Caffe Trieste

To: psysr-disc@yahoogroups.com

From: "feb7th71" <target@batstar.net>

Date: Sun, 16 May 2010 15:16:20 -0700

Subject: Re: APA Censors Pages Linking It to CIA Torture Workshops

There's another side to this. The tendency against "going fascist" had "reactive behavior" just as Ethical APA has had "reactive behavior" in the face of the APA embrace of torture dynamics. A radical instance would be how Wilhelm Reich fought the Nazi takeover, thus his Mass Psychology of Fascism serves as a source of insights and reports of lived experience. We should engage the many people who have taken positive stances at different times and places.

For example, Jasenn Zaejian is a Reichian psychologist who worked with Radical Therapy in the 70s. Many years later, after professional work in NYC, he got hired by California DMH as consultant for their DOJ Consent Judgment for the State Mental Hospitals. He sent me an email and we went for coffee. Then he worked 9 months for DMH, until he concluded that the approach being used to remedy the situation "lacked compassion," so he quit.

I am not a Reichian but Jasenn and I do have in common a general respect for the "mass psychology" approach to overcoming collective resistances. He posts from time to time on the RADPSYNET-MEMBERS list, but his experience, like that of many others, could be drawn into the "build cultures of peace with social justice" effort.

In other words, there is a Vision "out there" that potentially could integrate the anti-torture struggle and bring in many "threads" such as the one I cited. My previously expressed concern about "bad psychology" (not directed at either of you) was that we should "other" our discussions in that broad challenge and the problematic of changing social institutions which is reflected in "build cultures of peace."

Thanks for these posts.

Tuv wrote: