From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>

To: Private List

Subject: [xxx] alchemy challenge

Date: Sat 04/17/10 08:57 PM

 

Hi:

It has been erroneously reported that my "senior thesis paper" 1977 is "manipulative 'Psychology'." That's The Social Psychology of Character Assassination.

I wrote that paper because I felt that the paradigm of "attitude management" which Philip Zimbardo has advocated and orchestrated starting with the "Stanford Prison Experiment" was (and is) an attack on human rights. While I was writing that paper
  1.   I attended a meeting of the Network Against Psychiatric Assault and found that "torture denial" was an accommodation they adopted; much later I learned they had chosen not to make "opposition to the 'medical model'" (the advocacy against "torture denial") a principle of unity, saying it was "too hard to deal with."
  2.   I was given the opportunity to interview Christina Maslach, Zimbardo's wife, regarding why she had imposed a regime of "attitude management" on me, and I report (politely) in the article that she dissed me (politely) rather than engage the real issues. [Christina was the psych intern who had Zimbardo stop the Stanford Prison Experiment after 6 days.]
  3.   At the time I was writing that paper, I worked with an activist group that brought the Rosenbergs' children to speak in Berkeley. I did that because it is widely agreed that the persecution of the Rosenbergs is a classic case of socially sanctioned "character assassination," and I wanted to engage the question - as a client/survivor - from the viewpoint of "lived experience."

What has occurred in my activist life [since] is that the leading movement advocacies (not to name individuals) generally still practice an accommodation policy to "torture denial," and many have, in various ways, attacked and dissed me for "wanting to make money" by reminding them of their accountability for living by "torture denial." That attitude obtains still today, and ATTITUDE MANAGEMENT is not generally fought. Instead the client/survivor movement still does not directly challenge the pattern of discrimination where we are treated as "behavior objects" rather than people. :-(

That earlier post about my article has got it backwards and reflects the prevailing advocacy. I'm glad today that Vernon has risen to the occasion and is meaningfully challenging NAMI ("families don't abuse") and that there is developing a strong movement in the world of psychology "Ethical APA" challenging (first) the paradigm of "learned helplessness" for its use in interrogation torture.

And that that movement in psychology is now moving (second) to a "following phase" where finally "attitude management" is to be on the table and where we will be able, client/survivors and psychologists/clinicians to challenge the "social death sentence" torture process that oppresses us and puts at risk the advocates of "science of mind" due to the ALCHEMY, due to the pre-scientific character of their practice and the ethical implications stemming from there.

 

Andrew Phelps