From: Andrew Phelps <phelps@cwnet.com>
To: actmad@actmad.net
Sent: Thu Jul 31 10:41 -0700
Subject: [Actmad] petard hoisting
Hi
I was listening to Berkeley's KPFA interview Bryant Welch. Dr. Welch was a leading organizer of the American Psychological Ass'n Practice Directorate. That's the clinical psychology people. Some here will note that the APA Practice Org. was a key player in organizing the Coalition for Mental Health Reform that arose from the New Freedom Commission. Where the Clearinghouse and NEC "stuck in there" (but not happily) and the CONTAC actually walked out citing grassroots pressure.
Now Bryant Welch is the co-author of a
stunning blog in Counterpunch, by Steven Soldz, Brad Olson, Steven Reisner (all leaders of "Ethical APA," Reisner being their candidate for APA President), and Jean Maria Arrigo (a social psychologist who has exposed the ethical thinking of military interrogators) called Torture After Dark: The Strategic Helplessness of the APA. It relates to a recent book, The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer, who is a writer for the New Yorker magazine.It turns out that Martin Seligman tortured some dogs and created the behavioral ideology known as "learned helplessness." And that military interrogators around the world today use that ideology as the logic of behavior management by torture. Amy Goodman interviewed Jane Mayer on that "logic" recently (7/18). Now the soul of the APA itself "is at issue" and the ethics of torture is linked to the promotion of the "learned helplessness" paradigm as its tool.
Torture, anyone? Can "treatment" be torture? Is the learned helplessness widely promoted by "Behavioral Health" to control the "client/survivor" population an ethical practice? I'm afraid the APA is getting close to being "hoisted on its own petard."
Bryant Welch is a clinical psychologist practicing in Hilton Head I., South Carolina. He's the author of a new book, "State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind" regarding the inner politics of the APA.
Andrew Phelps
http://users.cwnet.com/phelps/andrew.htm
2nd posting attempt