Blurring the Boundary between Healers and Interrogators
Leonard Rubenstein, J.D., President of Physicians for Human Rights, a Nobel Prize winning organization, is an attorney and veteran of many human rights struggles. In this presentation he speaks of the role of torture in our contemporary political culture.
Stephen Soldz, Ph.D. psychoanalyst, social activist and professor at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis and national leader in opposing psychologist participation in torture and abuse, presents paper on Psychologists and Torture and Civil Society.
Eric Fair, now a divinity student at Princeton, was a civilian contract interrogator in Baghdad, Fallujah and Abu Ghraib in early 2004. In this presentation he lends his first person account of his experiences there.
David Sloan-Rossiter, Ph.D., is co-chair of Curriculum Committee at Boston Institute for Psychotherapy and Massachusetts Institute for Psychoanalysis. He brings his long-standing interest in using a psychoanalytic perspective to aid communities to the role of moderator of this program.
During the Q & A panelists answered these questions:
- Is torture effective?
- Do psychologists have a valid role in interrogations?
- Can they be protective or is their involvement a violation of professional ethics?
- What can concerned psychologists do?
- What is the American Psychological Association’s response to psychologists’ involvement in interrogations?
