Beyond Institutional Betrayal: When the Professional Is Personal

Gerrity offers a personal reflection and an analysis of the institutional role of the American Psychological Association (APA) in US torture policy and its implementation. Providing an indictment of the APA’s betrayal of bedrock principles against psychological harm, and a personal meditation on the choices we face as individuals and members of institutions in standing against torture, Gerrity situates her analysis of the APA’s actions in a larger institutional context of psychological and medical professionals and organizations. Faced with the APA’s intransigence, she bears witness to the significance of alliances with survivors and other health professionals who refuse complicity with the security concerns of the state that, as her essay demonstrates, can lead so easily to specious justifications for torture and legitimations of the role of a range of professionals in its perpetration.