Psychologists Shielded U.S. Torture Program, Report Finds

[OneNeuroDoctor]

I wonder if there will be a congressional investigation with power to question and make people accountable as many of the negligent parties refused to cooperate with the Hoffman attorneys adding further speculation into their responsibility. As an APA member knowing some of the parties specified as being in collusion I would think they were not aware of the seriousness and felt they were doing the ethical right thing when agreeing to the changes in the ethical guidelines.

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[Ollie123]

Agreed. You are just more of an optimist with regards to changing APA than I am

Doublethink/goodthink seem to have become prevalent enough that they may be deserving of their own division soon...

 

[psych844]

This is why a lot of people think Psychology is BS.
We can't even agree that torture is wrong. how can we be taken seriously?

 

[psych844]

I think this thread will convert me to medicine or dentistry lol

 

[erg923]

I think this thread will convert me to medicine or dentistry lol

Dentist's charge for their torture....

 

[Ollie123]

There were also a bunch of physicians involved in torture (arguably in much more direct ways) so I'm not sure that is the best alternative...

Anyone dismissing an entire profession unless every single member agrees on a particular point is probably best off pursuing unemployment as their future career though. Short of "Anti-torture advocate" you probably won't find a field where everyone agrees on this point...and even within that field it would only be a matter of time before a controversy came to light about how one or more leading anti-torture advocates were in fact, secretly a torturers and performing unspeakable acts all along.

 

[psych844]

While personal, I should mention that I'm a child of war (I was 8) and my dad was put into a concentration camp for nearly a year and was tortured, and I've seen enough with my own eyes in terms of death and destruction. I think to suggest that anybody, no matter how evil they may be in your opinion, should be tortured goes against human decency.

 

[psych844]

There were also a bunch of physicians involved in torture (arguably in much more direct ways) so I'm not sure that is the best alternative...

Anyone dismissing an entire profession unless every single member agrees on a particular point is probably best off pursuing unemployment as their future career though. Short of "Anti-torture advocate" you probably won't find a field where everyone agrees on this point...and even within that field it would only be a matter of time before a controversy came to light about how one or more leading anti-torture advocates were in fact, secretly a torturers and performing unspeakable acts all along.

You'll make a great psychologist with that pointless babble.

 

[psych844]

You make it sound I'm disagreeing about pointless ****. Do you think I'm disagreeing for the fuc*k of it?
I'm disagreeing because this whole freakin profession is supposed to be "evidence-based" but when it comes down to treatment it usually all goes out of the freakin window. Which serious profession does that?

 

[psych844]

In regards to the above post, check this thread, post #10 for what I'm referring to..http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/psychology-around-the-world.1148340/

 

[Ollie123]

I'm not sure who specifically you are addressing, but personally, I think this is something you feel very passionate about for very understandable reasons. I also think it is naive and foolish to expect universal agreement from any group on on any thing. I've already indicated that I agree with your take on torture and strongly disagree with erg. Actually no one has taken issue with your disagreement - as actually most of us seem to agree with your views RE: torture. We also know what is and is not within the purview of the licensing board and policing political views (however controversial) is not one of those things at present.

Just some more babble....

 

[erg923]

You'll make a great psychologist with that pointless babble.

Whats this about?

 

[PsyDr]

This type of strong emotional response to alternative views bodes poorly for a successful career in psychology.

 

[psych844]

This type of strong emotional response to alternative views bodes poorly for a successful career in psychology.

I totally agree with you, but for completely different reasons .

 

[BuckeyeLove]

This type of strong emotional response to alternative views bodes poorly for a successful career in psychology.

^^^^^This. so much this ^^^^^

 

[AcronymAllergy]

Mod Note: As this is a potentially heated topic about which many of us may have passionate opinions and views, this is a friendly reminder to please keep all replies professional.

 

[psych844]

We also know what is and is not within the purview of the licensing board and policing political views (however controversial) is not one of those things at present.

True. But I think you are being naive if you think that someone's personal beliefs don't impact their clinical work, especially in a field where "treatment" is interpreted in many different ways by a given providers. As Fans of Meehl said, you have many Psychologists that think a 50min conversation with a patient is treatment, or throwing in a few tidbits about good sleep hygiene, is "treatment". I've had enough people in my life receive treatment to know that is all they have ever experienced, so the question is, why are Psychologists not doing the work? do they think what they were taught is BS? do they think its too much work to do it properly? do they think its obvious enough that patients should be able to make the changes on their own? Well whatever the answer is, it is one of the few fields where it seems what you are taught in school has little relevance in actual practice, instead you get a bunch of people with Dr. before their name who get to practice their religion, politics, personal beliefs, and maybe even their own "interesting" treatment methods on patients. It is a great career choice if you are a smart-ass, though.

 

[erg923]

True. But I think you are being naive if you think that someone's personal beliefs don't impact their clinical work, especially in a field where "treatment" is interpreted in many different ways by a given providers. As Fans of Meehl said, you have many Psychologists that think a 50min conversation with a patient is treatment, or throwing in a few tidbits about good sleep hygiene, is "treatment". I've had enough people in my life receive treatment to know that is all they have ever experienced, so the question is, why are Psychologists not doing the work? do they think what they were taught is BS? do they think its too much work to do it properly? do they think its obvious enough that patients should be able to make the changes on their own? Well whatever the answer is, it is one of the few fields where it seems what you are taught in school has little relevance in actual practice, instead you get a bunch of people with Dr. before their name who get to practice their religion, politics, personal beliefs, and maybe even their own "interesting" treatment methods on patients. It is a great career choice if you are a smart-ass, though.

And you know this to be the case because of your extensive training and work experience in this field, correct?

 

[smalltownpsych]

Listen..people's opinions are not always equal, or as valuable, nor should everyone's opinion be respected, nor should there be a balance where stupid opinions are treated as legitimate and the same as facts. You've been watching way too much fox news.

If someone says that they are ok for torture, they are stupid and dangerous people, especially if they are psychologists..and if you can't see that, you shouldn't be doing this work either.

In psychology we have some of called an operational definiton. It seemed to me that Erg was stating that he didn't agree with the defenition including sleep deprivation. If you disagree and think that it should be included in the definition just make that point. I think you are extrapolating too much. I personally try not to harm anyone and am quite the pacifist, but I also recognize that there is evil on the world and it has to be confronted. Usually by people who are a lot meaner than me. It's kind of like the character in A Few Good Men who said that we need sociopaths like him to guard the gates of freedom. I much prefer the tactics of Ghandi and MLK and the original non-violent rebel who founded Christianity, but I am also not so sure if we can get rid of the warriors either.

 

[Ollie123]

True. But I think you are being naive if you think that someone's personal beliefs don't impact their clinical work, especially in a field where "treatment" is interpreted in many different ways by a given providers. As Fans of Meehl said, you have many Psychologists that think a 50min conversation with a patient is treatment, or throwing in a few tidbits about good sleep hygiene, is "treatment". I've had enough people in my life receive treatment to know that is all they have ever experienced, so the question is, why are Psychologists not doing the work? do they think what they were taught is BS? do they think its too much work to do it properly? do they think its obvious enough that patients should be able to make the changes on their own? Well whatever the answer is, it is one of the few fields where it seems what you are taught in school has little relevance in actual practice, instead you get a bunch of people with Dr. before their name who get to practice their religion, politics, personal beliefs, and maybe even their own "interesting" treatment methods on patients. It is a great career choice if you are a smart-ass, though.

Could it? Certainly. I'm sure it does frequently. Though note that this is far from "one of the few fields" where folks don't proceed exactly as they are taught in school. That's the nature of fields that are more abstract in nature...there really isn't any way of getting around that at present. I am probably one of the staunchest EBP advocates on the board and I don't think its realistic or desirable to pursue what you seem to be expecting. I don't know where you are getting information about other fields, but I also think you have an overly rosy view of what they look like. Heck, let's even look at technical ones. Every computer scientist will tell you stories about how "debugging" was done sloppily before release to rush something out the door. Any engineer can tell you about hacking together an inefficient algorithm just to get something done quicker, knowing it could cause problems down the line. This is not to mention all the shoddy assembly-line medical care to improve doctor's bottom line and an infinite number of other sketchy things that take place.

All of this is somewhat of a separate discussion though. If someone here stated they were a KKK member (something I'd argue is far more likely to negatively impact day-to-day practice than anything that has been said in this thread), I seriously doubt you could get a licensing board to take any action based on that information alone. Because its difficult enough to define what appropriate practice looks like for them to begin policing political views based on the presumption that it might reflect some underlying value that could in turn impact their treatment of patients in some fairly vague manner. Someone can outright say "I don't do therapy that has any scientific basis for believing will be effective" and a licensing board would likely do nothing.

 

[MCParent]

True. But I think you are being naive if you think that someone's personal beliefs don't impact their clinical work, especially in a field where "treatment" is interpreted in many different ways by a given providers. As Fans of Meehl said, you have many Psychologists that think a 50min conversation with a patient is treatment, or throwing in a few tidbits about good sleep hygiene, is "treatment". I've had enough people in my life receive treatment to know that is all they have ever experienced, so the question is, why are Psychologists not doing the work? do they think what they were taught is BS? do they think its too much work to do it properly? do they think its obvious enough that patients should be able to make the changes on their own? Well whatever the answer is, it is one of the few fields where it seems what you are taught in school has little relevance in actual practice, instead you get a bunch of people with Dr. before their name who get to practice their religion, politics, personal beliefs, and maybe even their own "interesting" treatment methods on patients. It is a great career choice if you are a smart-ass, though.

In keeping with my 1984 theme for this thread, you are pretty clearly accusing erg of thoughtcrime. You have no basis for believing his beliefs relate to actions, but want to punish him for having the belief.

 

[Pragma]

 

[Pragma]

This thread devolved fairly quickly. One of the things I have been wondering about since the release of this report is how various divisions are going to be handling this issue. It is possible that some may choose to "secede" (unless there is a better term) from APA depending on how things go in the coming months. Just a thought.

 

[psych844]

I wanted to apologize for the comments I made earlier, especially to erg..and no, I don't think erg's beliefs on torture inform his practice. This is a very touchy subject for me (considering my past), and combined with my frustration about the field as a whole, it made me quite frustrated and emotional.

I don't want to go through 5-7yrs of training and then feel that I'm not actually doing anything for anyone.

 

[Fan_of_Meehl]

Sure, use it if you want, even if we have data suggesting that it leads to unreliable data and a tendency to get innocent people to admit to things they did not do, in the hopes that you get a nugget of useful info now and then. So, I'm not sure how much I'd call torture, "science." But, even if you want to swim in that ethical morass, psychologists should not be the ones involved. Seems to be in clear violation of some of our stated principles and ethical guidelines.

Yup...pretty much this.

The rationale of using torture (or 'deprivation' or other aversive techniques) for the purpose of extracting reliable information is not only morally indefensible, it's also empirically false.

History (as well as a few minutes hypothetically putting yourself in the position of the person being tortured) tells us that you are going to say anything to make the torture stop.

The use of torture during the Spanish Inquisition to extract 'confessions' of people admitting to being witches/warlocks/Arch-demons and the use of torture to chill political dissent in innumerable societal contexts throughout history was one of the reasons the founders of this country wrote the fifth amendment (can't be forced to be a witness against yourself) the way they did.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

From what is being written on listserves, many successful psychologist will have tarnished names and ruined careers when the smoke finally clears.

 

[Indodo]

And that, I agree, is wrong. Again, I am not advocating torture. But some of the activities (eg., sleep deprivation) people seem to be getting so ruffled about dont strike me as being much rougher than what any marine or soldier endures in basic training and/or AIT.

LOL...except, again, its just sad.

 

[erg923]

LOL...except, again, its just sad.

Terrorism is also "sad."

 

[pccgrad]

No, but terrorists are.

Not joining the Navy was my wife's call (not that its relevant to this discussion at all).

It's relevant because my combat boots are stained with the blood of my friends who died next to me and I don't believe we should be doing this. The sleep deprivation they're experiencing is of a severity and duration nothing like I ever experienced in bct or ait and I literally had what bordered on wake/sleep hallucination after little enough sleep. I could make you confess to being jack the ripper with enough sleep deprivation. Maybe you should ask your wife if she thinks we should do it.

 

[erg923]

It's relevant because my combat boots are stained with the blood of my friends who died next to me and I don't believe we should be doing this. The sleep deprivation they're experiencing is of a severity and duration nothing like I ever experienced in bct or ait and I literally had what bordered on wake/sleep hallucination after little enough sleep. I could make you confess to being jack the ripper with enough sleep deprivation. Maybe you should ask your wife if she thinks we should do it.

Thank you for your service.

 

[Member 1337]

Yup...pretty much this.
The rationale of using torture (or 'deprivation' or other aversive techniques) for the purpose of extracting reliable information is not only morally indefensible, it's also empirically false.

History (as well as a few minutes hypothetically putting yourself in the position of the person being tortured) tells us that you are going to say anything to make the torture stop.

The use of torture during the Spanish Inquisition to extract 'confessions' of people admitting to being witches/warlocks/Arch-demons and the use of torture to chill political dissent in innumerable societal contexts throughout history was one of the reasons the founders of this country wrote the fifth amendment (can't be forced to be a witness against yourself) the way they did.

It's interesting to me that "Interrogation" has a long history as a profession completely independent of the behavioral sciences.

Hanns Scharff is worth reading about, it's quick and utterly fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff

The sticky wicket emerges when you cross the streams of interrogation, involuntary manipulation of someone involuntarily held, with a profession whose core principles and techniques are founded on the practice of voluntary consensual healing.

On a side note, do you guys remember that old TV show "The Pretender?" He used to always use these "enhanced interrogation techniques," scaring people into confessing! We loved it, because in the TV show we *knew* they were the bad guys (you'd often get to hear them confessing privately before the protagonist "elicited" a taped confession). I hear "24" was similar but I have yet to watch an episode. There is a shared thread in our culture that loves a good enhanced interrogation, putting just a little pressure on the bad guys to get to the truth.

Because, they're the bad guys, *they* deserve it. And we wouldn't really hurt them... not us... *we're* the good guys... we'll just... scare them a bit. Be right back, I'm going to bask in the warm glow of my primitive splitting defense... bonus rescue fantasy for the win.

 

[MCParent]

Farberman and Anderson just resigned!

I liked Mike H. a lot though. I was sorry to see him named in the report.

*******

APA Announces Retirements and Resignation of Senior Leaders

Washington, D.C. - The APA Board of Directors today announced the retirement of Dr. Norman Anderson, who has served as Chief Executive Officer of the organization since 2003.

Prior to the release of the Independent Review, Dr. Anderson had informed the Board he intended to retire at the end of 2016. Dr. Anderson felt that moving up his retirement date to the end of 2015 would allow the association to take another step in the important process of organizational healing, and to facilitate APA's continuing focus on its broader mission.

The Board expressed its gratitude to Dr. Anderson for his distinguished tenure as the second longest serving CEO in the 123-year history of APA. Among the many accomplishments of APA under his leadership was the development, in 2009, of the first strategic plan in the history of APA. This plan continues to guide a significant portion of the work of the Association in areas such as expanding psychology's role in health care and advancing the science of psychology.

Dr. Anderson's leadership to significantly increase APA's investment in its publishing operation produced a substantial growth in revenue that allowed APA to develop new and innovative activities. Among these activities were the founding of the Center for Psychology and Health, the creation of the Science in Action public education campaign, the expansion of our work to eliminate health disparities, the development of treatment guidelines to promote the translation of psychological science into health interventions, and the expansion of APA's presence on the web and in social media with more than 35 million website visitors expected this year.

"We are grateful for Dr. Anderson's distinguished tenure and numerous contributions," the Board said. "The Association has been very fortunate have Dr. Anderson as CEO for so many years, and we wish him well."

The Board also announced the August 15, 2015 retirement of Deputy Chief Executive Officer Michael Honaker.

Dr. Honaker helped shepherd the association through its many changes through the years and did much to make APA a great place to work. Many of the initiatives he put in place led to APA receiving the 2014 Washington Post Top Places to Work award. He is one of the staff's most beloved officials.

The APA also announced that Rhea K. Farberman, APA's Executive Director for Public and Member Communications has resigned, ending her 22-year tenure with the Association on July 31, 2015.

Ms. Farberman's contributions to APA during her tenure were numerous, and include leadership of APA's award winning magazines, the APA Public Affairs and journals publicity program, editorial and user experience management of APA's world class website and the creation of many public education initiatives.

Ms. Farberman and the Board are in agreement that going forward APA plans to hire a chief communications officer who can provide a fresh start to the Association's communications needs as its grapples with the problems identified by the Hoffman Report. While the Board has the utmost regard for Ms. Farberman's skills, professionalism and integrity, it accepted her resignation.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Just announce today mass board leadership APA resignations/retirement:

APA Announces Retirements and Resignation of Senior Leaders


Washington, D.C. – The APA Board of Directors today announced the retirement of Dr. Norman Anderson, who has served as Chief Executive Officer of the organization since 2003.

Prior to the release of the Independent Review, Dr. Anderson had informed the Board he intended to retire at the end of 2016. Dr. Anderson felt that moving up his retirement date to the end of 2015 would allow the association to take another step in the important process of organizational healing, and to facilitate APA’s continuing focus on its broader mission.

The Board expressed its gratitude to Dr. Anderson for his distinguished tenure as the second longest serving CEO in the 123-year history of APA. Among the many accomplishments of APA under his leadership was the development, in 2009, of the first strategic plan in the history of APA. This plan continues to guide a significant portion of the work of the Association in areas such as expanding psychology’s role in health care and advancing the science of psychology.

Dr. Anderson’s leadership to significantly increase APA’s investment in its publishing operation produced a substantial growth in revenue that allowed APA to develop new and innovative activities. Among these activities were the founding of the Center for Psychology and Health, the creation of the Science in Action public education campaign, the expansion of our work to eliminate health disparities, the development of treatment guidelines to promote the translation of psychological science into health interventions, and the expansion of APA’s presence on the web and in social media with more than 35 million website visitors expected this year.

“We are grateful for Dr. Anderson’s distinguished tenure and numerous contributions,” the Board said. “The Association has been very fortunate have Dr. Anderson as CEO for so many years, and we wish him well.”

The Board also announced the August 15, 2015 retirement of Deputy Chief Executive Officer Michael Honaker.

Dr. Honaker helped shepherd the association through its many changes through the years and did much to make APA a great place to work. Many of the initiatives he put in place led to APA receiving the 2014 Washington Post Top Places to Work award. He is one of the staff’s most beloved officials.

The APA also announced that Rhea K. Farberman, APA’s Executive Director for Public and Member Communications has resigned, ending her 22-year tenure with the Association on July 31, 2015.

Ms. Farberman’s contributions to APA during her tenure were numerous, and include leadership of APA’s award winning magazines, the APA Public Affairs and journals publicity program, editorial and user experience management of APA’s world class website and the creation of many public education initiatives.
Ms. Farberman and the Board are in agreement that going forward APA plans to hire a chief communications officer who can provide a fresh start to the Association’s communications needs as its grapples with the problems identified by the Hoffman Report. While the Board has the utmost regard for Ms. Farberman’s skills, professionalism and integrity, it accepted her resignatio

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

How can they all of a sudden decide to retire/resign when they should be fully held accountable and be fired? Anderson should be walked to the door yesterday and fired!

 

[deleted343839]

How can they all of a sudden decide to retire/resign when they should be fully held accountable and be fired? Anderson should be walked to the door yesterday and fired!

Resignations under these circumstances are appropriate, though Anderson's "well, I was going to retire next year anyway" response is weak.

 

[OneNeuroDoctor]

Now Koocher and Levant have posted their statement of innocence with stating Hoffman report inaccurate.

 

[Member 1337]

Does anyone else find this whole process almost comical?

Leaders engage in supporting systemic changes to grow in power, influence, and wealth, riding the cultural waves of post-911 national security policies and expectations - follow the money, follow the steps to career progression and influence.

15 years later, after those powerful leaders have solidified their positions and the cultural zeitgeist has passed, voluntary investigations show that a "restructuring" is needed. The old guard can retire, their wealth secure, while the up-and-coming new generation can redefine themselves in an image consistent with the new cultural expectations of a kinder, gentler, we-srsly-do-not-torture public policy. The money must flow, and this continues to keep the money flowing, because the dues must be paid in order to facilitate restructuring.

Sure, there may be a few sacrificial lambs, a few lawsuits here and there - this is necessary to feed the public's bloodlust and fantasies of justice, we need something to watch on CNN and feel like we're a part of a bright new world, but the majority of the old guard has just what they want: wealth, influence, and real power. And the new generation is able to rest secure in their reimaging consistent with a vision of social justice in a global community - and they will gain power, influence, wealth, because the new generation of the powerful know that is what the new generation of followers is eager to stand behind.

The system flows. There is no change. It is an illusion meant to keep you giving the powerful your unconscious acquiescence. And money.

 

[Justanothergrad]

How can they all of a sudden decide to retire/resign when they should be fully held accountable and be fired? Anderson should be walked to the door yesterday and fired!

This is part of why I take the entire APA response to be a bit comical. The whole thing is like watching a farce. Accountability is clearly not an issue and the chances are that by the time the whole thing washes over, anyone that could be held accountable will have simply resigned as a function of retirement, or MAYBE a slap on the wrist.

 

[cara susanna]

I think APA has definitely lost any credibility it had with regards to social issues and policy.

 

[futureapppsy2]

I think APA has definitely lost any credibility it had with regards to social issues and policy.

The extra frustrating thing about that to me is that they've been justifying their general lack of action about issues affecting professional psychology practice and education (the imbalance, FSPS, etc--basically, anything non-RXP) in part by saying that they're more of social issues/public interest-based organization... To say that and then to be colluding with torture of all things is just such a slap in the face to what they've been trying to sell themselves as in recent years as they've moved further away from an identity as a a professional advocacy organization. Not that this would have been okay had they still been primarily representing themselves as professional advocacy organization of course, but the fact that they've been gradually re-branding themselves as a social issues-focused organization all while this is going on at high levels of leadership makes it more ironic.

 

[smalltownpsych]

The extra frustrating thing about that to me is that they've been justifying their general lack of action about issues affecting professional psychology practice and education (the imbalance, FSPS, etc--basically, anything non-RXP) in part by saying that they're more of social issues/public interest-based organization... To say that and then to be colluding with torture of all things is just such a slap in the face to what they've been trying to sell themselves as in recent years as they've moved further away from an identity as a a professional advocacy organization. Not that this would have been okay had they still been primarily representing themselves as professional advocacy organization of course, but the fact that they've been gradually re-branding themselves as a social issues-focused organization all while this is going on at high levels of leadership makes it more ironic.

The social issue that I wish they would
Concern the self with is improving psychogical services for the public. They can do that by ensuring solid training for psychologists, improving the role of psychologists in mental health, advocating for psychologists receiving more compensation to ensure the best and the brightest continue the pursue this career so the public can continue to benefit from the services we provide. The psychology of global warming, really? I don't see how that type of advocacy benefits our profession or our patients any more than getting involved in the whole Bush torture stuff. I am personally a very strong environmental advocate and my wife and I donate to a number of organizations along those lines, but that is not why I give APA money and if they want to continue being a social issues group, I won't be wih them for much longer regardless of what their stance on the issues is.

 

[WisNeuro]

The social issue that I wish they would
Concern the self with is improving psychogical services for the public. They can do that by ensuring solid training for psychologists, improving the role of psychologists in mental health, advocating for psychologists receiving more compensation to ensure the best and the brightest continue the pursue this career so the public can continue to benefit from the services we provide. The psychology of global warming, really? I don't see how that type of advocacy benefits our profession or our patients any more than getting involved in the whole Bush torture stuff. I am personally a very strong environmental advocate and my wife and I donate to a number of organizations along those lines, but that is not why I give APA money and if they want to continue being a social issues group, I won't be wih them for much longer regardless of what their stance on the issues is.

To be fair to APAPO they have advocated and lobbied for the bolded points for some time, some of the other points I believe they have, although in more subtle ways. As for the global warming thing, I don't believe that is one of their strong stance positions, I'd be interested to see how much time and money is spent on that compared to other issues. I imagine not much. As for decrying them being active in social issues, I don't see the problem. In our country, mental health is very much a social and political issue. Part of getting things passed at a legislative level is education and persuasion of issues at the constituent level. To say you want the APAPO to not act on social issues is to say that you don't want them to act at all.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

I could be understanding the setup incorrectly, but isn't APAPO technically a separate entity from APA, or something like that? Perhaps that's why APA focused on their "social issues" role. Although I agree--if APA is going to be the body that continues to accredit training programs, then they need to focus significant efforts on those fronts...which, as smalltownpsych pointed out, are social issues in their own right.

 

[WisNeuro]

You are correct, APAPO and APA are technically independent entities under a wider umbrella. So, I guess we should be more explicit with how we discuss things. I think there is a tendency to conflate the two as being the same thing though. I do agree that they should be pursuing different, although at times slightly interdependent, issues. And yes, the APA is responsible for accreditation, which in my opinion has been deplorable and needs to be tightened to improve quality. Long story short, I generally agree with the majority of APAPO's efforts and stances, I generally have disagreed with APA's stances/efforts/inaction.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Does the AMA have separate entities like APA and APAPO? Should we have them? One of the strengths of our field is our solid research and academic base, but it also seems to be the source of some of our problems. Specifically, the conflict between clinical practice psychologists verses research psychologists. I think the growth of the professional schools is a result of this. I also suspect (intuitively and deductively, so I realize there is probably no hard evidence) that some research psychologists have a subtle bias against clinical practitioners and that is a difficulty as well. It likely goes the other direction, too, especially from the "I hate research crowd" who probably end up getting degrees from FSPSs more often than not.

 

[Justanothergrad]

I think this whole division of psychology (APS versus APA, APAPO versus APA) is probably more related to our youth as a field and the fact that we haven't yet found the balance of what a psychologist should be as a general scope of training. As a result, I tend to think you're right smalltown, we are having different groups effectively lobby for the creation of things like the PsyD ect, instead of establishing one degree and one set of training as a standard.

 

[WisNeuro]

While they are technically independent, they fall under the same umbrella and coordinate at some level. I think people are simplifying it to some extent. You could eliminate the separation, sure, but it would still just be an arm of the APA. I don't see how much would change whether or not the APAPO existed separately or not. I actually see the separation as a plus. I think APAPO has it's priorities straight and has a clear goal, it's the APA which needs to clean house and establish a coherent platform.

 

[Member 1337]

The response form Koocher and Levant is dripping with unconscious process:

---"Many of us on the BoD did hear from concerned colleagues serving in the military, who wanted to understand their ethical obligations as psychologists in the military command structure. When asked by these members serving in the military about what our ethics code instructed about such contexts, the simple answer was, 'very little.'"---

So, newly minted greenhorns reach out to their parent organization seeking concrete guidance on navigating their professional obligations amidst the turmoil of a nation at war, a public reeling from the violation incurred by the 9-11 attacks, and desperation and helplessness towards a largely nonspecific enemy. The organization's response is, essentially, "you're on your own." Gee, thanks for the help and support, I hope you're enjoying all my monies. You would think that a seasoned organizational members supporting behavioral health in the Armed Forces would have had time to work on tricky questions like this since... eh, World War I? II?

---"These demands in many ways paralleled similar arguments propounded during the Viet Nam era"---

Oh, OK, "Viet Nam." That's not quite as long as WWI but still a lot of dog years. I'm sure that by now we would have had time as an organization to work out these pesky concerns with a clear, specific stance to support our constituents.

---"Authors of the code never expected that our colleagues would participate in activities that violate the fundamentals of upholding the dignity, respect, and welfare of others."---

Uh... sooooo... I guess not. What's the point of ethics policies anyway? You "never expected" to have to discuss issues "like this" because you never expected your colleagues to behave unethically? So you pay people monies to admire how ethical all psychologists behave all the time? The idealistic intent ot Ethics Committees and policies is ostensibly to support and clarify confusing situations. Because ethics can get confusing and people trying to do "good" can actually do "bad," so we support each other with the unexpected. But the response suggest that psychologists won't act unethically so we don't need to formulate a position... even though our constituents whom we support are begging us for one... uhh...

---"In this context the President [RFL] asked the BoD to approve funding for a special task force... The BoD approved the formation of the task force and funded it..."---

This is classic Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy stuff right here. Those devoted to the goals of the organization and actually practicing military psychology, seeking support and guidance, are given the penguin salute, while the managers of the organization toss money around, develop committees, work on padding their publications, resumes, and media relations, collect and spend dues, not offering any significant support to the consituents they are supposedly there to serve.

---"Koocher had... co‐authored an ethics textbook that included detailed commentary with examples of appropriate and inappropriate roles of psychologists in interrogation."---

But... wait... what? Didn't you just say that you had very little ethical guidance to recommend? But now apparently you're the author of a book on the roles of psychologists during interrogations and a SME? I... srsly... I think I need a break... my brain is hurting...

 

[WisNeuro]

So...I'm getting that you're not happy with the situation.

 

[cara susanna]

Anyone else reading the APA public comments? My favorite so far is the one claiming that APA over-regulates training programs.