Editorial Ethical standards, truths, and lies
May 10, 2016 Comments Off on Editorial Ethical standards, truths, and lies
Editorial Ethical standards, truths, and lies
Bethany L. Brand Ph & Linda McEwen MA
Journal of Trauma & Dissociation Volume 17, Issue 3, 2016 pages 259-266
DOI: 10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
This is an editorial about recent social and professional ethical developments that may signal attempts to arrive at truth about critical aspects of trauma after decades of lies and cover-ups. The first development came with the release of the Hoffman Report (Hoffman et al., 2015a), an investigation of the American Psychological Association’s (APA) complicity in abusive, traumatizing interrogations of political detainees, with one particular reference of note to this discussion. Another development was the publication of The Witch-Hunt Narrative by Ross Cheit (2014), which challenges widely held misconceptions about victims of child abuse and their credibility perpetuated since the preschool child abuse trials of the 1980s.
The ethical standards for International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation (ISSTD) members are derived from the ethical guidelines of national and professional groups (ISSTD, 2015). For psychologists who are members of the ISSTD, the APA provides ethical principles (APA, 2010), including general principles and ethical standards. Not only did some powerful people within the APA fail to follow its principles and standards, but, as noted in the Hoffman Report, it was the APA ethics director who was among those complicit in this failure.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
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http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15299732.2016.1114357
US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 ‘collusion’
July 14, 2015 Comments Off on US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 ‘collusion’
US torture doctors could face charges after report alleges post-9/11 ‘collusion’
Leading group of psychologists faces a reckoning following repeated denials that its members were complicit in Bush administration-era torture
Spencer Ackerman Saturday 11 July 2015
The largest association of psychologists in the United States is on the brink of a crisis, the Guardian has learned, after an independent review revealed that medical professionals lied and covered up their extensive involvement in post-9/11 torture. The revelation, puncturing years of denials, has already led to at least one leadership firing and creates the potential for loss of licenses and even prosecutions.
For more than a decade, the American Psychological Association (APA) has maintained that a strict code of ethics prohibits its more than 130,000 members to aid in the torture of detainees while simultaneously permitting involvement in military and intelligence interrogations. The group has rejected media reporting on psychologists’ complicity in torture; suppressed internal dissent from anti-torture doctors; cleared members of wrongdoing; and portrayed itself as a consistent ally against abuse.
Now, a voluminous independent review conducted by a former assistant US attorney, David Hoffman, undermines the APA’s denials in full – and vindicates the dissenters.
Sources with knowledge of the report and its consequences, who requested anonymity to discuss the findings before public release, expected a wave of firings and resignations across the leadership of an organization that Hoffman finds used its extensive institutional links to the CIA and US military to facilitate abusive interrogations….
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/10/us-torture-doctors-psychologists-apa-prosecution
PSYCHOLOGISTS FOR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
PsySR Responds to Hoffman Report about APA Collusion
http://www.psysr.org/about/statements/PsySR_Statement-Hoffman_Report.pdf
A national hero’: psychologist who warned of torture collusion gets her due
Jean Maria Arrigo was largely ignored and the subject of a smear campaign for sounding alarms about psychologists’ post-9/11 torture complicity but has emerged from the damning report as the story’s hero – and martyr
Spencer Ackerman in New York
Monday 13 July 2015
Jean Maria Arrigo’s inbox is filling up with apologies.
For a decade, colleagues of the 71-year-old psychologist ignored, derided and in some cases attacked Arrigo for sounding alarms that the American Psychological Association was implicated in US torture. But now that a devastating report has exposed deep APA complicity with brutal CIA and US military interrogations – and a smear campaign against Arrigo herself – her colleagues are expressing contrition.
Arrigo estimates she has received perhaps a dozen such emails since David Hoffman, a former federal prosecutor, confirmed what she has crusaded against for a decade: the APA’s institutional involvement with torture led to a concerted effort to quash dissent, lie to the public, and silence people like her. In a story full of villains, Arrigo emerges from Hoffman’s report as a hero – and a martyr….
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/jul/13/psychologist-torture-doctors-collusion-jean-maria-arrigo