Psychologists Oppose Torture Yet Vote to Attend Terror Interrogations
After a raucous debate about what role - if any - psychologists should play in U.S. government interrogations of terror suspects, the American Psychological Association voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject a measure that would have in effect banned its members from those interrogations.
Instead, the association passed a competing measure that reaffirms the organization’s position against torture “and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” of terror suspects.
For the first time on record, the resolution lists specific treatment that the association opposes, including mock executions, water-boarding, sexual humiliation, induced hypothermia, hooding, using dogs to threaten and intimidate suspects, and sleep deprivation.
In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, these techniques have been used by U.S. authorities against terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other U.S. prisons to extract information, according to military officials and human rights activists.
Sunday’s vote by the association’s 165-member legislative council took place at the APA’s convention in San Francisco. With 148,000 members, the American Psychological Association is the largest body of psychologists in the world.
Psychologists have overseen past U.S. interrogation of terror suspects, and are currently in Guantanamo Bay working with military authorities, said APA member Bill Strickland, a former U.S. Air Force research director and one of many speakers on Sunday who urged voting against the measure that would have banned participation in those interrogations.
The presence of psychologists at Guantanamo Bay and other military-detention centers helps guarantee the well-being of the terror suspects because it adds a layer of official oversight, said Strickland and Army Col. Larry James, who was the chief military psychologist at the Cuba prison in 2003.
“If we removed psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die,” James told the convention.
Supporters of the failed measure, which called for members not to cooperate with interrogations connected to prescribed practices, argued that psychologists’ presence at these interrogations rubber-stamps various practices that are tantamount to torture.
“We’re talking about places where people being interrogated don’t have human rights!” said Neil Altman, a supporter of the moratorium.
In the large hall at the Marriott Hotel where the vote was taken, the speakers who advocated a ban were greeted with loud applause, as were those who argued in favor of the counter measure that reaffirmed the APA’s stance against torture. But when two separate hand-votes were taken, an overwhelming number of council members rejected the ban and then supported the “reaffirmation” motion.
Steven Reisner, a New York City psychologist, said he would continue his effort to push for an outright ban.
He said the APA’s listing of torture measures it opposes was an important first step, but that “this fight is going to continue as long as it has to.”
“The APA named the abuses that are most widely used at CIA ‘black sites’ to torture detainees, and said they are unacceptable,” said Reisner. “That is the positive thing I see here, and that will help the U.S. government to understand that this is unacceptable.”
Before Sunday, other major health organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association, had previously proclaimed their opposition to various abusive interrogation techniques.
The American Psychological Association had also gone on record stating its vehemence to torture during interrogations, but until Sunday, it hadn’t defined what it considered these techniques to be.
Sunday’s passed resolution includes “an absolute prohibition against psychologists’ knowingly planning, designing, and assisting in the use of torture and any form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Are there psychologists working to make sure that the soldiers involved in this are processing these horrible things that they’re doing?
The APA needs to be involved at every level…
Sadly, nobody can make anyone listen to them.
It’s notable that one of the other APAs, the American Psychiatric Association, already forbids members from participating in torture. Clearly at issue is what “participating” means. Is simply observing “participating”? Or does one need to do more? Consider an analogy. If I watch my friend shoot another person, I have a responsibility to report the shooting. My observation brings a concomitant duty, otherwise my observing is a form of participation. Now the American Psychological Association’s stance should emphasize the requirement that any member witnessing torture has a duty to report the torture to a) the APA, b) the appropriate legal officials, and c) the media. Obviously, b has been left out of most torture situations such as those at Guantanamo, an c has been fairly complicit in these operations. Thus, the only party that might do something is the American Psychological Assocation. They have an incredible responsibility that we should hold them to, as b and c have failed us.
This is all very reminiscent of the way mental health and allopathic professionals were duplicitous and complicit in war crimes in Hitler’s Germany….
The majority of the German people were either too afraid to speak up or brainwashed into silent consent….Welcome to BushCo’s fascist state….
The America I hope for does not yet exist…
this just in… broken nuze… the CIA has voted to tell the Psychologists and other apologists to go F themselves…
The memo appears to be signed by the VP…
Seriously, we should let all the psychologists who work with this program a free week at Michael Vicks kennels. Sleeping with the dogs as it were…
…I am reminded of the old Sci-Fi Series “Babylon 5″. The most feared Bureauocracy then was the “Psy-Corps” headed by a Cosmic Scumbag named Bester. Officially there to help, but in actuality, nefarious Psy-Ops are the Order of the Day. No One is Safe, even in their own Thoughts. Every sort of psychological ‘conditioning’ is used to support the status quo.
I think, this is not Sci-Fi anymore… Shame on these highly educated professionals… Immoral and unethical in the extreme.
Army Col. Larry James is right. We don’t want America’s prisoners to die, at least not until they have been sentenced to death by their duly appointed secret military tribunal. If the presence of psychologists in military-detention centers can keep them alive until then, their presence is justified. I am certain that those psychologists who designed and participated in the American torture program in Cuba, Iraq and elsewhere will henceforth abstain from practices the American Psychological Association has disavowed. Of course these paragons of ethics, Larry James being just one example haven’t disclosed what techniques they do use but I’m sure they will respect the APA’s list as well as not devise any new techniques. Just because American psychologists participate in a program stripping prisoners of their basic human rights doesn’t mean they might not be able to help the army glean some useful information.
“Educated”.. you mean they were similarly brainwashed. I wish more ‘educated’ people would think for themselves. One reason I hated school so much was because of the realization that the purpose of this environment and instruction was not to learn how to think, but to be a ‘good worker’.
And yes I am sure a good number of these so-called Psychologists are CIA trained in psy ops, of that I have no doubt. They can just self hypnotize themselves into believing whatever they need to to maintain ‘national security’. How else would they get to stay in Gitmo for so long yet never in this many years have witnessed any abuse.. or minimal abuse. It doesn’t make sense or ring true.
Can we trust members of the APA in private treatment now that the organization has voted to be a component of military interrogations?
Has this vote improved their credibility as healers of people?
The problem is that the psychologists become party of the team conducting interrogations. Their real purpose their is to better torture\interrogate the prisoners. For instance, there might be a time where the torturers are thinking maybe this guy has reached his limit, and its the psychologist that says …No, he can take more of this.
Or, the psychologist has an inherent conflict of interest because a part of his job there is to identify the prisoners psychological weak spots and direct the interrogators to attack there. But then the same psychologist is supposed to tell them to stop attacking these same weak spots because that’s putting the mental and physical health of the prisoner at risk?
But the key part is that these psychologists are officers in the US military serving as a part of the team doing the interrogations. That’s where their loyalties will lie. The only way the spin the military spin doctor puts on this would be if there was a second psychologist involved who’s sole responsibility was the health of the prisoner and who had the authority to act to stop something that threatened the health of that prisoners. That’s the only way you’d really get the so-called positive effect that the military spin-master is putting out there. And since one of the goals of the interrogation is to convince the prisoner that he’s alone and with no help and that giving his interrogators everything they ask for is the prisoners only hope, the last thing the army is going to do is to put a psychologist in there to advocate for the health of the prisoner.
Face it, no matter the military spin, these are psychologists that are working to break down and destroy the mental health of other human beings. They are there to make the interrogation more effective. To me, that’s just plain wrong if the morals of a profession say that you are supposed to help people. I say anyone doing this work needs to plainly and obviously cross the line into the dark side and be barred from the professional organizations of those who are committed to helping people.
jlocke123 August 20th, 2007 1:35 pm
“Just because American psychologists participate in a program stripping prisoners of their basic human rights doesn’t mean they might not be able to help the army glean some useful information.”
Any potential gain from aiding and abetting “War Crimes” at Gitmo or other nefarious sites of torture will be far outweighed by the loss in America’s international human rights reputation….
A stain on American international kudos for generations….Historians diktat will be severe….
Damn! Am I ever glad I quit therapy!
I know more that most of these slap-happy headshrinkers any day!
It’s very simple, really - “First, do no harm.” - Hippocrates.
sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, except when the burning end is shoved up someones rectum, then it is a penis
“The presence of psychologists at Guantanamo Bay and other military-detention centers helps guarantee the well-being of the terror suspects because it adds a layer of official oversight, said Strickland and Army Col. Larry James, who was the chief military psychologist at the Cuba prison in 2003.
“If we removed psychologists from these facilities, people are going to die,” James told the convention.”
Colonel Larry gets the Dr. Mengele Memorial Award.
Sadly, so do all the brutes who voted to keep supporting torture by “monitoring” it.
Amy Goodman has been tracking this issue closely on Democracy Now. Check out democracynow.org last weeks archives for more info.
My regard for the APA and its standards has just dropped. They are a perfect example of what happens when the myriad arms of government become buddy-buddy with civilian professionals who are in disciplines supposedly devoted to truth and healing individual or societal ills. The civilians lose perspective and can no longer see clearly the line that should separate them from such agencies as the military and the intelligence services. Obviously too many APA members believe they have a positive role to play in interrogations; this view is self-serving, and dilutes clean professional standards.
Once it renounced shock therapy and other “cures” for homosexuality, the APA had a narrow window of opportunity to make basic human decency a standard of behavior.
Today the APA slammed the window shut.
Well..here’s one for the Watchers..so listen UP you in the basement of the NSA with your warrentless searches and Self Deluding Hypocrasy…
I believe..it is time to begin to SHOW the individuals who COLLUDE with the Corporate Fascist Theocrasy..the REALITY of the behaviours they are allowing, and ‘participating’ in…for example, maybe Mr. Strickland will be..uhh..grabbed off the street outside his home, brought to an abandoned building and given INSIGHT into the REALITY of TORTURE…hmmmm..yes..I think that is ALL THAT IS LEFT.
These HYPER-ARROGANT individuals who so callously participate in the New World Order, with their lame duck excuses, need a wake-up call..and that can ONLY be..DIRECT EXPERIENCE, for as Descarte said..’..experience does NOT err..’ and thus..
Other than actual Rendition and torture of these people these Mini Fascists, these Wannabe Tough guy’s..maybe they should be exposed to their neighbors, and the business that they frequent as the malignat Narcissists that they are..(the most dangerous form of Sociopath..) and simply be..DESCRIMINATED AGAINST…Spit on as it were…it is time..time to find SOME WAY to make these types ACCOUNTABLE for their screwed up belief system..and what better way than a little of THEIR OWN MEDICINE..’OH YOU THINK TORTURE IS OKAY? WELL..WAIT TILL YOU GET A TASTE OF YOUR OWN FECES..CAUSE I AM GOING TO PUT SOME IN YOUR MOUTH UNTIL YOU TALK..’
FOLKS!We are in a New Cold War..but THIS TIME..it is a Cold CIVIL war…and a method of not allowing those who would COLLUDE WITH IMPUNITY as supporters of the WORST FORM OF BEAURACRATIC FASCISM WE HAVE SEEN IN DECADES is required. Where are the Counter Measures? for everything from invasive cameras, to email searches, and also to the people who are allowing Bushies to get away with it…where are the COUNTER MEASURES? What would happen if 2000 protestors all showed up wearing the SAME UNIFORMS AS THE POLICE? see the point? What would happen if Col.larry and Mr. Strickland were OUTED to the Public, so they could NOT HIDE THEIR EVIL ODOR? As the C.F.T. GAINS A TIGHTER AND TIGHTER STRANGLEHOLD ON AMERICAN CULTURE…I SAY ENOUGH!..GRAB EM UP, TIE EM UP, CUT THEIR EYELIDS OFF AND STUFF THEIR GENITALS IN THEIR MOUTHS…OR AT LEAST JUST SPIT ON THEIR CARS…until they understand what it is that they are ENDORSING..
PS Please join me in SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT INTERNET SNOOPING BY ADDING ‘EXPLOSIVES..THE PRESIDENT..ALLAH..’ TO EVERY EMAIL AND POSTING..IF WE ALL DO IT..FRY BIG BROTHERS LITTLE BRAIN..DIG?
Torture is always wrong. The names of each of these people and their vote on torture should be disclosed to all potential clients before any treatment is allowed.
People with problems that could be made worse by psychotic practitioners should be warned.
Little Eichmanns indeed. We are the IVth Reich, complete with constant war, torture chambers, bent shrinks, and killer Drs - all of them as Arrogant as Goebbels or Mengele or Goering or any member of the Waffen SS - chosen by the flat earth blood god Yahweh to RULE PLANET EARTH for a 1000 years. And yes, our guys are even better at breaking the minds of the helpless than our predecessors, they didn’t have shrinks to find the cracks and fissures in a personality. We are become vile Death,cruel Death, ravening Death.
Which means we’re about 10 minutes from total collapse of this Last Aryan Empire.
The perfect storm is actually upon us, the waves of the sunami are lapping at our feet. If you look up you can almost see the top of the wall of water against the sky as it moves towards us with gathering speed. Look around. Take photographs. In less than a decade everything you see around you in your world will be gone.
If it’s any consolation virtually everything you see in your world is owned by Master and is designed to rape your life and hold you as a slave.
Many will reject being freed in this fashion, they have no identity outside of an insulated bubble of artificial light that binds them to Master. Many slaves in history have identified with their Master and have died for Master. Too bad. Those lights are all going out and Master will betray even these loyal ones because that is who Master is.
Sorry, the avalanche has begun, too late for the pebbles to vote.
May we meet in a better place where no Shadows fall.
Peace.
I do not understand why anyone is surprised!
This man is a hero of mine:
Here are some comments by a man who stood by Gandhi - Badshah Khan, who led a 100,000 person army of non-violent Pashtuns. He was a Pashtun (Afghan) political and spiritual leader known for his non-violent opposition to British Rule during the final years of the Empire on the Indian sub-continent. He was a lifelong pacifist and a devout Muslim. He was known as Badshah Khan (sometimes written as Bacha Khan), the `King of Chiefs’, and `Frontier Gandhi’.
“To me nonviolence has come to represent a panacea for all the evils that surround my people. Therefore I am devoting all my energies toward the establishment of a society that would be based on its principles of truth and peace.” – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
“Today’s world is traveling in some strange direction. You see that the world is going toward destruction and violence. And the specialty of violence is to create hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer in nonviolence and I say that no peace or tranquility will descend upon the people of the world until nonviolence is practiced, because nonviolence is love and it stirs courage in people.” – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to an interviewer in 1985
His story is contained in “Nonviolent Soldier of Islam: Badshah Khan, A Man To Match His Mountains”, by Eknath Easwaran (Published by Nilgiri Press
I have only a few comments to those who keep bringing up non violence as a means to change the world and the usage of ghanadi and Khan is one of the prime examples of dumber than rocks red neck thinking of the left.
Britian never left India except in the military sense and the reason they left was economics.
They could make more managing the fiancial side of India than the actual possession of the lands.
Unlike British ruling familys of then compared to the British, Aisan European ruling elites of today who are backed by the worlds most militaristic and powerfull nation in earths history,USA, and at a time in past where Britian once felt it would have to kill tens of thousands and as a nation and a people would not do so; today they and their allies would kill hundreds of millions without a whimper or second thought.
The next context left out of equation is you could search the earth today and find not even a hundred thousand who would keep alking inot the guns thinking they would stop befgore all were dead.
For those of you who hae tgaken Psy classes for more than a tri-mester you know that the field of study poses more as a science than it can prove to be and is one of those subjects that students need quite a bit of ouside study in many other fields, or else it rutns into a mental matrubnation contest between angels with different angels upon how to sit on head of a pin.
There is no morality in the science itself!
Psychologists and sociologists have worked with the government throughout the history of these disciplines. Are we truly naive enough to believe that they were all doing good???
Using torture is more than enough evidence that the Bush administration is in fact a dictatorship and a fascist state.
Of course you need to add illegal wars, non countability for war crimes in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas in the world, rendition flights. The so called Patriot Act is the keypiece of this fascist state.
Any Psychologists attending and participating at interrogations are complices of those criminal actions and should be put before an international court for crimes.
The people of the United States should take all action to restore D E M O C R A C Y in their own country.
Ther is no mention of opposition to sensory deprivation in isolation. This causes insanity. Attorneys say that their clients in that new prison building at Guantanamo are being subjected to that as a matter of course. The building design is made to isolate and drive prisoners mad. That is its purpose. Padilla was so sensory deprived that he will probably never regain his sanity. Interesting how our government can make people incapable of defending themselves with the plan to try them.
“I am reminded of the old Sci-Fi Series “Babylon 5″ . . .I think, this is not Sci-Fi anymore… Shame on these highly educated professionals… Immoral and unethical in the extreme.”
The whole nightmare of the last 7 years, starting with the reversal of the real election results in 2000, has been life imitating art — all the faces on tv talking as if a coup were perfectly normal, no coup had occurred . . . and then the attack by the Shadows who can only be repelled by the vigilance of the president & the psy-corps . . . But then B5 is sort of an sf application of Sinclair Lewis’ “It Can’t Happen Here”. “THe Prisoner” also deserves a mention as a pre-description of our particular situation.
“If I don’t do it, someone else will, who won’t be as moral as I am” — the oldest excuse of all collaborators everywhere . .
I have more than once said that I abandoned the idea of going into psychology because I did not want to spend my entire working life dealing with crazy people: colleagues, not clients.
This vote shows how deep the control of American society has become under the ruling elite.
The concile is controlled by the ruling elite and votes against the wishes of its membership.
Have I missed something?
THANK YOU ascott!! It`s also why I`ve quit being a patient. padum tshh.
It`s a truism that 99% of psychologists enter the feild to figure out why they`re so F-ed up without getting fingered as crazy.
Psychiatrists on the other hand are just pathetic shmucks who got pushed into med school but were too snobbish to specialize in podiatry and too stupid to specialize in anything that might actually harm someone… cough cough cough… choke
If people actually are in any doubt about this they might want to google Dr Cameron.
or read this, fer fun
http://www.montrealmirror.com/2005/112405/kristian.html
“from the article: With 148,000 members, the American Psychological Association is the largest body of psychologists in the world.
a good measure of how screwed up the US is is the ratio of mental health “experts” to the general population. and what percentage of the population is in “therapy.”by & large therapists function as part of the managerial class, to redirect a person’s anxieties into private solutions. who posting here has been to a therapist who said, “your problem is that you are not participating in social revolution?” they exist, but few and very, very far between.
and now therapists are being tasked to deal w/the ultimate “deviant”, the terrorist. there are no socially-derived grievances that might inspire a terrorist; they are freedom haters who are threats to national security. why not use your psychological tools to manipulate them? it will help people, the people you save? right?
We do not need Psychologists at places like Gitmo to observe the treatment of prisoners, presumably to help torturers determine how far they can go before a person is really being violated. Instead, we need people who have a clear idea of the boundaries established by the Geneva accords. We need more Amnesty International attorneys who are duty bound and — most importantly — committed to report violations of hunan rights laws. Lt General Kevin Kiley of Walter Reed fame came right out and defined the military role of psychology at an APA conference a couple of years ago when he described it as “…an important weapons system… ” People who are trained to compromise, to ameliorate, to be non-confrontational, cannot be expected to serve as protectors of prisoners — more likely, they will end up being appeasers and rationalizers in order to help marginalize any qualms of conscience the torturers may occasionally experience.
It has been said religion and philosophy cannot be combined but so too could be said when it comes to philosophy and science.
Ethics and morality cannot define limits of scientific thought but scientific thoughts can supply the tools that determine and define the borders of morality and ethics in their implementations.
We can say a psy must not have sexual relations with a patient, but he can determine and define what sexual relations his patient may undertake and use any mental and today chemical methods to control his patients actions.
Does the psy look at homosexual or hetrosexual as morally equivelent or with one being a deviant behavior?
In the classroom they are both viewed as sexual behaviors but it is society that determines the values of one behavior over the other not the psy operative.
While a very small minority of society are trying to lay the blame upon 100,000+ practioners of mental conditioning hundreds of millions accept and believe torture of a few as being necesary or unworthy of concern.
The Professioanl Psy Societal Organization at least is following a more honest and scientific policy among its members than society at large has been unwilling to face up to; reality.
Is not reality what the practioners of Psy sciences attempt their patients to understand and if they don’t to use the tools of chemistry and mental conditoning to control their behaviors?
WHATEVER- psycholgists are at gitmo- and PEOPLE DO DIE IN GITMO, so that argument holds no water.
Their statement is meaningless- worse than meaningless, it does harm because unless organizations SHUN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, nothing will change.
SHUNBUSHSHUNBUSHSHUNBUSH
The sad state of this debate misses the deeper, less obvious point: coercive interrogations of any kind are illegal.
The Geneva Convention for prisoners (the third) makes it clear that prisoners of war need not ever say anything more than name, rank, age, and serial number. Duh. Anyone who ever saw Hogan’s Heroes knows that.
What applies is Article 17:
>>Article 17
“Every prisoner of war, when questioned on the subject, is bound to give only his surname, first names and rank, date of birth, and army, regimental, personal or serial number, or failing this, equivalent information.”
. . .
“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”
Prisoners of war may not be interrogated. That is precisely what we want for our own prisoners who have been captured.
If they are not prisoners of war they are civilians and they may not be questioned without a lawyer present if they so request. Think Miranda. And they have all the protections of the Fourth Geneva Convention, including Common Article 3, and, of course, the prohibition against cruel and inhumane treatment in the Bill of Rights. Article 4 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is broad in whom it includes:
“Persons protected by the Convention are those who, at a given moment and in any manner whatsoever, find themselves, in case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals.”
Here is the link to the Third Geneva Convention:
See http://www.ohchr.org/english/law/prisonerwar.htm
For the APA to participate in what is obviously illegal according to international law, and by the extension of Article 6 (2) which makes “treaties made” the “supreme law of the land,” reflects widespread lawlessness and mass delusion. I wonder how many people in the APA have actually bothered to read the Geneva Conventions?
APA’s support for illegal interrogations makes them complicit in war crimes.
It appears that many psychologists in charge of APA have so little understanding of propaganda they cannot see through the slight-of-mouth deception inherent in a re-labeling of the status of prisoner of war as “enemy combatants” and “illegal combatants” which are fictitious categories. That is sad and pitiful. I think most psychologists get this and I hope APA changes its policy.
Legality?
Wake up you live within a country where the rule of laws are in a constant state of flux and depend upon whomever has the power to enforce the laws they pass.
A whole society that has looked upon its actions as the sole arbiter of worlds morality and usurped others power to form own destiny by those we seelcted now cry foul when we find those we empowered are beyond our selective morality?
Tough!
What a farce!
For crying out loud we invaded a group of countries, Balkans and then tried those we incited to violence so we could invade, for war crimes and we did it under democracy and humanity, not out of lack of knowledge but selective ignroance, and we justify occupaiton of a large country, Afghanistan, for the actions of men who were not even members of Afghan society under that self same selective ignorance.
A selective ignorance due to convenience and multiple years of special interest legislation that undedrcut the original intent of the LAWS set Forth by which Government was supposed to be restrained under.
What a farce.
What a farce!
What is the rule of law when those who rule the law make the laws for their own advantage?
American society.
That today they find they are being ruled without a say is just too damn bad!
Welcome to rest of world.
Now our mental health professionals are joining in the march toward fascism.
I keep hoping that common sense will prevail. (or common decency)
Shah Kenaw
Greetings!
I also quit - treatment for depression. My comment there: I saw a shrink for depression, and it worked: I became more depressed than ever.
I have been assured by a poster on a Scottish site that their shrinks “are all barking” as well.
For the most part, I lump psychologists and psychiatrists together. (The major difference, in practical terms, is that psychiatrists suffer much more deeply from the god-complex - just like other MDs.)
I thought AmeriKKKa was used to torturing people when they put Vietnamese women and children into the tiger cages and starved them….
Jim Writch:
“People who are trained to compromise, to ameliorate, to be non-confrontational…”
Hide Behind:
“Is not reality what the practitioners of Psy sciences attempt their patients to understand…?”
You are both confusing theory with practice. Competent shrinks are not the rule. I’ve worked with them on a variety of levels: student, client, assistant (of various sorts, inside and outside educational institutions), and the number of shrinks I’ve met to whom I would entrust my child: 1 (possibly 2) out of more than 2 dozen. (The possible? Didn’t get to know him well enough to decide for certain.)
On the whole, we’re talking about a collection of arrogant ego-centrics. Just think about it: what can possibly be in a 20-year-old schoolchild’s mind that convinces him/her that (s)he is qualified to help anyone? From there, it’s more classes and finally poorly-supervised clinical experience - by people who have already accepted this person as one of their own. (If you don’t think that ego-centric arrogance boils down to an ‘us versus them’ attitude toward patients/clients and other ‘outsiders’, I could set you straight in a trice. I acted as guinea pig for one of these PhD candidates. There was no aspect of the intake interview, testing, or evaluation that he did not screw up - despite the fact that I had told him that I had some background in psychology. When I detailed his failures to his supervisors, they shrugged it off, wrote him a glowing review, and helped send him off for a post-doc at a prestigious institution. In short, I demonstrated - to their satisfaction! - that he was incompetent and psychologically unsuited to the ‘profession,’ but they did not care!)
May your eyes never be opened by direct experience.
Ascot: I agree with theory versus practice of practioners arts.
I have had to review a few of their findings , in regards to employees mental states after harmfull work related incidents and accidents and while reviewing them with emplyeees the employeees in almost every case say; ‘What and the hell is that guy talking about, I never said that”.
I found in my own time of study much to dissuade em from going forward in my stuides by the atitudes of the professionals teachers and practioners.
I too more than once went through a testing procedure of mental evaluations done with actual case histories and upon reading their findings by researching backgrounds and personal interviews along with and knowing some of the people I found, first a vast difference in interpretations, one ended up describing a num as a schitzophrenic and by polar and secondly, that they in almost every case carried a bias into the interview that colored their findings.
In short they in their personalities were much the typwe who would indeed find no reason to not participate in torture techniques as advisors or evn partake in as what they deemed a clinical dispassionate observer.
Which was all BS and indeed did point to many cases of self importance or egocentric behavioral patterns in their own psyches.
Hide Behind
What is astounding is that so many people never question what ‘professional’ really means.
If as much as a significant minority of ‘mental health professionals’ were truly competent to recognize and deal with (functional) personality disorders, candidates would be better screened. As it is, candidates are first self-selected; second, almost never have their decisions to enter the ‘profession’ questioned; and third, stand the best chance of getting through with academic note if they are efficient at writing papers (including papers of questionable quality, on many other disciplines’ scales), can memorize a lot of data, even if they are unable to think analytically about it; are good at shoveling [male bovine feces], and are at least mediocre at flattering their profs (who, more often than not are arrogant).
If I had a chance to influence the curriculum, one of the texts universally required in several courses, beginning with the introductory course, (before anyone enters psychology as a major) would be E. Fuller Torrey’s “The Mind Game: Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists.” (Please don’t start pounding me with anti-Torrey arguments. I am not nominating him for anything, but just recommending this single book for all would-be shrinks - and it would be a good read for those who want to idealize these bunglers as ‘healers of the mind’ or any of the other nonsensical, fanciful terms used for them.)
Drat this editing function!
Add to the third set of ‘talents’: the ability to memorize a lot of data - regardless of the (lack of) ability to think about them analytically and/or incorporate them logically into real-world endeavors/put them to logical practical use.
I am reminded here of a grad student who had passed his orals ‘with distinction’ but needed someone frpm outside the field to bail him (and his advisor) out and correct the simple design flaw in his experiment. How can someone who can quote the most relevant works in perception, chapter and verse, not be able to see that his simple experimental design confused dimensions, treating two of them as though they were interchangeable? (Both of the 2 children - aged 11 and 13 years - to whom I later gave the problem independently identified the design error - and did so in under a quarter of an hour. You should have seen their faces when I told them that it was a problem that had baffled a college student!)