Psychology for human rights
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, written nearly 200 years ago, a young scientist brings to life a hideous monster made of body parts collected from slaughterhouses, dissecting rooms, and graveyards. Dr. Frankenstein is immediately horrified and sickened by what he has created, and he abandons the creature. Alone and shunned by society, the monster later returns …
Continue reading “Dr. Frankenstein and the APA’s Decade of Monstrosities”
(NOTE: My thanks to co-author Stephen Soldz.) Ten years of continuous war — characterized by multiple deployments, elusive guerilla adversaries, and occupied populations seemingly more tilted toward resentment than gratitude — have taken a significant toll on US troops. In addition to those who have been killed, physically maimed, or neurologically impaired by combat, many …
Continue reading “The Army's Flawed Resilience-Training Study: A Call for Retraction”
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master — that’s …
Shortly after learning about the American Psychological Association’s (APA) new “Member-Initiated Task Force to Reconcile Policies Related to Psychologists’ Involvement in National Security Settings,” I found my thoughts turning to the School of the Americas, Blackwater and, perhaps even more surprisingly, the Patagonian toothfish. Those may seem like a strange threesome, but they share one …
Continue reading “Protecting Psychologists Who Harm: The APA’s Latest Wrong Turn”
Amid disturbing reports that psychologists were involved in the abuse and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) met in the summer of 2005. Over two days they considered whether the Bush Administration’s no-holds-barred “enhanced interrogation” policies crossed ethical boundaries …
Continue reading “Dismantling the Master's House: Psychologists and Torture”
Many viewers were outraged this past August watching NBC’s Today Show interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney. Promoting the release of his new memoir, Cheney nodded in agreement when Matt Lauer noted that the VP continues to support waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” (e.g., stress positions, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, fear induction). Lauer also …
Continue reading ““Safe, Legal, Ethical, and Effective”?: It’s Time to Annul the PENS Report”
In a 1973 short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin describes a peculiar city where the inhabitants’ prosperity depends entirely upon the endless suffering of a single young child, locked away forever in a cellar. The townspeople ignore the child’s pleas for release because they have learned that …
Continue reading “Worse Than Fiction: America’s Overcrowded Cellar”
(NOTE: My thanks to co-authors Marc Pilisuk and Stephen Soldz.) Why is the world’s largest organization of psychologists so aggressively promoting a new, massive, and untested military program? The APA’s enthusiasm for mandatory “resilience training” for all US soldiers is troubling on many counts. The January 2011 issue of the American Psychologist, the American Psychological …
Continue reading “The Dark Side of “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness””
“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” These were the words of Lord Brian Griffiths, Goldman Sachs international adviser, when he spoke at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral last fall. With inequality at historic levels here in the United States and around the world, it’s a …
For today’s engaged citizens, there’s no shortage of pressing concerns that demand attention: social and economic inequality, inadequate access to health care, persecution and violence on the basis of belief or group identity, assaults on civil rights and personal dignity, and profound environmental threats to the planet itself. As president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility …