This week the issue has come to the surface in the world of the psychologists fighting "interrogation" psychology at the APA. New Yorker writer Jane Mayer's book, The Dark Side, takes a Red Cross study of Guantanamo Bay detainee treatment, and connects it to the work of Martin Seligman on "learned helplessness." As President of the APA in 2002, he gave one speech to the SERE program (which was set up to teach U.S. servicemen/women on how to resist torture), on learned helplessness. Apparently the psychologists involved at/around Guantanamo Bay have "run with the ball" based on the "learned helplessness" paradigm.

Why am I not surprised? Because of course most of the "client/survivor" people have seen this logic and practice directly, in how our lives have been managed in the name of "behavioral science."

What is interesting about the present opening is its specificity. Seligman (who is a radical advocate AGAINST "learned helplessness" nowadays) has issued a denial (which I find convincing) to bloggers who pointed the finger at him. People HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD the psychology of how he "saw error and went the other way" many years back. And that's basically because the idea that "treatment can be torture" is unspeakable, that in mass psychology terms it is "the resistance that needs to be worked."

Jane Mayer was interviewed on Amy Goodman this morning. should have the text of that interview. Here’s her response to people pointing the finger at Seligman. I got that link from a post on the SOCIALJUSTICE list which is run by the 13 "social justice" divisions of APA.

Hot matter. They don't know about the meaning of this opening. We do.