In the last few weeks, the public’s attention has been drawn to the relationship between the American Psychological Association’s (APA) leadership and US military and intelligence operations in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The New York Times first revealed the findings of the APA’s commissioned inquiry into its own activities. The Hoffman report, as this investigation is known, found that APA officials colluded with government officials to enable psychologists to participate in torture.
APA Ethics Director Stephen Behnke was fired shortly before the the report was released to the public. He has since retained as counsel former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who issued a statement rejecting the investigation’s findings. Behnke is a lawyer-psychologist and former instructor in Harvard Medical School’s department of psychiatry.
Earlier this week, The Boston Globe reported on the Harvard ties of two former APA presidents implicated in the report: Gerald Koocher, a psychologist at Harvard-affiliated Boston Children’s Hospital, and Ronald Levant, who taught at Harvard and Boston University.
Most recently, Russ Newman, whose actions as chief of the APA’s practice directorate also came under scrutiny in the Hoffman report, resigned as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Alliant International in San Diego.
That there is renewed focus on this issue and finally some recognition of responsibility is testament to the persistent and incisive efforts of a national grassroots movement to hold psychologists accountable for their complicity in torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, in violation of international and US domestic law and codes of ethics. For years, our colleague, Deborah Popowski, Clinical Instructor, has played a critical role in that movement, alongside her clients, Trudy Bond, Josie Setzler, Michael Reese and Colin Bossen. Read more about their work together on professional misconduct complaints here and torture accountability here.