To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com

From: target@batstar.net

Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 21:18:59 -0700

Subject: [psysr-disc] DOP Conference

The Department of Peace Campaign (DOP) is holding [a] national conference in Berkeley this weekend. My friend Michael and I passed out info on "learned helplessness" and torture — the blog "Torture After Dark: Strategic Helplessness of the APA" by Stephen Soldz et al. — at the opening session.

I take it that "strategic helplessness" is what is meant. We have to disconnect from the viewpoint that the kind of behavioral management constructed around "learned helplessness" is a wholesome practice. Relating - including the "helping" relation - is better dialogical and linked to values advocacy for "freedom and dignity" (as Martin Luther King, Jr. has it).

Michael and I have each served as Chair of the Berkeley Mental Health Commission (formerly: Advisory Board), in the capacity of 'client'. For us, bringing the matter of "learned helplessness" — the logic of today's system of torture — "to the table," is .. an opening. Jane Mayer speaks in Berkeley next weekend: We hope she will see more in Seligman than that he once tortured dogs. "Positive" work on trauma, such as Seligman now advocates, must become the standard.

People fear to engage this subject carefully. The DOP folks need "Ethical APA" type support to legitimize their political arguments, as they seek to build a "culture of peace." Michael and I continue to hope that groups like PsySR will show the bravery that the authors of this blog have shown, and take stronger and stronger stands on behalf of "creative maladjustment." We need help.