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2016 Vision Award Winners

THE 2016 VISION AWARD

The Board of Trustees was delighted to present the 2016 Vision Award to Stephen Soldz, PhD, and Steven Reisner, PhD. This recognition by the professional community honors their decade long commitment to fighting for social justice and representing psychoanalysts and psychologists as standard bearers for ethical practice, putting their personal and professional lives at risk as a result. In 2015, their efforts resulted in the release of the Hoffman Report which detailed the involvement of psychologists in torture and enhanced interrogations. Subsequently, psychologists were prohibited from this type of participation as it was deemed a breach of professional ethics.

We are continually reminded by the media of the harsh reality of professional involvement in the kind of deplorable tactics that Soldz and Reisner fought to bring into the open and ultimately curtail. A recent New York Times article, “How U.S. Torture Left a Legacy of Damaged Minds,” highlighted the shameful repercussions of enhanced interrogations. NAAP stands with Dr. Soldz and Dr. Reisner in challenging mental health professionals to demonstrate ethical and socially responsible behavior.

Stephen Soldz and Steven Reisner have spearheaded psychoanalytic research education and the development of many cross-professional programs that bring psychoanalysis into mainstream collaboration. They have provided great visibility about the dedication of analysts to ethical practice and set a model for the kind of real world, social commitment that NAAP encourages among psychoanalysts. We are grateful to them for keeping us mindful and accountable for our essential cultural and ethical values.

Bios

soldz-s-hi-resStephen Soldz, PhD, is a psychoanalyst, psychologist, researcher, and anti-war activist. He is the Director, Center for Research, Evaluation and Program Development at the Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis where his teaching, research, and more than 100 academic publications focus upon psychoanalytic research methodology and on the intersection of psychoanalysis and social violence. Read More>>

 


reisner-s-2015Steven Reisner, PhD is a psychoanalyst and an activist who works publicly to com­bat political violence and privately to prevent suffering from becoming ill. He is a founding member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology, Advisor on Psychology and Ethics for Physicians for Human Rights, where he co-authored the report Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program, and past-President of Psychologists for Social Responsibility. Read More>>