge, the ongoing abuses. When we needed action against those psychologists participating in abuses, we received denial after denial and delay after delay, making a continual mockery of ethics enforcement. And when we needed to indicate to the world that psychology was a profession with the highest ethical standards, the APA alone, of all the major health professions' organizations, not only allowed continued participation in interrogations, violating the centuries-old "do no harm" ethical standards for health professions, but kept silent on known harms. Last February, over six years after the first reports of US torture and abuse in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, and later, Iraq, surfaced, the APA finally unambiguously condemned participation in 19 specific interrogation techniques. While this is a laudable, if long-delayed, first step, it is not enough.
"A profession is not the expression of the will of its members, but rather the expression of what these members will tolerate." Psychologists for an Ethical APA Let the APA leadership know that we will not tolerate collaboration with detainee abuse. Psychology must once again become a profession based upon fundamental ethical principles. When: August 16, 1:00-3:00 PM Where: tba For further information contact: Stephen Soldz Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis 1581 Beacon St. Brookline, MA 02446 This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it David Sloan-Rossiter This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |