Dr. Boulanger Responds

I am glad that Drs. Puente and Evans have taken this opportunity to offer more details about the changes that the American Psychological Association has instituted in the years since the Hoffman report was made available in 2015.

However, it is of some concern that, in pointing to “misrepresentations” in my introduction, Drs. Puente and Evans adopt a strategy similar to the one that the APA has used in answering their critics over these last many years. In pointing out that changes to the APA's ethics code were, in fact, planned prior to 9/11 (I note again that these changes directed psychologists to adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority rather than to their professional ethical responsibilities), Drs. Puente and Evans do not comment on my point that these ‘meaningful’ changes, as they call them, were in direct opposition to the International Code of Ethics. Whether the changes to the APA's ethics code took place after 9/11 or were in the planning phase at that point, these regressive changes demonstrated that the association had elected to set itself apart from other professional medical associations not only in America, but in the rest of the civilized world. This rhetorical style, with its careful attention to detail while ignoring the substance of the argument, is disingenuous.

Let me address the second point that Puente and Evans make, namely that the APA took many steps to implement the 2008 referendum or petition resolution. The referendum requiring military psychologists to leave Guantanamo Bay, quoted in detail in their letter above, was never implemented. APA never followed up in a meaningful way on the letters sent to President Bush and Secretary Gates, nor did they follow up on other letters sent to administration officials. Aalbers, 2013, and Aalbers and Teo, 2017, describe how the three authors of the referendum were initially excluded from the Advisory Committee established to determine how their referend