Torture, Collusion, And The American Psychological Association

From the day we enter this world we begin losing. We lose innocence as we mature, but we gain incredible experiences. We lose pets and sometimes replace them with new animal friends. We lose friends and family members to death and disability. As we age, more and more friends die.

The more painful losses can be those of disillusionment and loss of trust. This is evident to reactions in the press and among your own neighbors to the crimes uncovered among some of our nation's pastors, teachers, elected leaders, some sort of "shadow government", movie stars, and company spokespeople.

In July 2015, we heard announcements that the American Psychological Association has been an advocate for torture.

We members of APA received a letter from the leadership of the organization.

We were informed, if we had not already known, that a professional investigator, David Hoffman of the law firm Sidley Austin completed an extensive review of allegations of a relationship between the APA and the Bush 43 Administration regarding abusive interrogation techniques employed with W's War on Terror.

The long report was to have been released during the week of July 11, but it was leaked to the press, blindsiding APA in The New York Times. It is also posted on the APA website.

Leadership of the APA has apologized to its membership for not being as independent of federal government influence as it might have been.

It is unfortunate that as we age through the lifespan, we seem to encounter growing amounts of loss. Developing additional resilience, making new friends, cultivating new interests, maintaining an interest in the life and world that go on after our loses are ways to survive and live additional years in productive enjoyment, no matter whether we are 13 or 103.

The American Psychological Association has done much good work and particularly in gaining respect for all sorts of minority populations that have suffered abuses in the past. Children, women, veterans, people with disabilities and birth defects, folks suffering Severe Mental Disorders, and all genders can see that the APA is an advocate for human rights.

Associating torture with the APA will likely not close down the organization, but it gives us a sense of disappointment and loss. In the 2010s, increasing numbers of people are seeing the former pillars of society - if they were pillars at all - crumbling. This is not "1950s World" where a happy home, a two-parent family, a government for the people, and a pantheon of American heroes were all advertised as standard across the nation. Those of us that were kids in the 50s, 60s, or 70s know that the advertisements were misleading.

Reality is hard. It is harsh, but we can survive it. What did the 542-page report on the APA find?

Mr. Hoffman analyzed the materials available to him in documents and email message records and found a short list of infractions against human rights.Problems included:

1. Evidence of an ongoing pattern of collusion between a few people in APA and the US Department of Defense. -- This can be seen as disturbing and frightening. It is one more infraction to stack on the woodpile of things the government should probably not have done - like exposing people in the American West to radiation in the 1940s - 50s and, most recently learned in 2015, injecting fogs over San Francisco with two forms of bacteria in warfare technique tests without informing the population.
2. The intent of those participating in the collusion was to "curry favor" with the Defense Department. This may have led to the federal government's use of torture in interrogation. -- This may cause people to ask if the APA is a clandestine arm of the federal government.
3. The analysis found no evidence of collusion of APA with the CIA or in the 2002 changes in the APA Code of Ethics.

The APA leadership and related committees pledge to fix any problems found in the report as quickly as possible. This began with at least one personnel change and will be followed by several additional changes as reported to the UK's Guardian on July 11, 2015.

The APA Annual Convention for 2015 was set for the first week of August in Toronto. A new possible prime topic for the session became the long Hoffman report.

A large enough number of people have historically distrusted the APA - enough for the Hoffman report to add deadly ammunition to their criticisms. Some voices call for the APA to be investigated by the FBI.

However, some people want the FBI to be investigated by APA.

The United States of America has had many disturbing issues in recent decades and this has been another of them.