{"id":244999,"date":"2023-10-02T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-10-02T11:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=244999"},"modified":"2023-09-27T04:45:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T03:45:07","slug":"professional-psychology-22-years-after-9-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/10\/professional-psychology-22-years-after-9-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional Psychology 22 Years after 9\/11"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Source: Roy Eidelson<\/p><\/div>\n

26 Sep 2023 – <\/em>For many North Americans, the weeks and months following the attacks of September 11, 2001 were a volatile mixture of unbridled fear, staggering grief, patriotic fervor, and worldwide solidarity. We were distraught over possible future attacks, we sought ways to help those in greatest need, our country\u2019s flag suddenly appeared everywhere, and we heard expressions of support\u2014\u201cWe\u2019re all North Americans now!\u201d\u2014from around the globe.<\/p>\n

For some of us, however, there was also a dark foreboding about how our government might respond to the carnage. And we soon learned that the new \u201cwar on terror\u201d would be propelled by vengeance, with little respect for human rights and open disdain for international law. Indeed, the Bush Administration made this apparent that very first month, warning\u00a0\u201cEither you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s going to be vital for us to use any means at our disposal,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201cAfter 9\/11 the gloves come off.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

What wasn\u2019t so clear was that my own profession\u2014psychology\u2014would take two sharply divergent paths during this early period, led by the American Psychological Association (APA). One was constructive, the other was not. On the high road, the APA helped to organize thousands of psychologists who\u00a0offered their services<\/a>\u00a0pro bono to families of 9\/11 victims, to rescue workers, to schools uncertain how to help fearful and traumatized children, and more. These and similar endeavors were invaluable contributions to the country\u2019s healing and recovery.<\/p>\n

But the APA also eagerly\u00a0sought out opportunities<\/a>\u00a0for psychologists to participate in counterterrorism efforts and expand the profession\u2019s stature in the eyes of the US military-intelligence establishment. Not long thereafter,\u00a0psychologists became involved<\/a>\u00a0in detention and interrogation operations\u2014at secret CIA black sites, at Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere\u2014that were characterized by routinized abuse and sometimes by torture. Yet for years the APA\u2019s leadership insisted that psychologists helped to keep these operations\u00a0safe, legal, ethical, and effective<\/a>. They were actually none of these things, as one disturbing\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0after\u00a0another<\/a>\u00a0has painfully revealed.<\/p>\n

It doesn’t take hindsight to argue a simple point: both psychological science and the profession\u2019s ethical foundations cautioned APA leaders against rushing to embrace what President Bush had\u00a0called<\/a>\u00a0a \u201ccrusade\u201d that would unleash the \u201cfull wrath of the United States.\u201d For example, decades of prior research by social psychologists had already identified human tendencies likely to lead to poor choices in the immediate aftermath of the 9\/11 attacks. We opt for conformity in response to social pressure; we put aside personal reservations and obey authorities who demand our compliance; we overestimate the likelihood of dreadful but improbable events; and we\u2019re especially susceptible to propaganda and demagoguery during times of fear and crisis. In addition, clinical psychologists had long known that cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or torture devastates the human mind, often leaving the victims irreparably broken and unable to ever escape nightmares and flashbacks or ever establish trusting relationships again.<\/p>\n

Eventually, after years of outrage, protest, and mobilization from so-called dissident psychologists (I count myself among them<\/a>) who opposed the APA\u2019s\u00a0accommodative stance<\/a>\u00a0toward the White House, Pentagon, and CIA, in 2015 the association took important steps to restore the profession\u2019s commitment to \u201cDo No Harm.\u201d For instance, APA policy now prohibits psychologists from participating in national security interrogations and restricts the circumstances under which they can work at Guantanamo Bay and similar sites.<\/p>\n

But these ethics reforms have been under attack from the day they were adopted. Powerful factions within and external to the APA\u2014some military psychologists, the Defense Department, and defense contractors, among others\u2014have pushed to turn back the clock. Their efforts continue today. They seek to expand the roles available to psychologists in the military-intelligence arena, even if those professional activities are designed to dispense with informed consent, to inflict harm, and to avoid monitoring by outside ethics boards.<\/p>\n

This is cause for serious concern. Professional associations, like the APA, and other civil society organizations have crucial roles to play as guardrails in a democratic society. We give them power, privileges, and the public trust. In exchange, we count on them to stand up for human rights and oppose government misconduct. When these groups abandon these responsibilities, the consequences can be dire. History is clear about that.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two years\u2014a full generation\u2014have now passed. That should be more than enough time to learn some sobering lessons. Yet apparently not. Guantanamo, a moral stain on this country, is still open. Trials for the alleged plotters of the attacks and justice for 9\/11 families\u00a0remain on hold<\/a>, contaminated by torture-obtained evidence. The prospect of accountability for the perpetrators of torture and other human rights abuses seems ever elusive.\u00a0Apologies and reparations<\/a>\u00a0from the US government for the victims of torture continue to be unpaid debts.<\/p>\n

As for the APA, US psychology\u2019s most prominent voice still seems unwilling to do anything that could jeopardize its carefully nurtured ties to the military-intelligence establishment. This needs to change. The world\u2019s largest psychological association must find the fortitude\u2014and independence\u2014necessary to place ethics firmly over expediency, and to insist that certain\u00a0fraught activities<\/a>\u00a0in national security settings are off-limits for psychologists. It\u2019s something the APA owes to the public, to current and future members of the profession, and to all who\u2019ve been\u00a0harmed<\/a>\u00a0by the war on terror\u2019s tragic excesses.<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Roy Eidelson is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network<\/em><\/a> and was a member of the American Psychological Association for over 25 years, prior to his resignation. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of <\/em>Eidelson Consulting<\/em><\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of <\/em>Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/em><\/a>, former executive director of the University of Pennsylvania\u2019s Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, and a member of the <\/em>Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/em><\/a>. Roy is the author of <\/em>Political Mind Games: How the 1% Manipulate Our Understanding of What\u2019s Happening, What\u2019s Right, and What\u2019s Possible<\/a> and can be reached at <\/em>reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

26 Sep 2023 – The American Psychological Association, US psychology\u2019s most prominent voice, still seems unwilling to do anything that could jeopardize its carefully nurtured ties to the military-intelligence establishment. This needs to change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":243442,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1052,2755,133,1810,1464,572,95,2686,492],"class_list":["post-244999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-abu-ghraib","tag-american-psychological-association-apa","tag-cia","tag-enhanced-interrogation","tag-guantanamo","tag-torture","tag-us-military","tag-war-of-terror","tag-war-on-terror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245000,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244999\/revisions\/245000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}