Posted on 09/18/2008 11:24:24 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Members of the American Psychological Association have voted to prohibit consultation in the interrogations of detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, or so-called black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency overseas, the association said on Wednesday.
The vote, 8,792 to 6,157 in a mail-in balloting concluded Monday, may help to settle a long debate within the profession over the ethics of such work. Psychologists have helped military and C.I.A. interrogators evaluate detainees, plan questioning strategy and judge its psychological costs. The association’s ethics code, while condemning a list of coercive techniques adopted in the Bush administration’s antiterrorism campaign, has allowed some consultation “for national security-related purposes.”
The referendum, first posted on the Internet as a petition in May, prohibits psychologists from working in settings where “persons are held outside of, or in violation of, either International Law (e.g., the U.N. Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions) or the U.S. Constitution, where appropriate,” unless they represent a detainee or an independent third party. The association’s bylaws require that it institute the policy at the next annual meeting, in August 2009.
...
Like other professional groups, the association has little direct authority to restrict members’ ability to practice. But state licensing boards that can suspend or revoke a psychologist’s license often take violations of the association’s code into consideration.
Many military and civilian psychologists have resisted a prohibition, arguing that consultants provide some accountability, making sure that questioning does not become abusive, for example. The association, these experts contend, should focus on the behavior of individual psychologists, rather than abandon the work altogether.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Adios to these quacks. They have their hands full writing psychotropic scrips for young children anyway.
Psychologists...
Not exactly the folks I want determining what moral behavior is when it comes to how we handle terrorist detainees.
I see no need to waste perfectly good government money on prissy psychologists when there's plenty of willing volunteers to take care of this problem.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I don’t recall them decrying the psyops used at Waco to drive David Koresh nuts.
What is it about advanced education that causes some to lose their bearings?
If patriotism and working to further the interests of their own country is a bit too crude for them, if they consider their first duty is as citizens of the world rather than citizens of the USA, I encourage them to just move to Europe where they won’t have to brush shoulders with people who still put America first.
Fine, we’ll do it without your so-called ‘consultation’. You’re a bunch of morons anyway.
“This is a political rather than a professional medical judgment. Its as consequential as the finding that homosexuality is not an aberrant mental disorder.”
That means it *is* consequential. The APA’s caving in to homosexuals paved the way for the courts to invent a right for gay marriage and other travesties.
Dump them, they’re not needed.
Anyone else feel that it might be an error to declare any sort of war on the CIA?
American Psychological Association collapses and a new professional association takes over that learns to keep it's nose out of national security issues.
Psychologists have turned their profession into glorified social workers.
I would suggest steering clear of most Psychologists, and half of Psychiatrists.
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