Article archive / June 1, 2015
Originally published: . Volume 6, No. 6. Source pages: 2.
Letter to the Editor Psychology Times
I have been a member of the American Psychological Association for many years, long enough, finally, to merit being excused from paying dues. I have had the privilege of serving on the association’s Accreditation Committee, and subsequently on what was then the Education and Training Board. I felt proud when I earned Fellowship status.
When I opened my New York Times a few days ago a headline made me blink: American Psychological Association Bolstered CIA Torture Program
What followed was a report of alleged collusion between APA and elements of our government to provide a rationale for, and to facilitate the implementation of, torture as part of the war on terror. It made me blink and it brought back a memory: Logan Wright’s 1962 Presidential address to the APA Division 12 (Clinical Psychology). Its title: Please Don’t Tell My Mother I’m A Clinical Psychologist—She Still Thinks I Play Piano In A Whorehouse.
Logan was complaining about inadequate standards for the profession and making a case for improvement in an evolving profession. The Times article paints a more sordid story, alleging seduction and betrayal. Seduction by opportunities for financial gain and perhaps by the lure of being “insiders.” And the betrayal of professional standards.
The story mirrors a situation painfully detailed in C. S. Lewis’s book, That Hideous Strength, a fictional account tale of a university and its scholars corrupted by money and the promise of power.
The information in the NYT article seems to be a reprise of claims made last November in a book by James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. I haven’t read that book, but I will. In response to the furor raised by those claims, last November Norman Anderson, the Chief Executive of APA, announced that an independent investigation of them will be carried out and published. That publication has yet to appear. One can hope it will bring into question, or at least mitigate, the allegations.
In the meantime, I feel very, very sad.
This article is part of a historical newspaper archive. Read the original issue for its original layout, photographs and graphics.