Psyche, Science, and Society

Compressive Soldier Fitness critique in TIME and Scientific American

The recent article by Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk, and myself critiquing the military’s Compressive Soldier Fitness program has received considerable positive attention, including blog posts on the Time and Scientific American web sites. Here are those posts.

Time:

Does the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program Violate the Nuremberg Code?

By Mark Benjamin

There is new criticism of the Army’s high-profile effort to train mental toughness into soldiers so they can better handle the stress of repeated combat tours. This time, the critique comes from a group of psychologists who say the program appears to be scientific research without consent.

The Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program is a $125 million effort to teach mental resiliency to troops. The program is a pet project of Army Chief of Staff George Casey, who retired this week, and is run largely by famed psychologist Martin Seligman through the University of Pennsylvania.

“This is a mandatory program for a million soldiers with no pilot testing,” says psychologist Roy Eidelson. “We don’t know if it is no use, harmful, or potentially helpful.”

Rather than simply screening soldiers for potential problems after combat, the Army says it is trying to provide troops with mental tools to help them handle the rigors of battlefield stress when they deploy and the impact it can have on a soldier and his family when troops return home. The program combines individual assessments, virtual training and classroom instruction.

Critics say the program’s aims are valiant, but its efficacy is far from clear. Eidelson and two colleagues, Marc Pilisuk and Stephen Soldz, wrote a critical essay about Seligman’s program in Counterpunch late last month.

The psychologists note that there is little scientific evidence to show that this kind of training works. “It is highly unusual for the effectiveness of such a huge and consequential intervention program not be convincingly demonstrated first in carefully conducted randomized trials,” they wrote. They argue that other well-meaning intervention programs to prevent delinquency, for example, have only been “modestly and inconsistently effective.”

Rather than a program based on experiments that prove it works for soldiers, the psychologists argue that the training itself may be the experiment. Seligman has referred to the program as “the largest study – 1.1 million soldiers – psychology has ever been involved in.” If that is the case, the Nuremberg Code, developed in response to Nazi doctors’ experiments during World War II, requires that soldiers give their consent to any kind of research for which they are subjects. “The soldiers apparently have no informed consent protections – they are required to participate,” the psychologists wrote.

The Army is dismissing this latest controversy as an academic tiff. “The Army is aware of this ongoing discussion and views it as an academic discussion and debate between the psychologist and behavioral health communities,” Army spokesman Gary Tallman says. “The Army’s CSF program continues to move forward to help soldiers and families.”

It is not the first scrutiny the program has attracted. Writing in Salon late last year, I explained how Seligman received a $31 million no-competition contract to begin the work, despite similar programs and research going on at other institutions around the country. Seligman is known for his close ties to the military and intelligence communities, and my article explored how his early work appears to have informed psychological interrogation tactics during the Bush era.

The Army has promoted the program hard, unveiling a website complete with flashy videos. Seligman scored a nice rollout article in the New York Times and the January 2011 issue of American Psychologist, the magazine of the American Psychological Association, published some glowing reviews of Seligman’s work. Seligman is a former president of the APA.

Scientific American:

Beware the military-psychological complex: A $125-million program to boost soldiers’ “fitness” raises ethical questions

By John Horgan

Fifty years ago, in the same farewell speech in which he warned about the “unwarranted influence” of the “military-industrial complex” on American politics, President Dwight Eisenhower also deplored the growing dependence of scientists on federal funding. “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations and the power of money is ever present—and is gravely to be regarded.”

Eisenhower’s speech comes to mind as I gravely regard the latest example of the militarization of science, a $125 million collaboration between psychologists and the U.S. Army called “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness,” or CSF. The program calls for giving “resilience training” to more than one million Army soldiers and civilian employees to help them cope with the stress of military life. A U.S. Army Web sitecalls the CSF “a long term strategy that better prepares the Army community—including all soldiers, family members, and the Department of the Army civilian workforce—to not only survive, but also thrive at a cognitive and behavioral level in the face of protracted warfare and everyday challenges of Army life that are common in the 21st century.”

The program is the brainchild of one of the most powerful figures in American psychology, Martin Seligman of the University of Pennsylvania. A former president of the American Psychological Association (APA), Seligman is best-known for founding the enormously popular positive psychology, or “happiness,” movement, which emphasizes positive rather than negative personality traits and emotions.

The APA’s main journal, American Psychologist, devoted its January 2011 issue, co-edited by Seligman, to explaining and extolling the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program. No articles in the issue questioned the program’s scientific or ethical soundness, but the psychologists Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk and Stephen Soldz did just that in “The Dark Side of  ‘Comprehensive Soldier Fitness,’” a hard-hitting article published in the newsletter Counterpunch. (Scientific American‘s Gary Stix also critiqued the methods underpinning the CSF in this incisive recent article.)

Is it ethical for psychologists to help soldiers to participate in what may be unethical behavior? This is the toughest question raised by Eidelson et al. “Helping people who have already been harmed by trauma is essential,” they wrote. “But should we be involved in helping an institution prepare to place more people in harm’s way without careful and ongoing questioning and review of the rationale for doing so?”

The trio also charged that the CSF is based on “resiliency techniques,” developed by Seligman and others, that have been shown to be “only modestly and inconsistently effective” in studies of civilians. Indeed, according to Eidelson et al., the techniques are still so experimental that the CSF may violate the Nuremberg Code of ethics, which prohibits research on people without their consent. Eidelson et al. noted that soldiers “apparently have no informed consent protections—they are required to participate.” According to TIME blogger Mark Benjamin, the Army dismisses the issue of informed consent as an “academic tiff”—or, as an Army spokesman put it, “an academic discussion and debate between the psychologist and behavioral health communities.” The spokesman said the CSF “continues to move forward” despite these concerns.

The Army’s own description of the CSF sounds like psychobabble: “Conceptually, while CSF is largely focused on training skill sets, it also delves into root causes of emotion, thought and action—what psychologists refer to as ‘meta-cognition’. With this in mind, CSF serves as a programmatic first step towards training members of the Army community to understand how and why they think a certain way. Once people begin to understand this, they are best postured to change their thoughts and actions to strategies that are positive, adaptive and desirable for both the person and the Army.”

Even in the face of declines in non-military funding, some scientific fields have resisted militarization. In 2009 the American Anthropological Association declared that a program to embed anthropologists with troops in Afghanistan, Iraq and other war zones violated the profession’s code of ethics, which one article described as “a sort of Hippocratic oath in which anthropologists vow to do no harm.”

But as I pointed out in a column last year, neuroscience is chasing after defense dollars. In 2009 the National Academy of Sciences published a 136-page report, “Opportunities in Neuroscience for Future Army Applications,” that advised brain scientists on how to get on board the military gravy train. The authors included two leading brain scientists: Floyd Bloom of the Scripps Research Institute and Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, both former members of The President’s Council on Bioethics. Potential applications of neuroscience include drugs and electromagnetic devices that can boost or degrade soldiers’ capacities.

The APA is capable of taking a stand. In 2007, after reports that psychologists were helping the Pentagon and Central Intelligence Agency refine their interrogation techniques, the APA condemned the involvement of its members in “planning, designing, assisting in or participating in any activities including interrogations which involve the use of torture or other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.” But the APA leadership should be ashamed by its uncritical promotion of the CSF program. The association should encourage a debate among its members over whether the CSF represents a genuinely beneficial, ethical program or just another sordid example of what Eisenhower called the “the power of money.”

Alas, Horgan in the last paragraph get’s taken in by APA’s putative “anti-torture” resolution that led Mark Benjamin at the time to wonder Will psychologists still abet torture?

April 19th, 2011

Update on Larry James trial

Courthouse News provides an update on latest developments in the attempt to force the Ohio psychology licensing board to take seriously complaints against former Guantanamo BSCT psychologist Larry James:

Doctors Demand State Board Take Action Against Gitmo Psychologist

By Kyle Anne Uniss

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CN) – Two doctors, a minister and a disabled veteran sued the Ohio Board of Psychology, claiming it failed to act on their detailed complaint against a psychologist, an Army colonel who “was responsible for the abuse and exploitation of detainees as a senior psychologist at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, in violation of Ohio law and Board ethics rules.”

The plaintiffs seek writ of mandamus to compel the State Board to take “formal action” against Dr. Larry C. James, a board-licensed psychologist and Dean of Wright State University’s School of Professional Psychology.

James is not listed as a defendant.

The plaintiffs say he worked at the Guantanamo prison in 2003 and in 2007-2008. At Guantanamo, James was an Army colonel who led the Behavioral Science Consultation Team, which included psychiatrists and psychologists who “played a role in the exploitation, abuse, and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, subsequently misrepresented that experience, and improperly disclosed confidential patient information,” according to the complaint.

James led the team from January to May 2003, and against from June 2007 through May or June 2008, according to the complaint in Franklin County Court.

The plaintiffs are Dr. Trudy Bond, a practicing psychologist from Toledo; Michael Reese, an Army veteran, member of Disable American Veterans, and a former counselor for people with disabilities; the Rev. Colin Bossen, a Unitarian minister from Cleveland Heights; and Dr. Josephine Setzler, director of an Ohio chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

The plaintiffs say they filed a 50-page complaint against James with the Board on July 7, 2010. They ask that if the board does not take “formal action” against james, that it be compelled “to provide clearly articulated reasons grounded in fact or law for any decision, and to show that it investigated meaningfully and/or carried out a formal proceeding in good faith.”

The plaintiffs say the July 7, 2010 “Board Complaint” alleges violations of 18 Ohio laws and Board ethics rules.

They accuse James of “publishing confidential patient history in his 2008 memoir and … misleading the public and the Board about his role.”

They claim that after James left Guantanamo, he continued to commit “grave breeches of confidentiality through statements he made in his book,” “Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib.” They say that James published this book in 2008, “while his application for an Ohio license was pending before the Board.”

According to the lawsuit: “The Board Complaint documents that while Dr. James was chief psychologist and alleged commanding officer of the BSCT [Behavioral Science Consultation Team], men and boys detained in the prison were threatened with rape and death for themselves and their family members; sexually, culturally, and religiously humiliated; forced naked; deprived of sleep; subjected to sensory deprivation, over-stimulation, and extreme isolation; short-shackled into stress positions for hours; and physically assaulted.

“The Board Complaint alleges that Dr. James participated in, ordered, supervised, ratified, facilitated, acquiesced in, and/or failed to prevent, stop, report or punish this and other types of abuse at the prison.

The Board Complaint provides specific exampled of this misconduct, including an incident drawn from Dr. James’s own admission in which he watched behind a one-way mirror and drank coffee as an interrogator and three guards wrestled a man to the floor forcing him to wear lipstick, a wig, and women’s underwear. The Board Complaint alleges that Dr. James did not report the incident and documents Dr. James’s admission that he did not reprimand or disciplines the interrogator and guards.”

The plaintiffs say that their Board Complaint alleged, inter alia, that James and members “under his command and control … advised and trained interrogators, meeting with them to review interrogation plans designed to isolate detainees and foster dependence on their interrogators so as to enhance and exploit their disorientation, shock and fear;

“observed, monitored and retained at least de facto authority to end many, if not all, interrogations, many of which involved treatment rising to the level of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment;

“assessed and evaluated detainee behavior and suggested abusive interrogation techniques …

“The U.S. government had previously recognized such techniques as illegal, and U.S. government officials have since reaffirmed that some of these techniques constitute torture.” (Citations omitted.)

“The Board Complaint is further supported by a report submitted by psychologist and attorney Dr. Bryant Welch, an expert in psychological ethics,” the legal complaint adds. “Dr. Welch concludes that if the allegations contained in the Board Complaint are factually true, the conduct described constitutes the most serious and far-reaching ethical breaches he has ever encountered in his career as a psychologist.”

The plaintiffs say the Ohio Board of Psychology responded to their complaint with a “cursory letter” of Jan. 31, stating that “It has been determined that we are unable to proceed to formal action on this matter.”

The plaintiff’s say that’s an abuse of the Board’s discretion of “a 50-page complaint with over 1,000 pages of credible documentation, including government reports and Dr. James’s own admissions,” and that the Board “must proceed pursuant to its duty to protect the public from psychologists who abuse their professional knowledge and skills to cause harm.” The plaintiffs are represented by Terry Lodge of Toledo and Deborah Popowski and Tyler Giannini of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic.

April 19th, 2011

Lawrence Tribe, Obama Constitutional law teacher, joins critics of Manning’s treatment

President Obama was apparently asleep during his Harvard Law classes on Constitutional law. In any case he seems to have missed that pesky ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Now his Constitutional law teacher Lawrence Tribe has joined hundreds of other legal scholars in criticizing the Obama administration’s abusive treatment of alleged Wikileaks source Bradley Manning.

Obama’s constitutional law professor joins group calling Manning’s treatment illegal

By Stephen C. Webster

Nearly 300 experts, scholars and authors demand an end to Manning’s rough treatment

The Harvard professor who taught President Barack Obama about America’s founding document has added his name to a letter damning the treatment of U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, the lone soldier accused of leaking a vast number of government secrets to anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

Harvard Constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe, who quit his post as an adviser to the Obama administration about three months ago, is just one of nearly 300 of the nation’s top legal minds and other experts to sign an open letter calling on the government to treat Bradley Manning as it does other prisoners.

Manning has been held in solitary confinement in the Quantico military brig since July. He gets one hour of exercise per-day, must be checked by guards every five minutes and is forced to sleep naked and undergo a nude inspection every morning. Critics of this treatment say it amounts to torture and an illegal punishment for an American who has not been convicted of a crime.

Tribe wrote that Manning’s treatment “violates his person and his liberty without due process of law and in the way it administers cruel and unusual punishment of a sort that cannot be constitutionally inflicted even upon someone convicted of terrible offenses, not to mention someone merely accused of such offenses”.

“Private Manning has been designated as an appropriate subject for both Maximum Security and Prevention of Injury (POI) detention,” the open letter explained. “But he asserts that his administrative reports consistently describe him as a well-behaved prisoner who does not fit the requirements for Maximum Security detention. The brig psychiatrist began recommending his removal from Prevention of Injury months ago. These claims have not been publicly contested. In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity “because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.”

The letter also cites former U.S. State Dept. spokesman P.J. Crowley, who called the treatment of Manning “counterproductive and stupid,” suggesting it may make prosecuting the soldier even more difficult. Crowley resigned his post after criticizing the administration’s handling of the case

“If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law,” the open letter continues. “But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment.”

The document was authored by Bruce Ackerman, of Yale Law School, and Yochai Benkler, of Harvard Law School. It had 295 co-signers at the time of this story’s publication.

The full letter and list of distinguished signatories appears below. It was first published by The New York Review of Books.

####

Private Manning’s Humiliation

Bradley Manning is the soldier charged with leaking US government documents to Wikileaks. He is currently detained under degrading and inhumane conditions that are illegal and immoral.

For nine months, Manning has been confined to his cell for twenty-three hours a day. During his one remaining hour, he can walk in circles in another room, with no other prisoners present. He is not allowed to doze off or relax during the day, but must answer the question “Are you OK?” verbally and in the affirmative every five minutes. At night, he is awakened to be asked again “Are you OK?” every time he turns his back to the cell door or covers his head with a blanket so that the guards cannot see his face. During the past week he was forced to sleep naked and stand naked for inspection in front of his cell, and for the indefinite future must remove his clothes and wear a “smock” under claims of risk to himself that he disputes.

The sum of the treatment that has been widely reported is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee against punishment without trial. If continued, it may well amount to a violation of the criminal statute against torture, defined as, among other things, “the administration or application…of… procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality.”

Private Manning has been designated as an appropriate subject for both Maximum Security and Prevention of Injury (POI) detention. But he asserts that his administrative reports consistently describe him as a well-behaved prisoner who does not fit the requirements for Maximum Security detention. The brig psychiatrist began recommending his removal from Prevention of Injury months ago. These claims have not been publicly contested. In an Orwellian twist, the spokesman for the brig commander refused to explain the forced nudity “because to discuss the details would be a violation of Manning’s privacy.”

The administration has provided no evidence that Manning’s treatment reflects a concern for his own safety or that of other inmates. Unless and until it does so, there is only one reasonable inference: this pattern of degrading treatment aims either to deter future whistleblowers, or to force Manning to implicate Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a conspiracy, or both.

If Manning is guilty of a crime, let him be tried, convicted, and punished according to law. But his treatment must be consistent with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. There is no excuse for his degrading and inhumane pretrial punishment. As the State Department’s P.J. Crowley put it recently, they are “counterproductive and stupid.” And yet Crowley has now been forced to resign for speaking the plain truth.

The Wikileaks disclosures have touched every corner of the world. Now the whole world watches America and observes what it does, not what it says.

President Obama was once a professor of constitutional law, and entered the national stage as an eloquent moral leader. The question now, however, is whether his conduct as commander in chief meets fundamental standards of decency. He should not merely assert that Manning’s confinement is “appropriate and meet[s] our basic standards,” as he did recently. He should require the Pentagon publicly to document the grounds for its extraordinary actions—and immediately end those that cannot withstand the light of day.

Signed:

Bruce Ackerman, Yale Law School
Yochai Benkler, Harvard Law School

Additional Signatories (institutional affiliation, for identification purposes only):

Jack Balkin, Yale Law School
Richard L. Abel, UCLA Law
David Abrams, Harvard Law School
Martha Ackelsberg, Smith College
Julia Adams, Sociology, Yale University
Kirsten Ainley, London School of Economics
Jeffrey Alexander, Yale University
Philip Alston, NYU School of Law
Anne Alstott, Harvard Law School
Elizabeth Anderson, Philosophy and Women’s Studies, University of Michigan
Kevin Anderson, University of California
Scott Anderson, Philosophy, University of British Columbia
Claudia Angelos, NYU School of Law
Donald K. Anton. Australian National University College of Law
Joyce Appleby, History, UCLA
Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University
Stanley Aronowitz, Sociology, CUNY Graduate Center
Jean Maria Arrigo, PhD, social psychologist, Project on Ethics and Art in Testimony
Reuven Avi-Yonah, University of Michigan Law
H. Robert Baker, Georgia State University
Katherine Beckett, University of Washington
Duncan Bell, Politics and International Studies, University of Cambridge
Steve Berenson, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Michael Bertrand, UNC Chapel Hill
Christoph Bezemek, Public Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business
Michael J. Bosia, Political Science, Saint Michael’s College
Bret Boyce, University of Detroit Mercy School of Law
Rebecca M. Bratspies, CUNY School of Law
Jason Brennan, Philosophy, Brown University
Talbot Brewer, Philosophy, University of Virginia
John Bronsteen, Loyola University Chicago
Peter Brooks, Princeton University
James Robert Brown, University of Toronto
Sande L. Buhai,Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
Ahmed I Bulbulia, Seton Hall Law School
Susannah Camic, University of Wisconsin Law School
Lauren Carasik, Western New England College School of Law
Teri L. Caraway, University of Minnesota
Alexander M. Capron, University of Southern California, Gould School of Law
Michael W. Carroll, Law American University
Marshall Carter-Tripp, Ph.D, Foreign Service Officer, retired
Jonathan Chausovsky, Political Science, SUNY-Fredonia
Carol Chomsky, University of Minnesota Law School
John Clippinger, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Andrew Jason Cohen, Georgia State University
Lizabeth Cohen, Harvard University
Marjorie Cohn, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Doug Colbert, Maryland School of Law
Sheila Collins, William Paterson University
Nancy Combs, William& Mary Law School
Stephen A. Conrad, Indiana University Mauer School of Law
Steve Cook, Philosophy, Utica College
Robert Crawford,Arts and Sciences, University of Washington
Thomas P. Crocker, University of South Carolina
Jennifer Curtin, UCI School of Medicine
Deryl D. Dantzler, Walter F. Gorge School of Law of Mercer University
Benjamin G. Davis, University of Toledo College of Law
Rochelle Davis, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Wolfgang Deckers, Richmond University, London
Michelle M. Dempsey, Villanova University School of Law
Wai Chee Dimock, English, Yale University
Sinan Dogramaci, Philosophy, University of Texas at Austin
Zayd Dohrn, Northwestern University
Jason P. Dominguez, Texas Southern University
Judith Donath, Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Norman Dorsen, New York University School of Law
Michael W. Doyle, International Affairs, Law and Political Science, Columbia
Bruce T. Draine, Astrophysics, Princeton University
Jay Driskell,History, Hood College
Michael C. Duff, University of Wyoming College of Law
Lisa Duggan, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU
Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Graduate Center,CUNY
Stephen M. Engel, PhD, Political Science, Marquette University
Simon Evnine, Philosophy, University of Miami
Mark Fenster, Levin College of Law, University of Florida
Martha Field, Harvard Law School
Justin Fisher, Philosophy, Southern Methodist University
William Fisher, Harvard Law School
Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas School of Law
Mark Fishman, Sociology, Brooklyn College
Martin S. Flaherty, Fordham Law School
George P. Fletcher, Columbia University, School of Law
John Flood, Law and Sociology, University of Westminster
Michael Forman, University of Washington Tacoma
Bryan Frances, Philosophy, Fordham University
Katherine Franke, Columbia Law School
Nancy Fraser, Philosophy and Politics, New School for Social Research
Eric M. Freedman, Hofstra Law School
Monroe H. Freedman, Hofstra University Law School
Kennan Ferguson, University of Wisconsin, MilWaukee
John R. Fitzpatrick, Philosophy, University of Tennessee/Chattanooga
A. Michael Froomkin, University of Miami School of Law
Gerald Frug, Harvard Law School
Louis Furmanski, University of Central Oklahoma
James K. Galbraith, LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin
Herbert J Gans, Columbia University
William Gardner, Pediatrics, Psychology,& Psychiatry, The Ohio State University
Urs Gasser, Harvard Law School, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
Julius G. Getman, University of Texas Law School
Todd Gitlin, Columbia University
Bob Goodin, Australian National University
Angelina Snodgrass Godoy, Human Rights, University of Washington
David Golove, NYU School of Law
James R. Goetsch Jr., Philosophy, Eckerd College
Thomas Gokey, Art and Information Studies, Syracuse University
Robert W. Gordon, Yale Law School
Stephen E. Gottlieb, Albany Law School
Mark A. Graber, University of Maryland School of Law
Jorie Graham, Harvard University
Roger Green, Pol. Sci. and Pub. Admin., Florida Gulf Coast
Daniel JH Greenwood, Hofstra University School of Law
Christopher L. Griffin, Visiting, Duke Law School
James Grimmelmann, New York Law School
James Gronquist,Charlotte School of Law
Jean Grossholtz, Politics, Mount Holyoke College
Lisa Guenther, Philosophy, Vanderbilt University
Christopher Guzelian, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Gillian K. Hadfield, Law, Economics, University of Southern California
Jonathan Hafetz, Seton Hall University School of Law
Lisa Hajjar, University of California – Santa Barbara
Susan Hazeldean, Robert M. Cover Fellow, Yale Law School
Dirk t. D. Held, Classics, Connecticut College
Kevin Jon Heller, Melbourne Law School
Lynne Henderson, UNLV–Boyd School of Law (emerita)
Stephen Hetherington, Philosophy, University of New South Wales
Kurt Hochenauer, University of Central Oklahoma
Lonny Hoffman, Univ of Houston Law Center
Michael Hopkins, MHC International Ltd
Nathan Robert Howard, St. Andrews
Marc Morjé Howard, Government, Georgetown University
Kyron Huigens, Cardozo School of Law
Alexandra Huneeus, University of Wisconsin Law School
David Ingram, Philosophy, Loyola University Chicago
David Isenberg, Isen.com
Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard Kennedy School
Christopher Jencks, Harvard Kennedy School
Paula Johnson, Alliant International University
Robert N. Johnson, Philosophy, University of Missouri
Albyn C. Jones, Statistics, Reed College
Lynne Joyrich, Modern Culture and Media, Brown University
David Kairys, Beasley Law School
Eileen Kaufman, Touro Law Center
Kevin B. Kelly, Seton Hall University School of Law
Antti Kauppinen, Philosophy, Trinity College Dublin
Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law School
Daniel Kevles, Yale University
Heidi Kitrosser, University of Minnesota Law School
Gillian R. Knapp, Princeton University
Seth F. Kreimer University of Pennsylvania Law School
Alex Kreit, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Stefan H. Krieger, Hofstra University School of Law
Mitchell Lasser, Cornell Law School
Mark LeBar, Philosophy, Ohio University
Brian Leiter, University of Chicago
Mary Clare Lennon, Sociology, The Graduate Center, CUNY
George Levine,Rutgers University
Sanford Levinson, University of Texas Law School
Margaret Levi, Pol. Sci., University of Washington and University of Sydney
Tracy Lightcap, Political Science, LaGrange College
Daniel Lipson, Political Science, SUNY New Paltz
Stacy Litz, Drexel University
Fiona de Londras, University College Dublin, Ireland
John Lunstroth, University of Houston Law Center
David Luban, Georgetown University Law Center
Peter Ludlow, Philosophy, Northwestern University
Cecelia Lynch, University of California
David Lyons, Boston University
Colin Maclay, Harvard University, Berkman Center
Joan Mahoney, Emeritus, Wayne State University Law School
Chibli Mallat, Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School
Phil Malone, Harvard Law School
Jane Mansbridge, Harvard Kennedy School
Jeff Manza, Sociology, New York University
Dan Markel, Florida State University
Daniel Markovits, Yale Law School
Richard Markovits, University of Texas Law School
Michael R. Masinter, Nova Southeastern University
Ruth Mason, University of Connecticut School of Law
Rachel A. May, University of South Florida
Jamie Mayerfeld, Political Science, University of Washington
Diane H. Mazur, University of Florida Levin College of Law
Jason Mazzone, Brooklyn Law School
Jeff McMahan, Philosophy, Rutgers University
Richard J. Meagher Jr., Randolph-Macon College
Agustín José Menéndez, Universidad de León and University of Oslo
Hope Metcalf, Yale Law School
Frank I. Michelman, Harvard University
Gary Minda, Brooklyn Law School
John Mikhail, Georgetown University Law Center
Gregg Miller, Political Science, University of Washington
Eben Moglen, Columbia Law School and Software Freedom Law Center
Immanuel Ness, Brooklyn College, City University of New York
Charles Nesson, Harvard University
Joel Ngugi, Law, African Studies, University of Washington
Ralitza Nikolaeva, ISCTE Business School, Lisbon University Institute
John Palfrey, Harvard Law School
James Paradis, Comparative Media Studies, MIT
Emma Perry, London School of Economics and Political Science
Charles Pigden, University of Otago
Adrian du Plessis, Wolfson College, Cambridge University
Patrick S. O’Donnell, Philosophy, Santa Barbara City College
Hans Oberdiek, Philosophy, Swarthmore College
Duane Oldfield, Political Science, Knox College
Michael Paris, Political Science, The College of Staten Island (CUNY)
Philip Pettit, University Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton
Frank A. Pasquale, Seton Hall Law School
Matthew Pierce, University of North Carolina
Charles Pigden, Philosophy, University of Otago
Leslie Plachta, MD MPH, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Thomas Pogge, Yale University
Giovanna Pompele, University of Miami
Joel Pust, Philosophy, University of Delaware
Ulrich K. Preuss, Law& Politics, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin
Margaret Jane Radin, University of Michigan and emerita, Stanford University
Aziz Rana, Cornell University Law School
Gustav Ranis, Yale University
Rahul Rao, School of Oriental& African Studies, University of London
Calair Rasmussen, Affiliation: Political Science, University of Delaware
Daniel Ray, Thomas M. Cooley Law School
Jeff A. Redding, Saint Louis University School of Law
C. D. C. Reeve, Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Bryan Register, Philosophy, Texas State University
Robert B. Reich, University of California, Berkeley
Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
John A. Robertson, University of Texas Law School
Corey Robin, Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center
Clarissa Rojas, CSU Long Beach
Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Susan Rose-Ackerman, Law, Political Science, Yale University
Norm Rosenberg, History, Macalester College
Clifford Rosky, University of Utah
Brad R. Roth, Poli. Sci. and Law, Wayne State University
Barbara Katz Rothman, Sociology, City University of New York
Bo Rothstein Political Science, University of Gothenburg
Laura L. Rovner,University of Denver College of Law
Donald Rutherford,Philosophy, University of California, San Diego
Leonard Rubenstein, JD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Chester M. Rzadkiewicz, History, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
DeWitt Sage, Flimmaker
Cindy Skach, Comparative Government and Law, Oxford
William J. Talbott, Philosophy, University of Washington
Natsu Taylor Saito, Georgia State University College of Law
Dean Savage, Queens College, Sociology, CUNY
Kent D. Schenkel, New England Law
Kim Scheppele, Princeton Univeristy
Ben Schoenbachler, Psychiatry, University of Louisville
Jeffrey Schnapp, Harvard University
Kenneth Sherrill, Political Science, Hunter College
Claire Snyder-Hall, George Mason University
Jeffrey Selbin, Yale Law School
Wendy Seltzer, Fellow, Princeton Center for Information Technology Policy
Jose M. Sentmanat, Philosophy, Moreno Valley College, California
Omnia El Shakry, History, University of California
Scott Shapiro, Yale University
Stephen Sheehi, Languages, Lit. and Cultures, University of South Carolina
James Silk, Yale Law School
Robert D. Sloane, Boston University School of Law
Ronald C. Slye, Law, Seattle University
Matthew Noah Smith, Philosophy, Yale University
Stephen Samuel Smith, Political Science, Winthrop University
John M. Stewart, Emeritus, Psychology, Northland College
Peter G. Stillman, Vassar College
Alec Stone Sweet, Yale Law School
Robert N. Strassfeld, Case Western Reserve University School of Law
Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, SUNY-Buffalo Law School
Jeanne Theoharis, Brooklyn College of CUNY
Frank Thompson, University of Michigan
Matthew Titolo, West Virginia University College of Law
Massimo de la Torre, University of Hull Law School
John Torpey, CUNY Graduate Center
Vilna Bashi Treitler, Black& Hispanic Studies, Baruch College, City
Laurence H. Tribe, Harvard University
David M. Trubek, University of Wisconsin (emeritus)
Robert L. Tsai, American University, Washington College of Law
Peter Vallentyne, Philosophy, University of Missouri
Joan Vogel, Vermont Law School
Paul Voice, Philosophy, Bennington College
Victor Wallis,Berklee College of Music
David Watkins, Political Science, University of Dayton
Jonathan Weinberg, Wayne State University
Henry Weinstein, Law, Literary Journalism, University of California
Margaret Weir, Political Science,University of California, Berkeley
Christina E. Wells, University of Missouri School of Law
Danielle Wenner, Rice University
Bryan H. Wildenthal, Thomas Jefferson School of Law
Langdon Winner,Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Naomi Wolf, author
Lauris Wren, Hofstra Law School
Elizabeth Wurtzel, Attorney and author
Betty Yorburg, Emerita, City University of New York
Benjamin S. Yost, Philosophy, Providence College
Jonathan Zasloff, UCLA School of Law
Michael J. Zimmer, Professor of Law, Loyola University Chicago
Lee Zimmerman, English, Hofstra University
Mary Marsh Zulack, Columbia Law School

2 comments April 11th, 2011

Reisner on Demoracy Now! on Leso torture complaint

Democracy Now! today interviewed psychologist, and American Psychological Association Presidential candidate Steven Reisner regarding Dr. Reisner’s ethics complaint against Maj. John Leso for his activities as part of the Guantanamo Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT), including his participation in the torture of Mohammed al-Qahtani. [Amy Goodman also wrote about the case in the weekly column.]:

Transcript:

AMY GOODMAN: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that key suspects in the 9/11 attacks would be tried by military commissions in Guantánamo, not in U.S. civil court. Holder blamed members of Congress for the decision.

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: Had this case proceeded in Manhattan or in an alternative venue in the United States, as I seriously explored in the last year, I am confident that our justice system could have performed with the same distinction that has been its hallmark for over 200 years. Now, unfortunately, since I made that decision, members of Congress have intervened and imposed restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any Guantánamo detainees to trial in the United States, regardless of the venue.

AMY GOODMAN: But there will be one Guantánamo case tried in New York. This week, the New York State Supreme Court will hear the case against Dr. John Leso, a psychologist accused of participating in torture of prisoners at Guantánamo.

The case was brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Justice and Accountability on behalf of Dr. Steven Reisner. He’s a New York psychologist and adviser to Physicians for Human Rights. He’s at the center of a growing group of psychologists campaigning against the participation of psychologists in the U.S. government’s interrogation programs. He’s on the faculty at New York University Medical School and at the International Trauma Studies Program affiliated with Columbia University and a founding member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and the New York Campaign Against Torture. Dr. Reisner is currently running for president of the American Psychological Association, the largest association of psychologists in the world.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Dr. Reisner.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: You are just about to go over to the New York State Supreme Court today to hear this case that is being brought against, really, a colleague, against Dr. John Leso. Explain who he is and what he did.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, John Leso was the first psychologist—the first person—named to a Department of Defense BSCT team. BSCTs were the Behavioral Science Consultation Team that oversaw and advised on the enhanced interrogations of detainees at Guantánamo and elsewhere. And John Leso found himself in Guantánamo, was put in charge of this BSCT team—he was BSCT number one—and was given the responsibility of creating a program, which we would now call a program of torture, for the high-value detainees at Guantánamo.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was that program?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, he went to Fort Bragg to be trained in SERE techniques. SERE is the program in our—for our armed forces to be given experiences of torture in case they’re captured, as a kind of inoculation.

AMY GOODMAN: S-E-R-E.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Yes, Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape. And the “resistance” part is the part that has to do with dealing with torture techniques. And he was taught a series of techniques while at Fort Bragg, and his colleagues and the interrogators at Guantánamo were all part of a training program. And they went back to Guantánamo, and Dr. Leso and his partner, Dr. Burney, a psychiatrist, created a progressively harsh list of techniques to be used, at that point, on Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was a detainee who was thought to be the 20th hijacker. All those charges have been dropped since. But the increasingly harsh techniques included isolation, sleep deprivation, extreme cold, sexual and religious humiliation—the whole gamut of techniques used individually and together. And the interrogation lasted for about a month and a half.

AMY GOODMAN: Major Leso recommended three categories of interrogation severity at Guantánamo, depending on the prisoner’s ability to resist.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain what “Category III” was.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, Category III were the harshest techniques. They included some physical abuse. They included nonstop interrogations for 20 hours, absolute isolation. I can’t remember all of—

AMY GOODMAN: Including from the ICRC.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Oh, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: That they were not to be seen by the International Committee of the Red Cross?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, that was not only the case for those detainees undergoing severe interrogation techniques; the Guantánamo protocols prohibited any contact with the ICRC for all detainees in their first 30 days of isolation.

AMY GOODMAN: What are the rules? You actually brought a case to the Office of Professional Conduct against John Leso, but they would not investigate him.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Right. They made the claim that since what he was doing was aimed to harm—in other words, aimed to break down prisoners—he wasn’t functioning as a professional psychologist, and therefore the State of New York’s Office of Professional Discipline didn’t have jurisdiction to question the ethics of a psychologist who was not acting according to the New York definition of a professional psychologist. So they just refused to hear the case. They refused to investigate.

AMY GOODMAN: So, if you break the rules, you’re not acting according to the professional rules of conduct, so you’re not investigated?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: To some extent—

AMY GOODMAN: I mean, isn’t he hired because he is a psychologist?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: He was hired because he was a psychologist. It was required that he be licensed. He was asked to use his psychological expertise. The state board said that he didn’t have a therapist-patient relationship with al-Qahtani, but it left out a whole area of professional psychology where the client is the organization. This holds, for example, in prisons. Prison psychologists are clinical psychologists, licensed in the State of New York, who oversee the practice and care of prisoners. And if they act unethically, they are held accountable. It’s quite analogous at Guantánamo. But for some reason, the New York board decided that it was unique and different, and they refused to investigate.

AMY GOODMAN: So your case today is trying to force the Office of Professional Discipline to investigate Dr. John Leso?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: That’s exactly right.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, he was at Walter Reed.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Yes, John Leso was at Walter Reed under Colonel Larry James. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Who’s head of Wright State now, right?

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Yes, Larry James is now a dean at Wright State School of Professional Psychology. And cases have been brought against Colonel Larry James, as well, because Larry—

AMY GOODMAN: In Ohio.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Larry James followed John Leso as BSCT number one at Guantánamo.

AMY GOODMAN: Put this in the context of the battle within the largest association of psychologists in the world, your association, the APA, the American Psychological Association.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, because the legal justification for torture required the presence of psychologists and psychiatrists or—and physicians, in order to allow the torture to go forward according to the Justice Department’s rules at the time, there were—it was necessary for health professionals to be part of the Bush administration torture program. A growing number of psychologists, in particular, felt that we could find a wedge to stop that torture program by forcing the American Psychological Association to declare such practices unethical. And that would take away the legal justification for torture. So, more and more psychologists were made aware of the role of psychologists in the torture. And I don’t know if the public is aware, but the protocols for torture in both the CIA and the Department of Defense were crafted by psychologists. So we’ve been trying now for about five or six years to have the American Psychological Association state unequivocally that these psychologists who followed the Department of Defense protocols should be held accountable.

AMY GOODMAN: And it’s interesting that the American Psychological Association has not enforced resolutions like the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association around issues of interrogation and torture.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, that’s right, and they’ve refused to implement those.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, what hasn’t become clear is, a few weeks ago, there was some news that Larry James, also who complaints have been brought against, was being selected to serve on the White House task force called Enhancing the Psychological Well-Being of the Military Family. What is this about? Because the Obama administration is denying this.

DR. STEVEN REISNER: Well, it’s hard to know exactly what it’s about. Dr. James sent a letter to faculty and students stating that he was proud to have been selected to serve on this task force. But when the White House was asked about it, they stated that Dr. James was not invited to the task force. In fact, the task force—there was no such task force. So, those of us who have followed Larry James’s career and have read his book, we’re not so surprised, because the exaggerations and distortions in that book are pretty widely known. And so this—we had to take this one with a grain of salt, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we will continue to follow both of these cases, and we will link at our website to all of our coverage of the controversy in the American Psychological Association. Dr. Steven Reisner, thanks so much for being with us, adviser on psychology and ethics for Physicians for Human Rights, running for president of the American Psychological Association.

3 comments April 6th, 2011

One journey through psychoanalysis

Lloyd Sederer, Medical director, New York State Office of Mental Health, described his psychoanalysis in a re3cent Huffington Post article:

Instead of looking for a psychotherapist, I decided to go for the full Monty. I found a traditional Freudian psychoanalyst, a past president of Boston’s major analytic institute. Psychoanalysis, by the time I entered its pool, did not have the eminence it did in the good old 20th Century, having been eclipsed by the promise of neuroscience and an explosion of medications. But analysis was not dead — Woody Allen notwithstanding — nor were its conceptual roots in the power of the unconscious in driving how we feel and act and its methods of free association (‘say whatever comes to mind’) and dream interpretation.

I was on the couch, four times a week. After four years, I was convinced I was done. That led to another year of analysis after which I pronounced to my analyst that now I was surely done. A year later I was. I paid out of pocket for this treatment, which virtually no insurance covered then and I can’t think of one today that does. For me, analysis was exceptionally helpful where Freud said it counted the most, namely in love and work.

I wonder what helped? Was it the traditional technique of couch, dream interpretation, free association and analysis of the transference (how the demons of our past continue to impale us on the spikes of early, troubled relationships)? Or was it the relationship with my wise analyst who knew every psychological evasion in the book (and I had read the book), demanded that I take responsibility for how I felt and lived, and was deeply kind.

…

For me, analysis was a journey into the mind, into the primitive ways we can feel and judge and behave. It helped my ego take the reins of life away from my unconscious and its misguided ways. Psychoanalysis, notably, has evolved in recent decades and is now far more focused on relationships than instinctual sexual and aggressive drives.

April 2nd, 2011

Positive Psychology Anthem

Tom Greening finds poetry in positive psychology and its ties to the military’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness:

POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ANTHEM

Thanks to Martin Seligman
we have got a noble plan.
Aided by psychology
we’ll fulfill our destiny.
Wimpy guys like you and me
will face stress resiliently.
He’ll convince us that we must
realize our cause is just,
and he’ll show us clearly why
for us to live bad guys must die.
We’ll decimate our enemies
and celebrate our victories.
With positive psychology
we’ll take our place in history.
(If there are some who disagree
we’ll ably treat their treachery.)

Tom Greening

1 comment April 2nd, 2011

The Dark Side of “Comprehensive Soldier Fitness”

By Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk, and Stephen Soldz

Why is the world’s largest organization of psychologists so aggressively promoting a new, massive, and untested military program? The APA’s enthusiasm for mandatory “resilience training” for all U.S. soldiers is troubling on many counts.

The January 2011 issue of the American Psychologist, the American Psychological Association’s (APA) flagship journal, is devoted entirely to 13 articles that detail and celebrate the virtues of a new U.S. Army-APA collaboration. Built around positive psychology and with key contributions from former APA president Martin Seligman and his colleagues, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF) is a $125 million resilience training initiative designed to reduce and prevent the adverse psychological consequences of combat for our soldiers and veterans. While these are undoubtedly worthy aspirations, the special issue is nevertheless troubling in several important respects: the authors of the articles, all of whom are involved in the CSF program, offer very little discussion of conceptual and ethical considerations; the special issue does not provide a forum for any independent critical or cautionary voices whatsoever; and through this format, the APA itself has adopted a jingoistic cheerleading stance toward a research project about which many crucial questions should be posed. We discuss these and related concerns below.

At the outset, we want to be clear that we are not questioning the valuable role that talented and dedicated psychologists play in the military, nor certainly the importance of providing our soldiers and veterans with the best care possible. As long as our country has a military, our soldiers should be prepared to face the hazards and horrors they may experience. Military service is highly stressful, and psychological challenges and difficulties understandably arise frequently. These issues are created or exacerbated by a wide range of features characteristic of military life, such as separation from family, frequent relocations, and especially deployment to combat zones with ongoing threats of injury and death and exposure to acts of unspeakable violence. The stress of repeated tours of duty, including witnessing the loss of lives of comrades and civilians, can produce extensive emotional and behavioral consequences that persist long after soldiers return home. They include heightened risk of suicide, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, and family violence.

Conceptual and Empirical Concerns

Although its advocates prefer to describe Comprehensive Soldier Fitness as a training program, it is indisputably a research project of enormous size and scope, one in which a million soldiers are required to participate. Reivich, Seligman, and McBride write in one of the special issue articles, “We hypothesize that these skills will enhance soldiers’ ability to handle adversity, prevent depression and anxiety, prevent PTSD, and enhance overall well-being and performance” (p. 26, emphasis added). This is the very core of the entire CSF program, yet it is merely a hypothesis — a tentative explanation or prediction that can only be confirmed through further research.

There seems to be reluctance and inconsistency among the CSF promoters in acknowledging that CSF is “research” and therefore should entail certain protections routinely granted to those who participate in research studies. Seligman explained to the APA’s Monitor on Psychology, “This is the largest study — 1.1 million soldiers — psychology has ever been involved in” (a “study” is a common synonym for “research project”). Butwhen asked during an NPR interview whether CSF would be “the largest-ever experiment,” Brig. Gen. Cornum, who oversees the program, responded, “Well, we’re not describing it as an experiment. We’re describing it as training.” Despite the fact that CSF is incontrovertibly a research study, standard and important questions about experimental interventions like CSF are neither asked nor answered in the special issue. This neglect is all the more troubling given that the program is so massive and expensive, and the stakes are so high.

It is highly unusual for the effectiveness of such a huge and consequential intervention program not to be convincingly demonstrated first in carefully conducted randomized controlled trials — before being rolled out under less controlled conditions. Such preliminary studies are far from a mere formality. The literature on prevention interventions is full of well-intentioned efforts that either failed to have positive effects or, even worse, had harmful consequences for those receiving them. For instance, in the 1990s the DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) substance abuse prevention program was administered in thousands of elementary schools across the U.S., at a cost of many hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet evaluations of DARE rarely found the desired effects in regard to reducing young people’s later substance use (e.g., see this and this summary). In response, DARE was modified in the last decade; however, subsequent evaluation found that the revised program actually increased later alcohol and cigarette use in those who received it compared to controls.

Similarly, criminal justice researcher Joan McCord has demonstrated how well-meaning programs have caused actual harm. She conducted a 30-year follow-up of a classic delinquency prevention program. Those participants randomly selected for intervention, but not matched controls, were provided with extensive enrichment, including mentoring, counseling, and summer camp. Among the matched pairs who differed in outcomes decades later, those who received the intensive assistance were more likely to have been convicted of serious street crimes; were more frequently given a diagnosis of alcoholism, schizophrenia, or manic depression; and on average died five years younger. Other studies of criminal justice interventions have also uncovered unanticipated, deleterious effects. Given this well known record, it is especially concerning when a major intervention is rolled out for thousands — or hundreds of thousands — without careful prior examination, including an investigation of potential negative effects. The special issue of the American Psychologist gives no indication that preliminary studies of CSF were conducted.

Also problematic, the CSF program is adapted primarily from the Penn Resiliency Program (PRP) where interventions were focused on dramatically different, non-military populations. Even with these groups, a 2009 meta-analysis of 17 controlled studies reveals that the PRP program has been only modestly and inconsistently effective. PRP produced small reductions in mild self-reported depressive symptoms, but it did so only in children already identified as at high risk for depression and not for those from the general population. Nor did PRP interventions reduce symptoms more than comparison prevention programs based on other principles, raising questions as to whether PRP’s effects are related to the “resilience” theory undergirding the program. Further, like many experimental programs, PRP had better outcomes when administered by highly trained research staff than when given by staff recruited from the community. This raises doubts as to how effectively the CSF program will be administered by non-commissioned officers who are required to serve as “Master Resilience Trainers.”

Regardless of how one evaluates prior PRP research, PRP’s effects when targeting middle-school students, college students, and adult groups can hardly be considered generalizable to the challenges and experiences that routinely face our soldiers in combat, including those that regularly trigger PTSD. In an inadequate attempt to bridge this gap rhetorically, CSF proponents describe PTSD as “a nasty combination of depressive and anxiety symptoms” (Reivich, Seligman, & McBride, p. 26). In fact, PTSD involves a far more complicated cluster of severe symptoms in response to a specific traumatic event, including flashbacks, partial amnesia, difficulty sleeping, personality changes, outbursts of anger, hypervigilance, avoidance, and emotional numbing.

Ethical Concerns

We also believe that other key aspects of Comprehensive Soldier Fitness should have received explicit discussion in this special issue. It is standard practice for an independent and unbiased ethics review committee (an “institutional review board” or “IRB”) to evaluate the ethical issues arising from a research project prior to its implementation. This review and approval process may in fact have occurred for CSF, but the manner in which the principals blur “research” and “training” leads us to wish for much greater clarity here. This process is even more critical given that the soldiers apparently have no informed consent protections — they are all required to participate in the CSF program. Such research violates the Nuremberg Code developed during the post-World War II trials of Nazi doctors. That code begins by stating:

The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision.

Disturbingly, however, this mandatory participation in a research study does not violate Section 8.05 of the APA’s own Ethics Code, which allows for the suspension of informed consent “where otherwise permitted by law or federal or institutional regulations.” Despite the APA’s stance, we should never forget that the velvet glove of authoritarian planning, no matter how well intended, is no substitute for the protected freedoms of individuals to make their own choices, mistakes, and dissenting judgments. Respect for informed consent is more, not less, important in total environments like the military where individual dissent is often severely discouraged and often punished.

More broadly, the 13 articles fail to explore potential ethical concerns related to the uncertain effects of the CSF training itself. In fact, the only question of this sort raised in the special issue — by Tedeschi and McNally in one article and by Lester, McBride, Bliese, and Adler in another — is whether it might be unethical to withholdthe CSF training from soldiers. Certainly, there are other ethical quandaries that require serious discussion if the CSF program’s effectiveness is to be appropriately evaluated. For example, might the training actually cause harm? Might soldiers who have been trained to resiliently view combat as a growth opportunity be more likely to ignore or under-estimate real dangers, thereby placing themselves, their comrades, or civilians at heightened risk of harm?

Similarly, by increasing perseverance in the face of adversity, might the CSF training lead soldiers to engage in actions that may later cause regret (e.g., the shooting of civilians at a roadblock in an ambiguous situation), thereby increasing the potential for PTSD or other post-combat psychological difficulties? Or, might the resilience training lead some to overcome, for the time, the disabling effects of traumatic episodes and thereby increase the likelihood of their redeployment to situations with further risk of serious disability? The likelihood of these eventualities, or other negative effects, is unknown. But certainly they are sufficiently plausible — as plausible as McCord’s unexpected findings, noted earlier, of intensive counseling and summer camp leading to increased crime, mental illness diagnosis, and early death among participating youth — that they cannot legitimately be ruled out a priori. These possibilities increase the ethical responsibility of those promoting CSF to conduct pilot studies, carefully monitor them for possible negative effects upon soldiers or others, submit the program to careful ethical review, and seek informed consent.

It is also important to note here two controversial aspects of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program that have already received attention from investigative journalists. First, Mark Benjamin has raised provocative questions, not yet fully answered, about the circumstances surrounding the huge, $31 million no-bid contract awarded to Seligman (“whose work formed the psychological underpinnings of the Bush administration’s torture program”) by the Department of Defense for his team’s CSF involvement. Benjamin notes that the government allows sole-source contracts only under very limited conditions. The Army contract documents note that “there is only one responsible source due to a unique capability provided, and no other supplies or services will satisfy agency requirements.” But as we have detailed above, public claims about the effectiveness of the Penn Resiliency Program and its superiority to alternative prevention programs are significantly overstated, casting doubt upon the rationale for awarding the sole-source contract.

Second, Jason Leopold and others have raised serious questions about the “spiritual fitness” component of the CSF program, which appears to inappropriately promote a religious worldview as an important path to greater resilience and purpose. The special issue article by Pargament and Sweeney confirms the legitimacy of this concern. It includes a range of theologically oriented terms and references, and it specifically identifies the Army’s chaplain corps as a resource “to assist individuals in their quests to develop their spirits” (p. 61).

The Limits of Positive Psychology

Comprehensive Soldier Fitness draws heavily on “positive psychology” in aiming to reduce the incidence of psychological harm resulting from combat and post-combat stress. The field of positive psychology has grown dramatically over the past decade and has many exuberant supporters and evangelists. Rather than focusing on distress and pathology, they emphasize human strengths and virtues, happiness, and the potential to derive positive meaning from stressful circumstances. Few would dispute the benefits of broadening psychology’s purview in this way. But writers such as Barbara Held, Barbara Ehrenreich, Eugene Taylor and James Coynehave offered compelling critiques of positive psychology, including its failure to sufficiently recognize the valuable functions played by “negative” emotions like anger, sorrow, and fear; its slick marketing and disregard for harsh and unforgiving societal realities like poverty; its failure to examine the depth and richness of human experience; and its growing tendency to promote claims without sufficient scientific support (e.g., the relationship between positive psychological states and health outcomes, or the mechanisms underlying “posttraumatic growth”).

These and related concerns are directly relevant to Comprehensive Soldier Fitness. As described by Cornum, Matthews, and Seligman in the special issue, the CSF program aspires “to increase the number of soldiers who derive meaning and personal growth from their combat experience” (p. 6). But in many ways the technocratic language of military training programs and the positive psychology strategies that characterize the CSF program appear inadequate for the task. Activities such as the “three blessings exercise” in which the individual reflects on what went well that day and why seem ill-suited for encouraging and supporting the deep questioning and open exploration of existential issues that often arise for soldiers facing extreme circumstances. By all indications, the program’s positive psychology orientation also fails to scrutinize those very institutions that subject recruits to potential trauma in order to create people sufficiently hardy to engage in death-defying and death-inflicting experiences.

In this regard, it is worth noting how special issue authors Peterson, Park, and Castro briefly discuss the lowertrust scores of female soldiers on the CSF program’s Global Assessment Tool (GAT), which measures psychological fitness in four domains (social, emotional, spiritual, and family). They interpret these results as suggesting “Female soldiers do not feel as fully at ease in the Army as do male soldiers,” and they recommend further research to “understand the needs and challenges of female soldiers and to help them attain the same morale as male soldiers, which perhaps would reduce attrition among them” (p. 15-16). What goes unmentioned is that the extremely high rates of sexual assault on women soldiers, condoned or covered up by others higher in rank, is clearly a source of distrust and trauma — and it calls less for building a positive, resilient outlook among the victims than for recognition of how the commonplace victimization of women in war should be vociferously prevented.

In important ways, key lessons of humanistic psychology are also regrettably overlooked in the CSF program. For many soldiers, combat awakens questions regarding the meaning of life and of its worth, which can become more persistent after returning home. Too often, our veterans face anomie, lack of community, and the replacement of caring ties with the competitive values of marketability when their military service is over. Humanistic and related perspectives more directly and fully attend to this void, the emptiness of contemporary society that increases the difficulties in recovery from trauma, than does positive psychology. Because of the limitations of quantitative psychology to date, the data for phenomena of this type are more frequently found in stories than in self-report inventories such as the GAT. Limited data encourage a limited view of the phenomenon of PTSD and of any resilience that is based upon denial. In contrast, it is through revelations such as the Winter Soldier testimonies of U.S. veterans and active duty soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq, through studies of the phenomenology of returning soldiers by Daryl Paulson and Stanley Krippner, or accounts of soldier participants in U.S. torture as relayed by journalists Joshua Phillips and Justine Sharrock, that we are able to see how much distress comes from abuses soldiers commit either as a result of commands from superiors or due to the morally disorienting effects of ambiguous combat situations.

Indeed, among the most traumatic psychological scars that soldiers sustain are those resulting from what they have done to others. Some of the particularly intense characteristics of PTSD are found among perpetrators. AsCol. Dave Grossman and others have described, human beings have an inherent resistance to killing other human beings. As a result, waging war almost always relies upon propaganda and training designed to dehumanize the enemy and elevate one’s own cause. Psychology and psychologists have contributed to training programs aimed at increasing soldiers’ willingness to kill. Now this newest positive psychology program for resilience promises to shield soldiers from some of the debilitating consequences of their actions and, as Reivich, Seligman and McBride note, it aims to better enable soldiers to “live the Warrior Ethos — ‘I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade’” (p. 27).

Missing, it would seem, is any meaningful CSF component devoted to helping soldiers grapple with the profound ethical dilemmas involved in their duties, including killing others in furtherance of state policy. Brett Litz and his colleagues have used the term “moral injury” to describe the exceedingly difficult challenges and consequences that soldiers face in response to “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” (p. 700). These are especially troubling omissions from the CSF program when we also consider the regrettable reality that many recruits, often drawn to the military by economic necessity and deceptive marketing strategies, are never told about the types of injuries to which they will be exposed or the level of slaughter in which some of them will take part.

The U.S. Military and American Psychology

In the closing article of the special issue, Seligman and Fowler (former CEO of the APA) attempt to counter the objections they anticipate from readers who have concerns about how closely the American Psychological Association and the profession of psychology should align themselves with the agenda of the U.S. military. Certainly, such reader concerns are not entirely unfounded, especially given the tragic repercussions of the APA’s decisions post-9/11 to shape its ethics code, policies, and pronouncements to meet the perceived needsof an administration that viewed torture and other detainee abuse as legitimate components of national security practice. Unfortunately, however, Seligman and Fowler’s arguments serve only to instill greater concern about the foundations of the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and the role of institutional psychology in advancing it, as we explain below by responding to three statements from their article.

“It is not the military that sets the nation’s policies on war and peace. The military carries out the policies that emerge from our democratic form of government. Withholding professional and scientific support for the people who provide the nation’s defense is, we believe, simply wrong” (p. 85)

No one recommends withholding services from anyone in need. Indeed, health professionals deserve to be commended for providing such support to our soldiers and veterans.  But when acting ethically, health professionals address the needs of their clients before the wishes of the institutions that hire them. Therefore, if those institutions constrain the options available for the well-being of the practitioners’ clients, these professionals have an obligation to consider remedies beyond the narrow institutionally defined interests. For example, the CSF program does not include a component whereby participants are invited to listen to fellow soldiers and veterans who have enhanced their own safety, well-being, and sense of purpose by refusing to comply with illicit orders, or by deciding, as have so many other American citizens, that the war they are fighting is unjust and immoral.

In addition, whether the U.S. military plays a role in establishing policies is not a matter to be determined by recitation of formal rules. Scholarship involves an obligation to look at the actual evidence. Generals routinely make political statements in which they advocate for the latest war. Major military contractors work closely with military officials to sell both weapons of war and war itself. Retired military officers are then often hired as lobbyists for these same corporations, and some appear as military “experts” in the media without revealing their conflicts of interest. The exorbitant budget for “perception management” services paid to professional propaganda organizations is also used by the military to spin news and promote war to government officials and the public alike. And, as recently reported by Rolling Stone, psychological operations (“psyops”) techniques were used by the military on visiting U.S. Senators to strengthen their support of the increasinglyunpopular Afghan war effort.

“The balance of good done by building the physical and mental fitness of our soldiers far outweighs any harm that might be done” (p. 86).

It is disappointing that researchers who have emphasized the purported empirical underpinnings of the CSF program would here abandon all semblance of scholarly rigor. The authors offer their cost-benefit claim as transparently true (i.e., the good outweighing the harm). But they offer no evidence in support of this crucial claim. For example, in their calculation how much weight do they give to the tragic numbers of civilian casualties in Iraq (minimally estimated in the hundreds of thousands) and Afghanistan — the dead, the injured, and the displaced? Does this harm matter at all to those promoting CSF? Have we reached the point where “do no harm,” the fundamental principle underlying the psychology profession’s ethics, has become “do no harm to Americans, unless it serves the interests of the state”? These issues deserve careful consideration, not evasion.

We should also keep in mind that every effort to support military operations is billed as “support for our troops.” Whether it is the use of drones that kill from a continent away or tapping into a soldier’s capacity to kill without a serious hangover, all are justified as for the brave troops. But the decisions to use military force are not made with the well-being of military personnel in mind, nor are they made by soldiers or even influenced by their desires. Master resilience trainers in the Army will not be urging soldiers to report violations of the rules of engagement by their superiors. They will not encourage soldiers to empathize with the humanity of the adults and children whom they may have killed as collateral damage, nor to use forms of restorative justice for apology and reconciliation that have a potential for deeper healing. And they will not encourage troops to build supportive ties with those critical of the wars they are fighting or the tactics required of them.

“We are proud to aid our military in defending and protecting our nation right now, and we will be proud to help our soldiers and their families into the peace that will follow” (p. 86).

The blind embrace of overly simple notions of “patriotism” is inappropriate for professional psychologists dedicated to the promotion of universal human health and well-being. Ideological convictions based upon mythologies of American exceptionalism are no substitute for an examination of their verity. If it is not true that the U.S. is defending its democratic foundations against ruthless adversaries, then the balance shifts dramatically toward averting the alleged harm of making healthier killers. By tying the CSF program to claims of the rightness of American military goals and actions, Seligman and Fowler are, unrecognized by them, requiring that an ethical evaluation include a comprehensive empirical evaluation of the justification for those policies.

Such an evaluation likely will find that the view of U.S. military history as being primarily “defensive” in nature, rather than one of imperial control, is false. Rather, the U.S. has a long history of intervening in other countries and overthrowing their governments when they act in ways considered to be against U.S. national interests. Where does the “defending and protecting” reality lie in regard to the war in Iraq, or the invasion of Guyana, or the support for the Venezuelan coup, or the bombing of Serbia, or military aid to dictators around the world? Sadly, history (and scholars such as retired U.S. Col. Andrew Bacevich, among many others) has shown how remarkably war-prone the United States has been in the non-defensive pursuit of its foreign policy and “national interest.” The U.S. is, in fact, at best only inconsistently a defender of democracy. Our empire-building behavior has caused great harm to our own safety and well-being — and to the principles our country purports to value. Meanwhile, the promise of peace following military victories has surely not materialized, while the case for the extent of U.S. engagement in wars that were unneeded is extensive and compelling. It is not professionally responsible to ignore these facts.

Conclusion

In addition to our deep concerns about Comprehensive Soldier Fitness, the American Psychological Association’s unrestrained enthusiasm for the program is especially worrisome for what it says about the APA, the largest organization of psychologists in the country, indeed the world. As we have demonstrated, there are many complex issues regarding the CSF program’s empirical foundations, its promotion as a massive research project absent informed consent, and the basis on which its psychologist developers justify the program. We would therefore expect a special issue of the American Psychologist, a journal edited by the APA’s CEO Norman Anderson, to encourage an extended discussion of these matters.

In contrast, guest editors Seligman and Matthews have assembled 13 articles that include no independent evaluation of the empirical claims underlying CSF. They contain no unbiased discussion of ethical issues raised by the program. They do nothing to enlighten psychologists about ethical challenges posed by consulting and research work with the military. And they most certainly offer no encouragement for questioning the foreign policy context in which our soldiers are sent into combat, to face physical and moral hazards for which even the best program can never adequately prepare them. Unfortunately, the APA’s uncritical promotion of the CSF program reveals much about the current moral challenges facing the psychology profession itself.

Psychology should maintain an ethical and critical stance distinct from and resistant to the lure of patriotic calls, which are part of each and every military undertaking — by all nations — regardless of the legitimacy of the cause. As psychologists we should tread carefully when our efforts are solely directed toward sending soldiers back into combat rather than counseling them away from participating in misguided wars. In a similar way, assessing soldiers for their potential to withstand such horrors of war and building their resilience through teaching mental toughness skills are not necessarily healthy alternatives compared to affirming and assisting them in their expressions of doubt and dissent.

Ultimately, there is a paradox that should be foremost in the minds of professional psychologists. Helping people who have already been harmed by trauma is essential. But should we be involved in helping an institution prepare to place more people in harm’s way without careful and ongoing questioning and review of the rationale for doing so? Whatever the needs for a military for national defense, or the benefits of team building, loyalty, camaraderie, and a positive outlook, militaries are, among other things, authoritarian institutions that kill, maim, deceive, and actively reduce an individual’s sense of independent agency.

The enormous toll that armed conflict exacts on soldiers, veterans, families, and communities is a key reason why we should send young men and women to war only as an absolute last resort — and we should bring them home as quickly as possible, rather than sending them back again and again. If the Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program is truly about enhancing well-being, then we should also question whether these soldiers might be helped more effectively by finding non-military ways to resolve the conflicts and concerns for which they carry such heavy burdens.

Authors

Roy Eidelson is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com.

Marc Pilisuk is Professor Emeritus, the University of California, and Professor, Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center. He is the author (with Jennifer Achord Rountree) of Who Benefits from Global Violence and War: Uncovering a Destructive System (Greenwood/Praeger, 2008), and the co-editor (with Michael Nagler) ofPeace Movements Worldwide (Praeger/ABC-CLIO, 2011). Marc can be reached at mpilisuk@saybrook.edu.

Stephen Soldz is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, public health researcher, faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, and president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. He has conducted extensive research on psychosocial prevention and treatment interventions. He edits the Psyche, Science, and Society blog and is a founder of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, one of the organizations working to change American Psychological Association policy on participation in abusive interrogations. Stephen can be reached at ssoldz@bgsp.edu.

March 26th, 2011

Fight for a Decent Society or Inherit a Worse One

Speech given by me at the MoveOn Defend the American Dream Rally, Boston, Massachusetts, March 15, 2011

I am delighted to be here today with you as we defend the American Dream from those seeking to turn our society back a century or more. I am President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, an organization whose members are psychologists and other mental health professionals and behavioral scientists who use their knowledge and expertise to further peace and social justice. We treat those having emotional problems which interfere with their functioning, promote peaceful strategies for conflict resolution and the development of healthy communities, bring social justice concerns to the teaching of psychology, and do research to improve our efforts. The massive budget cuts will injure the interests of both professionals like our members and the people we serve and teach. And the research to improve those services will be cut.

Now these cuts demonstrate a particularly ugly side of our country and its culture at this decisive time in our history. For they are overwhelmingly aimed at the most needy among us: the poor needing help with food and housing; the emotionally disturbed needing help coping better with their feelings and coping with social pressures; students from poor and middle class families who will face larger classrooms and unhappy teachers in K-12 and higher tuition in college with less financial aid available.

While bankers and other business leaders have become obscenely rich by stealing our homes, laying us off or sending our jobs overseas, robbing many of us of our futures, and destroying our economy, others have been working, at modest pay to help their fellow citizens. Many of these people work in the public sector or have jobs which depend upon public sector funding; our teachers and our social workers; our librarians and psychologists; our doctors, nurses, and home health aides. For a decent society is a society which takes care of those in need and in which those who take care of others are valued, not devalued and  demonized as has happened all too often in recent months, by politicians and pundits from the Republican Party, but, to be honest, not only from that party.

There is another factor that needs to be mentioned. Most of these helping professions are overwhelmingly female. Over 80% of public school teachers are women, as are over 90% of our nurses. We cannot separate the attack on public sector workers and those whose work is funded by the public sector from the vicious attack on women and their rights that we are seeing across the country as efforts are made to ban abortion, to demonize those who seek and provide abortions, to abolish family planning services, and even to criminalize miscarriages.

If these cutbacks are implemented, our helping workers, largely women, will be laid off or have their wages and benefits cut. Also cut will be those, often men, who build and construct and whose efforts are vitally needed to fix and improve our crumbling physical infrastructure.  A decent society would not let either of these possibilities happen.

Also important to recognize is that these cuts are not needed. While there is a long-term deficit problem, a decent society would dramatically expand spending on needed services and infrastructure at this time of mass unemployment and increased need. And after an economic recovery, when we do need to deal with the deficit, a decent society would not cut services but would take three needed steps. A decent society would dramatically increase taxes on those ultra-rich who swept up virtually all of the vast increases in wealth in our society over the last 40 years. A decent society would dramatically reduce the obscene war budget that has us spending more than all other countries combined on weapons and means of destruction. And a decent society would confront the escalating health costs, even if it meant taking on the pharmaceutical, insurance and hospital industries that get wealthy far beyond their contribution to the welfare of the majority of us.

As we go together into the future we should remember that either we will fight together for a better, more decent, society or we, our children, and even our grandchildren will inherit a far worse one.

March 18th, 2011

Speaking on Bradley Manning’s treatment next Wednesday

I will speak at a forum on the treatment of Bradley Manning at Boston University next Wednesday. Also speaking is Manning friend David House:

Event Description: Boston University’s Amnesty International Chapter will be hosting an event about the US soldier, Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked classified documents to Wikileaks. Manning is currently being held under conditions many have deemed solitary confinement. He has been required to stay in his cell for 23 hours a day with no blanket or pillow and is not allowed to exercise in the confines of his cell. Recently, Manning has been forced to strip naked and give up his clothes for the duration of the night. The soldier Pfc. Bradley Manning’s close friend and regular visitor, David House, and psychologist and activist Dr. Stephen Soldz will discuss the current conditions of Manning’s detainment. Dr. Stephen Soldz, a professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and the founder of Psychoanalysts for Peace and Justice, will be speaking. Dr. Soldz has been featured on Democracy Now! and other news media as an outspoken critic of torture.
Date: Wednesday, March 23
Time: 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location: Boston University College of General Studies Room 505, 871 Comm Ave

There are many other events, including 20+ rallies this weekend, to support Manning. Check them out here.

March 16th, 2011

PsySR Calls on U.S. to Support Democratic Change in the Middle East

In light of unfolding events in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere in the Middle East, Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) has issued the statement below in solidarity with the brave protesters. We call upon leaders of the United States to stand in support of democratic change in the region.

The statement is also on the PsySR website at www.psysr.org/mideast-democracy, and a printable PDF version is available HERE.

PsySR Calls on U.S. to Support Democratic Change in the Middle East

The rapidly unfolding events in Egypt and Tunisia have stunned and engaged the world. The governments of these countries have long been criticized for their widespread human rights violations, including restrictions on freedom of expression and association, the abuse of state of emergency powers, the imprisonment of dissidents, the use of torture, and the persecution of journalists and human rights defenders. But today we are witnesses to the extraordinary power manifest when ordinary people join together and challenge undemocratic rulers, expressing the seemingly timeless human aspiration to be free of tyranny, oppression, and exploitation.

Psychologists for Social Responsibility (PsySR) is an international organization dedicated to bringing psychology to the service of peace and social justice. We are keenly aware of the importance that people place on the right to speak up for the safety and well-being of their families and themselves, and we recognize the importance of the images they hold about the fairness of their governments. From psychological studies of mass violence, we also know that bystanders who do not protest brutality serve, in effect, to legitimize it and to empower the aggressors. In this light, the mass protests, military tanks, and clashes between civilians and government forces are a potent reminder that calls for law and order do not always drown out a people’s cry for justice – and for change. The loss of life in these situations is tragic, as is the perpetuation of corrupt regimes that rely daily on violence and intimidation to maintain control.

From events like these – driven by the collective power and pent up frustrations of a long-suffering citizenry – emerge outcomes that are often tenuous and unexpected. Sudden change brings with it both opportunities and dangers. Popular revolts can lead to more just and democratic societies. However, history shows that the dethroning of tyrants does not guarantee a quick transformation to democratic rule, and sometimes instead sets the stage for new autocracies. Lasting democratic progress depends upon continued broad participation, and the relationships and structures that encourage it.

Therefore, amid the turmoil and uncertainties, PsySR affirms its unwavering support for movements and leaders that fully embrace a commitment to the key principles reflected in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We recognize that peace and stability are far more valuable when accompanied by individual rights and freedoms, and by justice for all segments of society.

Speaking in Cairo in June 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama explained:

“I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.”

At this critical time, PsySR calls upon the United States government to carefully consider the effects of any contradiction between word and deed. The Ben Ali regime in Tunisia and Egypt under Mubarak are two of several repressive governments that have received U.S. financial and military support for decades – support that has enabled them to suppress their own people. Current events offer the U.S. an opportunity to alter its image as a too frequent defender of authoritarian tyrants. In the days and weeks ahead, the actions of the United States will influence the consciousness, the perceptions and the hopes of people throughout the world. We therefore encourage support for the democratic aspirations of people in the Middle East to challenge undemocratic governments and to choose their own leaders.

February 1, 2011

January 31st, 2011