Through February 15th, the American Psychological Association (APA) is soliciting online comments from psychologists, the public, and interested organizations in response to a new draft proposal for Professional Practice Guidelines for Operational Psychology. Here I would like to briefly share some thoughts about why this is important and deserving of readers’ attention. The drafters of the Guidelines define operational …
Tag Archives: torture
The American Psychological Association Still Owes Guantanamo’s Victims an Apology
Next month will mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In the years since January 11, 2002, nearly 800 “detainees”—few with any meaningful connections to international terrorism—have been imprisoned there, where they have been subjected to abuse and, in some cases, torture. From the outset, members …
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U.S. Psychology’s Unfinished Journey from 9/11
As the 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001 nears, there will be many valuable reflections about that horrific day and about the subsequent “global war on terror” that devastated countless lives around the world. My own focus here is narrower: to briefly consider this disturbing two-decade period in relation to the American Psychological Association (APA) and professional …
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Psychologists Should Now Lead the Call to Close Guantánamo
Last week, Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg, Lakhdar Boumediane, Sami Al Hajj, Ahmed Errachidi, Mohammed Ould Slahi, and Moussa Zemmouri published an open letter in the New York Review of Books. Noting that many Guantánamo detainees had been abducted from their homes, sold to the United States for bounties, and subjected to physical and psychological torture, these …
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Asylum, Now an American Horror Story
It’s hard to know exactly where the Trump Administration found the inspiration for its newest set of draconian asylum rules. Might it have been a National Geographic special where a giant anaconda encircles its prey, squeezes it to death, and then swallows it whole? Or perhaps a late-night, B-grade horror film in which some evil …
Silencing Our Veterans: A Bridge Too Far
It has now been four years since the “Hoffman Report” presented extensive evidence of secret collaboration between leaders of the American Psychological Association (APA) and psychologists working for the Department of Defense (DOD). According to that independent review, the goal of collaboration was to ensure that APA ethics policies would not prevent psychologists from participating in war-on-terror detention …
Is the American Psychological Association Addicted to Militarism and War?
When hijacked planes hit their targets on the morning of September 11, 2001, the American Psychological Association (APA) sprang into action. Within hours, through its disaster response network the APA mobilized expert practitioners and worked with the American Red Cross to provide psychological support to families of the victims and to rescue workers. The APA’s …
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Another Crossroads for the APA
“America happens to be my client. Americans are who I care about. I have no fondness for the enemy, and I don’t feel like I need to take care of their mental health needs.” — Bryce Lefever, former U.S. Navy clinical and SERE psychologist, member of the APA’s 2005 Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics …
Facing History: My Reply to APA CEO Arthur Evans
In a recent Washington Post commentary, I made four points. First, psychologists played essential roles in the government-authorized torture and abuse of “war on terror” detainees. Second, the American Psychological Association (APA) facilitated this involvement — by secretly accommodating CIA and Defense Department interests; by contesting evidence of wrongdoing with deceptive public statements; and by …
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Standing Firm for Reform at the APA
Abolitionist and preacher Frederick Douglass once warned, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.” Feminist and civil rights activist Audre Lorde similarly advised, “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” Their words are worth remembering as we now witness a coordinated campaign of intimidation, deception, and obfuscation …