[Xmca-l] Re: Watch "Emails Show American Psychological Association Secretly Worked with Bush Admin to Enable Torture" on YouTube

[Annalisa Aguilar]

The most poignant discovery in the story is an attempt to hide behind the assertion "This is not a patient-doctor relationship," that is– the denial that there is a patient-doctor relationship. As Dr. Raymond indicates:

"The Declaration of Helsinki and the Declaration of Tokyo, the Nuremberg Code, U.S. law, the Geneva Conventions are not based on whether someone’s a patient. It’s based on whether someone’s a human being. And the fact of the matter is that those codes were mangled and, in some cases, written out of what the APA did. So the issue is not about doctor-patient relationship here. It is about war crimes and about crimes against humanity, which are not contingent on someone being your patient."

What comes to my mind is that if that is the case here to legitimize actions of coercion and torture through denial of a patient-doctor relationship (and if that is being brought to the table, it begs the question, what IS the relationship between the torturer and the tortured?), then this cannot not be protected under the screen of patient-doctor confidence either. 

All must be known. You can't have it both ways.

This should be left to the sunshine in its entirety so the healing can have the best opportunity of happening, for this is a nasty and deep wound upon us all.

Kind regards,

Annalisa