Psychologists and Torture: Notes on the Battle for the Future of Psychology
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rp.10021Keywords:
APA, Psychology, Torture, Human Rights, EthicsAbstract
The modern concepts of autonomy, equality and rights, can be understood as the result of a long historical process of sensitization. This new sensitivity based on feelings of empathy and identification with the experiences of other human beings was threatened in the early years of the twentieth one century after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York by a new position that promoted not equality but rather cultural differentiation and the dehumanization of the enemy. Some psychologists and the American Psychological Association took part in the formation of this new policy. In order to confront the APA’s position a group of its own members decided to transform the Association internally. The purpose of this essay is to tell that story.
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