Martin seligman army program

The dogs broke down completely and ultimately would not attempt to escape through an open cage door when given the opportunity to avoid more pain. Seligman called the phenomenon "learned helplessness.

Government documents say that the goal of Bush-era torture was to drive prisoners into the same psychologically devastated state through abuse. In that post, Seligman was arguing that any science advisor to the president "needs to help direct natural science and social science toward winning our war against terrorism.

Previous reports have explored how Seligman's fingerprints show up on the CIA and military torture programs -- including his interactions at key moments with individuals and institutions that helped set up and carry out government torture. Seligman told Salon he never intended for the government to use his ideas for torture and described the timing of the meetings as coincidental.

Understanding Seligman's connection to torture requires a bit of background. Bush-era torture was designed by a small group of current and former military psychologists who had been training elite U. A small group of those SERE psychologists agreed to reverse-engineer their torture-resistance training tactics into brutal interrogation methods. Seligman shows up early on. The New York Times has described this meeting as "the start of the program.

In a lengthy correspondence with Salon over the previous months, Seligman described that meeting at his house as a small gathering of professors and law enforcement personnel as well as at least one "Israeli intelligence person," to conduct an academic discussion about the so-called war on terror.

Seligman said he interacted with Mitchell at that meeting infrequently, but does recall the SERE psychologist "telling me that he admired my work at a coffee break.

Another interaction between Seligman and the architects of Bush-era torture came a few months later, in the spring of Hubbard confirmed that in an e-mail to Salon.

The participating psychologists were supported by the American Psychological Association APA whose leadership colluded with the CIA and even changed its professional Ethics Guidelines to accommodate torture. The Dark Side , A failure to imagine the likely consequences of his actions would seem to call into question his qualifications for that position. The Psychologists Take Power , Whereas other professional associations condemned the use of torture and prohibited its members from being present, psychologists engaged in, and profited from torture.

The failure of psychology as a profession to oppose torture demonstrates moral and professional turpitude. However, as Prof. Its slick marketing success achieved its current fad status in popular psychology. M ilitary and academic departments of psychology have jumped on the bandwagon as tens possibly hundreds of millions of dollars are awarded in grants.

The purpose of PRP as described by Dr. This program was designed to prevent depression. The PRP promotes optimism by teaching students to think more realistically and flexibly about the problems they encounter. PRP also teaches assertiveness, creative brainstorming, decision-making, relaxation and other coping and problem-solving skills. Mark Benjamin. Soldiers are trained to kill; they are often faced with exceedingly difficult ethical challenges when they are ordered to execute acts that violate deeply held moral beliefs, such as: committing or failing to prevent atrocities; bearing witness or having knowledge about acts of atrocities such as the wanton slaughter of civilians.

Such wrenching experiences are not easily forgotten; they are etched in memory and, for some soldiers such traumatic events have deep emotional consequences such as flash-backs and feelings of guilt and remorse. The focus of psychologists under military contracts shifted from detainees suspected of terrorism to the entire U. The funding source continues to be the military and details of its experimental operations are secret. Though not publicly acknowledged, CSF uses psychologically engineered behavior modification techniques to create emotionally desensitized soldiers who are trained to kill without a conscience.

Now this newest positive psychology program for resilience promises to shield soldiers from some of the debilitating consequences of their actions. Tens possibly hundreds of millions more have been awarded in grants. S oldiers are given no choice; and non-compliance carries the possibility of disciplinary sanctions.

As this website documents, psychologists who collaborate with government have habitually demonstrated their inclination to exploit every opportunity to conduct research on involuntary, non-consenting human subjects who are not informed about potential foreseeable harms that may result. Below are selected references for articles from that issue:. Casey, Jr. American Psychologist 66 , 1, Peterson, C. Assessment for the U. Army comprehensive soldier fitness program: Global assessment tool.

Reivich, K. Master resilience training in the U. A recent Army report concluded the Master Resilience Training program has been effective. Seligman wrote about resilience training in the April edition of Harvard Business Review.