First Do No Harm

"Psychologists wield tremendous power, from the sanctity of the therapist's couch to the cold, hard, dark reality of the CIA's secret prisons. Facing a professional leadership embedded with the Bush administration and the Pentagon, a small group of dedicated psychologists mounted a disciplined campaign to put an end to the torture that was being conducted with the support and participation of their peers. As this volume documents, the struggle to reform the American Psychological Association is a story of grassroots organizing against tremendous institutional power, to force their profession to abide by the ancient imperative to 'first do no harm.' The courageous efforts of these psychologists, described herein along with the overarching role of psychology in war and its aftereffects, bring to mind the lines of Mario Savio, launching the Free Speech Movement at UC-Berkeley in 1964: 'There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious - makes you sick at heart - that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.'" - Amy Goodman, host and executive producer, Democracy Now!

"This collection holds its own among edited volumes that address the Bush White House decision to use torture. Because of its specificity to psychology, historical scope, and utilization of contemporary psychoanalysis, it warrants a wide readership. I recommend it to anyone who takes seriously trauma as a psychological condition and the place of ethics within psychology, as well as to those with interest in contemporary psychoanalysis." - Louis Rothschild, PhD., in PsycCRITIQUES