By Sally C. Harvey, Ph.D.
Winston Churchill once stated “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Our profession is certainly facing that experience now, with regard to the allegations rendered by the Hoffman Report. The past several weeks have certainly brought about its share of challenges and concerns related to this document amid apologies and proposed actions. While the document is rift with innuendos and suppositions, the emotionality of its allegations has, for many, appears to have suspended our professional obligation to review data in a thoughtful and scientific manner.
In all the hyperbole that has surrounded the leakage of the report to the press, the fact that not a single military psychologist has been found to have mistreated detainees has been lost. The report acknowledges that, deep within its pages, but counters the failure to find that “smoking gun” is secondary only to a lack of access to the pertinent information. Lost in the emotional response is the fact that the PENS Report affirms that the Ethical Code applies to operational psychologists. Absent in the discussions is that PENS report reaffirms the prohibition for psychologists to “engage in, direct, support, facilitate or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading behavior,” and requires them to report such behavior it is witnessed.
Winston Churchill once stated “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Our profession is certainly facing that experience now, with regard to the allegations rendered by the Hoffman Report. The past several weeks have certainly brought about its share of challenges and concerns related to this document amid apologies and proposed actions. While the document is rift with innuendos and suppositions, the emotionality of its allegations has, for many, appears to have suspended our professional obligation to review data in a thoughtful and scientific manner.
In all the hyperbole that has surrounded the leakage of the report to the press, the fact that not a single military psychologist has been found to have mistreated detainees has been lost. The report acknowledges that, deep within its pages, but counters the failure to find that “smoking gun” is secondary only to a lack of access to the pertinent information. Lost in the emotional response is the fact that the PENS Report affirms that the Ethical Code applies to operational psychologists. Absent in the discussions is that PENS report reaffirms the prohibition for psychologists to “engage in, direct, support, facilitate or offer training in torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading behavior,” and requires them to report such behavior it is witnessed.