To: <s-acc@yahoogroups.com>
From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 12:17:10 -0700
Subject: RE: [s-acc] re: classic on communication and conflict resolution
Uvw:
You wrote:
but remember there was a history before what you are calling for now, I know, I was there, and I think I did the best I could, as well as other that where there with me to get the movement going.
I truly believe you did the best you could, and I respect you for it.
But those of us who
were also there and had, in the 70s, terrible negative experiences with the old "torture denial" system of NAPA (whose EXPRESS decision was to reject "opposition to the 'medical model'" as a principle of unity) remember that some people did damage and no accountability has taken place. In 1998 we organized the Accountability Caucus in CA, to try to lift up the movement in a "socially accountable" way and go forward in a way that would [1] honor people like yourself or Tanya Temkin (the editor of MNN) for having personal accountability and [2] that would also stand in the way of those who persisted (and generally still do persist) in "terrible negative experiences" is 'OK', is something to be denied.What I've done is trace the psychology of that agenda of lack of personal accountability to a kind of accommodation of "torture denial" like what has been the dominant practice of clinical psychology. When Eca identifies that the Calif. Psychological Association is disconnected from "the ethics of torture," we need to take that seriously. And we need to consider how we should engage the spin-offs and similar ways of thinking that have kept our movement off a proper focus on "dignity."
Best
Andrew