International Psychoanalysis

Crossposted at Daily Kos
The battle over the use of torture by U.S. forces is being fought within the psychological profession. Because of the importance of psychologists in the development and implementation of interrogation plans, and of torture techniques, the use of psychologists in interrogation has direct bearing on the ability of the United States to implement torture worldwide.

This diary looks at the latest development within the American Psychological Association, as a portion of the membership is fighting to place a moratorium upon psychologist participation in interrogations of “enemy combatants”, due to the history of abuses perpetrated from Guantanamo Bay to Abu Ghraib. Now, led by the Society for Military Psychology, forces within the APA close to both the Pentagon and the CIA are fighting back to sink the proposed moratorium.
 
Valtin: Just in: Military Psychologists Oppose Torture Moratorium 

(more…)

“The Sigmund Freud/Minna Bernays Romance: Fact or Fiction?” is the title of my article that will appear in the spring issue of the American Imago.  It is a reaction to an article published by Franz Maciejewski of Heidelberg, Germany, PhD in sociology and author of articles and books on applied analysis dealing with Little Hans, Freud, and other topics, in September of 2006 in the Frankfurter Rundschau and in English in the last issue of the Imago in 2006.Maciejewski’s posthumous birthday gift to Freud, on his 150th birthday in 2006, was a bombshell: he found a hotel log entry of August 13, 1898, in Freud’s handwriting, registering himself and his sister-in-law as “wife” to spend the night an an inn in Majola, a place not big enough to be listed in the 1952 Columbia Gazetteer, to spend the night in a double room. This was supposed to be the smoking gun evidence that Freud made love to Minna. It even convinced Peter Gay, who had fought this theory for years. (more…)

As someone who has visited Guantanamo with the former presidents of the American Psychological and the American Psychiatric Associations (in Oct. 2005), the American Psychiatric has been from the beginning adamant in its belief that psychiatrists should not be involved in interrogations that are coercive. Compare the following statements. The American Psychological Association, issued a report in July, 2005 stating that psychologists consulting in interrogation involving national security should be “mindful of factors unique to these roles and contexts that require ethical consideration.” ( This is fairly permissive.) The American Psychiatric Association, in its statement of the same time, is more restrictive in its guidelines. Members can serve as behavior consultants so long as there is no “coercive” element to the interrogation. See Neil Lewis, “Guantanamo Tour Focuses on Medical Ethics,” New York Times, Sunday, November, 13, 2005, A19. These are old statements. I believe they have been updated, but they give you a sense of the difference, early on in the debate. I have written on this in a number of pieces, including a piece that just appeared in DISSENT, Winter issue. (more…)

“Specific Characteristics of Paedophilia amongst other Male and Female Perversions” given by Estela Welldon at a the Annual Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis of the IPA in Lisbon, Portugal, in January, 2007. (Click here to read) 

“Specific Characteristics of Paedophilia amongst other Male and Female Perversions” was given by Estela Welldon at the Third Annual Committee on Women and Psychoanalysis of the IPA, “Incest and Pedophilia” in Lisbon, Portugal, in January, 2007. (Click here to read)

Panic, Separation Anxiety, and Endogenous Opioids by Dr Donald F. Klein, M.D. and Dr Maurice Preter M.D. Work in progress may be previewed here and here.

A review of “Hate and Love in Psychoanalytic Institutes” by Jurgen Reeder, published in Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, Vol. XXVII, 1 (Winter 2007), pp. 60-6 — click here to read my review

Sociology, and Psychoanalysis: The Development of Scientific Knowledge by Jews in the Hapsburg Empire Freud, Brill and Fleck by Arnold Richards (Click here to read)

The Importance Of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Training: A Tale of Two Programs” by Jane S. Hall, LCSW, FIPA. This paper was published in Psychologist-Psychoanalyst, the official publication of Division 39 of the American Psychological Association. Volume XXVI, No.1 Winter 2006, p. 21. (Click here to read.)

Leo Baeck Memorial Lecture by Arnold Richards (Click here to Read)