table at Alternatives 2010 Anaheim

 

From: Andrew Phelps <math_anxiety@yahoo.com>

Subject: Re: [withholdapadues] New year's gifts from APA:

To: withholdapadues@yahoogroups.com

Date: Sunday, December 26, 2010, 12:22 PM

 

Hi

No response?  Do I have a "logic problem?"  Where does "deployment psychology" arise?

Isn't it related to the "critical thinking" area known as "operations research?"  Doesn't that line of inquiry mean we need to deepen the "Ethical APA" struggle by engaging the social justice and human character of operations research?  Isn't the "psychology of terrorism" the established research paradigm?  Why not just take their money?  Where do ethics reside here?

Yxw wrote:

What is evidence-based about their providing what they know is evidence-based treatment?

My response:

In military parlance (and APA works for the military, we've learned!) "evidence-based" goes back to their 1960s plan to "win by technological superiority" (WTS) and so here "cure by technological superiority" (CTS).

There is not just a surge project in Afghanistan, but we can find its parallel in "national security" thought.

And:

We should consider how to move forward at the level of "seek truth from facts."  We should be glad that with the abolition of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" the military is going to have to face its internal confusion given by WTS/CTS - and engage the matter more forthrightly.

Which means a variety of "adjustments" to our current practice of Ethical APA advocacy.  Jeff Kaye, Dan Aalbers, many folks here are already "pointing the way."  In my view, we need to go from the standard of "how Kant would do it" to a standard that engages our critical concern with the full expression of the existential being of humanity.  The "sales job" associated with an "operations research" solution to our prevailing ethics of "torture denial" promises to keep us .. quite busy.  [!]

 

Andrew Phelps

not a Ph.D. psychologist, but cited in Haan, On Moral Grounds (NYU press, 1985), for his lived experience/contribution as a research assistant