FACULTY MEMBER AT BOSTON GRADUATE SCHOOL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS COAUTHORS REPORT FEATURED IN NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE ON APA AND TORTURE
Dr. Stephen Soldz, faculty member at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, was a lead author of a report that was featured in a major New York Times article written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist James Reisen. The report alleges collusion between the American Psychological Association and the C.I.A. to support the C.I.A.'s "enhanced interrogation program."
Brookline, Massachusetts, April 30, 2015 (Newswire.com) - BGSP faculty member, Stephen Soldz, Ph.D., co-authored a report that was the subject of a major New York Times article by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, James Reisen, published on April 30, 2015. The article by the Times details the American Psychological Association’s alleged clandestine support of the C.I.A.’s “enhanced Interrogation” program. This program was recently described in the Senate’s so-called “Torture Report.”
Dr. Soldz is a lead author of the report along with two others, Nathaniel Raymond of Harvard University, and Steven Reisner, Ph.D., of the Coalition of an Ethical Psychology and a member of the APA’s Council of Representatives. Written after nearly a decade of painstaking investigation, the report analyzes direct-source documentation. The authors claim this documentation substantiates collusion between the A.P.A., C.I.A., and the Department of Defense to change the American Psychological Association’s ethics policies, aligning them with the then-classified Bradbury “torture memos.”
Dr. Soldz commented, “This collusion constitutes the greatest scandal in the history of American psychology. Our profession, based as it is upon helping people and a “do no harm ethic,” was twisted by its own professional association to enable tuning of the harm used to break people down. If the profession and the A.P.A. do not get to bottom of this, find out how it happened, and make serious reforms so that it cannot happen again, a pall will remain over psychology for decades.”
Dr. Soldz is a psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist, and active researcher. He has worked on problems in psychotherapy process and outcome, personality processes in development and pathology, substance abuse, and youth tobacco use. He has been Director of Research for three research and consulting organizations, and is currently the Director of the Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, where he also practices and teaches. Over the last decade, Dr. Soldz has been a leader in efforts to remove psychologists from participating in abusive national security interrogations.
Dr. Soldz is interested in the application of psychoanalytic concepts to social issues. He is a past president and a current steering committee member of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, a co-founder of Psychologists for an Ethical Psychology, and Anti-Torture Advisor for Physicians for Human Rights. Dr. Soldz was a professional consultant on several Guantanamo trials.
About the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis
The Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis is a regionally-accredited, independent graduate school granting master’s and doctoral degrees in psychoanalysis and in psychoanalysis, society, and culture, as well as certificates in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, child and adolescent intervention, and psychoanalysis. BGSP also has branch campuses in New York and New Jersey.
Contact: Jeila Irdmusa, 617-277-3915 x32