If you have not yet cast your vote in the ongoing election for APA president, you’re probably among the 80% of APA members who pay your dues but believe you have no real influence on the priorities and agenda of the world’s largest organization of psychologists.
Please allow me just a few minutes of your time. I’m hoping I can persuade you that together we can change the APA and, in doing so, contribute to the progressive transformations stirring in this country and around the world. Please take a look at the video above where I describe, in two minutes, what I hope to accomplish with your help.

For the past 20 years, I have lived and worked in downtown New York City. I was here a decade ago when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. At first, this national tragedy brought out the best of what we as psychologists have to offer – compassion and care for those directly affected, guidance in understanding and facilitating processes of mourning and healing, and wisdom in helping the public and politicians differentiate reasoned and just responses to terrorism from fear-based political manipulations.

Unfortunately, our government abused our national tragedy for political ends, and sadly the American Psychological Association contributed by redefining the proper role of psychologists in war. A proud tradition of military psychologists using psychological knowledge for what is good and just was overshadowed in favor of a new role created by and for a small group of military and intelligence psychologists: designers and implementers of the Bush administration’s notorious ‘enhanced interrogations’ program. Psychologists and other health professionals in military intelligence operations became military combatants, no longer afforded Geneva Convention protections for non-combatant health professionals. The APA, alone among health professional associations, supported these changes.

Now, a decade later, in downtown New York City an entirely different form of upheaval is occurring. The Occupy Wall Street movement has inspired thousands who previously had felt disempowered to rise up and demand progressive change. In less than two months, Occupy movements have formed in hundreds of cities across the country and beyond. I have had the good fortune to visit Zuccotti Park, where the now-worldwide Occupy movements first found their inspiration. The energy, the diversity, the mutual caring, and the commitment to positive change are unmistakable and inspiring.

I believe strongly that the effort to change the APA and the aims of the Occupy movements have much in common. Each recognizes that the status quo is no longer acceptable, that the “1%” is serving its own narrow interests and has far too much control over the lives of the “99%,” and that this unjust and destructive arrangement must come to an end. It’s time for the 65,000 APA members who don’t vote to assert their collective power to guide their own association in a positive direction.

APA’s leadership, our “1%,” has failed to address the needs and priorities of tens of thousands of members. Just as the Occupy movements are a growing statement that passive acceptance of corporate domination of our daily lives is coming to an end, APA members need to make it just as clear that APA’s collusion with corporate, government, and military priorities, whether it’s in the clinic or in the academy, can no longer take precedence over our commitment to human welfare. It is obvious, but rarely mentioned, that to reduce the mental illness that results from stress, poverty, and stigmatization, we should be working to reduce stress, poverty, and stigmatization; that sometimes it is recession and not depression that afflicts Americans.

If you do cast your vote, and I become APA president, you can count on me to be a spokesperson for psychology as a force for good in the world. I will initiate a broad campaign linking individual, family, community, and world mental health to fairness, human rights, and social justice. I will promote a more equitable, humane, not-for-profit health care system. I will challenge managed care’s narrowing definition of mental illness and its homogenization of treatment. I will take on psychiatry’s over-inclusive, symptom-based (DSM-5) approach to treatment. I will work to confront the crisis in psychology education and training by tackling the burdens of student debt and by developing more diverse internship opportunities relevant to our changing world. I will call upon the membership to join me in changing APA’s organizational culture to ensure greater transparency, democracy, and accountability in our governance. And I will once and for all end APA’s continued support for psychologists’ involvement in abusive and coercive military and CIA detainee operations by implementing the member-passed anti-torture referendum, and by working to annul APA’s support of psychologist-directed military and intelligence interrogations (see http://www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens).

As APA President I will advocate for the core values of psychology: the value of compassionate and highly-skilled individuals providing service, information, teaching and training – independent of corporate and government pressures – for the good of all and available to all.

The voting deadline is October 31st. I am asking that you put Steven J. Reisner as your #1 vote. You should have received a reminder to vote from the APA Elections office yesterday. To vote, simply open that email and follow the instructions (search your inbox history for an email with the subject line: 2011 APA President-elect Election). If you can’t find that email, there is a plan B: send an email to Garnett Coad, APA Elections Director (gcoad@apa.org). He will send you another personal electronic ballot.

Please don’t be silent at this critical moment. Together I believe we can change the APA and the world for the better. Thank you!