Looks like grounds for Michael Moore to film SICKO II focusing on what kind of amoral sociopaths go into a career presumably to help people, only too willing to twist it into a ways and means to break other human beings down. In this case, the subjects of their "methods" are not even being accused of actual crimes, but in a fictitious war engendered by what Moore termed a fictitious president, what does evidence mean or matter? Here we have sadists on the loose and no immediate means of roping them in. When I lived in London prisoners produced an interesting book about the abuse of power entitled, WHO GUARDS THE GUARDS. Indeed.

The true manipulation is on the American people, convincing them that all of this is about gathering information. It isn't. It is about military sadism, and the satisfaction it brings the voters back home.

(My dad was a professional psychologist for decades (Perls, Reich, Satir, ...), and an avid Amy listener. He also did everything to speak out against this war. Psychologist can be some of the greatest people, but the sad fact is that most of his colleagues were insane control freaks who went into the field because of the glamour of manipulation and oneupsmanship.)

The Inquisition returns...secret trials, secret evidence,indeterminate sentences and ... torture. Where Orwell and Kafka meet Edgar Allen Poe.

In my professional career I came into intimate contact with people from every profession. None left me with a lower opinion of their profession and those who populate it than "mental health professionals". Could there by a more fraudulent, useless, parasitic collection of sociopaths anywhere?

Its hardly surprising since the life sciences has been stocked with sadists and control freaks since Descartes which is why we have the concept of the "mad scientist." They claim to be rational but often their behaviour suggests the opposite. Vivisection (seeking to relieve pain and suffering by causing even more pain and suffering to innocents--its like trying to help a homeless person by kicking a family out of their house and claiming its altruistic).

BF Skinner was a notorious animal torturer and many of his followers would try to come up with new forms of torture(learned helplessness for example).

And their understanding of moral concepts is infantile at best--whenever they are asked why they torture innocents they will say: we do it because of the benefits. It doesnt matter whether its rats or unsuspecting citizens--they always cite some greater good.

Unfortunately citing benefits is not an ethical defense--it is a statement of intent.

Imagine if a thief was asked why he steals and he tries to defend himself by saying: I did it because of the benefits.

Ethics gets in the way of scientific "progress." And if scientific progress leads to problems--like Heroin, then they assume the solution is always more science, more research. Its the answer to everything.

There's no reason to believe that a cross section of psychologists is any more ethical than a cross-section of any other group of humans. Unethical and sadistic individuals can be hand picked from any profession.

I'm a librarian, and I'm glad that and American Library Association has taken a stand against the war, but previously I was affiliated with the American Association of Adult and Continuing Education, and they're too conservative to take a stand on that kind of thing. Maybe they have too many military adult educators, whereas in ALA there aren't many military librarian.

From and adult education perspective, the psychological perspective on adult ed. tends to be more conservative, whereas the sociological approach to adult education tends to be more sociological. Maybe that psychological-conservative bent is present in APA too. I'm sure the more liberal and progressive psychologists are just tearing their hair out after this statement, which is getting a fair amount of press.

The question is not conservatism or liberalism of APA. It is their professionalism.
Rumi says;
"An educated person who wanders off the track becomes a thief who gets in the house with a set of keys"
The test for APA and its members is not far off. Let us see them demonstrate how serious they are in their claims. In the next APA meeting they will show if they abide by the Hpocratic oath of "First Do not Do Harm!". The test comes when the membership distances itself from practices that in the Soviet era was termed torture and now it is Coersive Inerrogation under the supervision of the best psychologists money can hire.

When I began college having read Freud and Jung in high school, I thought a career in psychology would be perfect. Then I started taking classes, and LOOKING at who was taking them with me. The professor cited statistics that basically indicated an individual in psychic crisis had better odds "healing" on their own, and their chances of improvement became worse based on the level of treatment, i.e. being treated by psychologist OR psychiatrist. These professions often lock people into the past, get them to focus on negative events, and where is the present in all of that? There are people with biochemical disorders that NEED help; but I sometimes wonder if diet and withdrawing from stimulants might not help them? We all have different blood chemistry, yet the majority of experiments presume a once-size-fits-all modus opeandi. My conclusion as I changed majors was that the girls in psychology looked terrified of their own bodies and jealously guarded the slightest hint of sexual allure; and the guys qualified for least likely to get laid on a weekend night (and that was in the quasi free love days of a far more liberal era!)

This is a natural extension of the CIA's MKUltra research.
Read Jonathan Bloch's and Celina Bledowska's 'KGB/CIA'.
It has been going on for years for critical political situations, and has simply been expanded in application.
The MKUltra needs to quit being dismissed as a 'kooky conspiracy theory'. It is real and nasty and one of the main weapons of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld Junta. Psychological warfare to the extreme, and unfortunately very powerful. Hitler liked it.

How about if these psychologists first role play as a victim? If they're so humane and not torturing, they should prove it!

If the APA wants to redeem itself and take the high road, it should oust the torturers from membership and the states where they are licensed should revoke their licenses. This is clearly contrary to their Code of Ethics (as far as I know).

Also, MKUltra never ended, as some reports claim... it is simply periodically re-named when public scrutiny arises... the perpetrators claim it stops, but it just gets a new image and continues. And yes, it is very inhumane, and severely stretches the boundaries of political ethics. It tends to grow under Republican administrations, and decrease or go underground under Democratic administrations.

Thanks Amy.

Doctors and shrinks will be less ethical than the average person because they have more latitude in their actions than the average person unless they are carefully controlled and regulated.

Face it we hand out a license to commit manslaughter to doctors. We need to watch them.

I ask you all, what profession doesn't proclaim to help people? Even police, with gun, badge and uniform profess to be keeping the law, and usually do so with admirable efficiency. But the bottom line is that people go into professions to feed, house, and cloth themselves. Psychology is ostensibly supposed to benefit humankind, but is that any reason to believe that those that enter it have altruistic intentions? No, not at all. Have you ever met an obnoxious cop, an arrogant doctor, a stuck-up teacher, or an insulting beaurocrat? I bet one of those hit the mark. People are people.
I'm not saying we have to put up with it. The most important thing to do when faced with one of those archtypes is to calmly but firmly tell them your opinion. Man, they won't like it! Because all of this is tied to the perception of social status, and by default, a person reveals their true selves to you when they feel they have nothing to lose (boy am I a cynic).
Unfortunately, in this case, we're talking torture and, again by definition, there is the torturer and the tortured. Here would be the true litmus test of character. Are you one of the ones who pushes the button, even if just in the Stanford experiments, or do you say NO, even though the only thing you've got to lose is your humanity. I guess that's what this all boils down to: Are these people human or aren't they?

There is nothing new about this. So-called "behavioral psychologists" (including Skinner and Pavlov) have been doing this for decades. My bet is that a couple of Guantanimo psychopaths will get their Ph.ds based on their studies.

This is not a case of a few bad apples. Left to their own devices most people are cruel and rotten. Society honoring peace, kindness, and other good qualities and punishing bad has some effect. Positive peer pressure and good parental guidance and some kind of moral rules helps as well.

In any system there are people who will be substantially better or worse than the norm, but the norm is the important thing.

Violent crime is on the rise in this country over the past 6 years. I blame the bad example of the current leaders, poor positive motivators and most of all the general tolerance of criminal behavior by the media, political parties, and the general population.

If the public would tar and feather Tom Delay and Duke Cunningham for their corruption even figuratively we might see some honesty.

Tom Delay is already on the fund raising and pundit circuit. Henry Kissinger, considered in much of the world as a war criminal is considered a suitable pundit without even mention of his behavior on all the msm.

Crime pays big time.

After having spent nearly 40 years in the field of Motivational Psychology, I was amazed how few people would listen to me when I pointed out techniques that were being used against the average American citizen by this administration.

The worst of it started way back in Reagan's second term, and I suspect it was being orchestrated by Daddy Bush, who had spent a brief tour as Director of the CIA. The manipulation continued to be used AGAINST CLINTON during Clinton's 8 years... attempting to discredit Clinton and advance the Republican cause.

In 1987, a Congressional committee discovered that Otto Reich had populated the "Office of Political Diplomacy" with members of the CIA's dis-information division and members of the Army's 4th PSYOPS Group in order to lobby Congress and feed false news stories to the American media in support of the Contra War in Nicaraugua.

The Comptroller of the Currency said that was illegal and cut off funds to that branch of the State Department.

During the Clinton years, there was a constant flow of accusations of all kinds, yet after Ken Starr and Company spent over $55 million American tax dollars discrediting Clinton, the worst and virtually THE ONLY thing they could pin on Clinton was lying about his affair.

Even the move into the White House was used to throw a final dig at the Clinton Administration by claiming Clinton's people had vandalized the White House... which ALSO was later proven to be lies.

In February 2002, Bush2 brought Otto BACK into the fold during a Congressional break.

Step by step, this administration has used EXACTLY the same techniques Hitler, Goebbels and Goering used to manipulate the Germans in the 1930's. See the following examples:

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, THE TRUTH IS THE GREATEST ENEMY OF THE STATE."
-- Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and DENOUNCE THE PEACEMAKERS FOR EXPOSING THE COUNTRY TO DANGER.

It works the same in any country." Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

Provoice: thank you for this informed piece of "insider" information. Shakker: Experiments done on primitive one-cell worms show that when they learn a behavior (how to move through a maze to obtain food), and are bisected, their progency (produced asexually) already KNOW the behavior. Human nature at this point in time has been codified by actual behaviors along with those that have in a sense "projected our darkest issues into our collective tissues" so that the WORST seems like a norm! It's true that US leadership sets the example of the bully. Here in Florida speed limits feel like a suggested minimum and car after car speeds along completely oblivious to the dangerous manner by which so many today drive. This is not a peripheral issue as 40,000 die on the roads, thus this type of driving is a form of homocide. Entertainment tends to focus on violence; and "rap" or whatever they call it these days, sounds like machine gun fire where rounds are composed of angry 4 letter words. Where is the love. To me, this is all the expression of ego/primitive urges/Mars out of control, and its cosmic counterbalance, the Divine love-goddess (and champion of peace, as well as the arts) at a vast deficit. Mankind needs a collective spiritual chiropractic adjustment, and barring that, whatever form the "enema" will take to finally expiate all this shit. Plausibly, nature will clear the slate or certainly drop the population through the predicted weather events, so that a new slate can form, and people learn to behave cooperatively rather than competitively. How many remember that terrific piece posted on commondreams where a group of dominant baboons died off (since they got to eat first and the food was contaminated) and instead of the new males assuming the roles of their former dictatorial/authoritarian counterparts, they instead arranged a more socially balanced, egalitarian society along with the females. Hey, if the monkeys can do it, can't we?

Consider the background of psychology. Many if not most of the experiments are based on deceit and unethical behavior. This attitude then expands into the feeling that the end justifies the means. This in itself is enough to explain why psychologists are so deeply involved in torture. Then consider why many of them have gone into the field in the first place, either because their own psyche was screwed up (data shows that psychologists have more psychological problems than the general public - Atlantic Monthly about 15 years ago) or because they are recently divorced women who blame men for their own problems (man-haters). Look at a class of psychology grad students and count how many of them are divorced women, at least half.

The American Psychological Association (www.APA.org)assures us that it only approves its members participation in interrogations in order to make the process "safe, legal, ethical and effective." One must wonder "Safe for whom?" Surely not for the detainees. But conveniently enough for the interrogators, who can then feel free to abuse their captives with impunity based on the maxim NO BLOOD NO PROBLEM. Wake up psychologists! Must you, of all people, be told that mental cruelty, particularly when informed by your sadistic research, can be as damaging to human dignity and welfare as the repulsive practices of medieval barbarians? I am a psychologist--and ashamed of my profession.

Last year, when working for a major Canadian University, I suggested that it was possibly inappropriate for the Psychology Department to the APA and specifically to the list of jobs it advertised in military psychology or working for "private defense contractors" (Read US Army torture or US mercenary torture). I presented a lot of evidence to the department head and asked that he might look into it.

It is a sign of how defensive - and how involved - many major academics are with the torture industry that he not only did not look at the evidence I presented but he immediately threatened me with a grievance procedure (the upshot of which can be instant dismissal). If a supposed academic in a Canadian university is so implicated in academic psychology's involvement in torture that he cannot even discuss the issue like an adult, let alone with the kind of academic methodology you might expect from a scientist, then imagine what is going on behond locked doors with these people, devising hideous torture for innocent people.

Like Shakker says above "This is not a case of a few bad apples." I would qualify that by saying that there are a lot of great and ethical psychologists and psychiatrists out there. The problem is that many at the leadership level at the APA are pro-torture. When investigated, the board that carried out the investigation was comprised of 10 people, 6 of whom were involved in helping the American Government torture scheme at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib.

Personally, I can't see what is wrong with the military employing psychologists and their ilk. Interrogations and the results of, are better served by experienced and knowledgable specialists.

And the huge caveat is - ONLY if the Geneva conventions are adhered to.

For an inside look at how the US military intellegence's code of conduct changed from 'good' to 'bad' read "The Interrogators: Inside the Secret War Against al Qaeda" by Chris Mackey.

Some of the commentators appear to take a very illogical and ad hominem attack on psychologists. there are just as many corrupt, narcisstic, power hungry, and deceitful medical doctors, lawyers, business people, teachers, priests, pastors, etc., as there are psychologists. look at the physicians who ignore the homeless being kicked out onto the sidewalks of los angeles despite needing care. while the political power grab some psychologists within apa is deplorable, it says little unique about this profession, and more about human nature as a whole. the commentators spewing raw and reactive criticisms of "crazy mental health professionals" betray their own instability and issues. perhaps they were finally confronted by some mental health professional about their own problems?

"corrupt, narcisstic, power hungry, and deceitful medical doctors, lawyers, business people, teachers, priests, pastors"

Fraku, Agreed, and there are a lot of articles dealing with these criminals on CommonDreams. But this article is about psychologists.

It is true that most psychologists are against the use of torture advocated, designed and practiced by some of their colleagues. Within the APA there are huge numbers of people vociferously against the involvemtn of psychologists at Guantantamo and Abu Ghraib.

The point is that there are numbers of influential psychologists - as witnessed in my experience described above - who either have blood on their hands or are complicit in stifling debate because they see their role to be unquestioned in decision making. People who are that paranoid are either guilty or neurotic and neither shoudl be allowed to practice or teach this fine and important science.

it is highly likely that organized psychology is attempting to score points with the powers that be so as to gain allies in their push for both prescription priviledges, as well as continuing to be seen as a "value-added" resource compared to master's level counselors and lcsw's who do similar work and are reimbursed less. hence, they are likely attempting to salvage the profession, in some of the most unwholesome ways possible.

amy goodman has done terrific interviews on democracy now with professor mccoy at univ.of wisconsin madison,and also with the fellow who did the famous stanford role-taking prison experiments back in 1971.the latter project had to be cancelled after a few days because of the immense psychological damage it was doing to the participants-presumably healthy college kids.for ethical reasons,the major professional bodies which govern psychologists in the usa,will not allow this type of role-playing project to be done again.both these interviews are in the democracy now archives.ms.goodman has also held archived "debates" on what participatory role psychologists can play in the brutal psy-ops regimens the armed forces and the cia are performing on prisoners all over the globe.the affirmative position in these debates is so lame that it requires a first rank psychologist/superb debater to make the argument sound civilized,let alone plausible.