Oral history interview with Dan Aalbers, 2013.

Biographical Note

Psychologist.

Scope and Contents

Education: B.A., University of Nevada, Reno; M.A., Long Island University, Brooklyn. Career: psychologist; Professor of Psychology, Central Michigan University; Adjunct Professor, Sierra Nevada College. Reminisces: childhood experience in Catholic school as basis for anti-torture viewpoint; mother's liberal Catholic background and feminist ideals; observing effects of boredom on patients as undergraduate case manager; interview with Rachel Meeropol for a local radio show in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 2004; Jane Mayer's 2005 New Yorker article about CIA black sites and subsequent Psychological Ethics and National Security [PENS] report; confrontation with American Psychological Association [APA] president Ronald F. Levant and president-elect Gerald P. Koocher about Mayer's article and the PENS report at 2005 APA conference. Discussions: American military ethics and its obedience to civilian authorities; APA's failure to enforce its code of ethics in relation to its involvement in U.S. government black sites; work with Withhold APA Dues and Coalition for an Ethical Psychology to build support against psychologist's working at Guantánamo and other black sites; online petitioning of APA membership for a moratorium on Guantánamo psychologists; APA and Coalition for an Ethical Psychology's resistance to moratorium petitions; APA Ethical Standard 1.02; John C. Yoo and U.S. government's interpretation of United Nations Convention Against Torture; divisions in APA leadership; failure to implement moratorium resolution; Behavioral Science Consultation Team's [BSCT] current roles at U.S. government black sites.

Subjects

• Aalbers, Dan--Interviews.
• American Psychological Association.
• Boulanger, Ghislaine, interviewer.--http://id.loc.gov/vocabulary/relators/ivr
• Detention of persons--Government policy--United States.
• Guantánamo Bay oral history project.
• Interviews.
• Military interrogation.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Post-traumatic stress disorder.
• Prisoners of war--Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.
• Psychiatric ethics.
• Psychologists--Cuba--Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.
• Psychology--Ethics--United States.
• Rule of law--United States.
• Terrorism (International law)
• Torture--Government policy--United States.
• Unlawful combatants--Legal status, laws, etc.--United States.
• Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Veterans--United States.
• War on Terrorism, 2001-2009.

Access Conditions

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