About sppm newsgroup -- those who run it

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To: wss@uniserve.com
Subject: About sppm newsgroup -- those who run it
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Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 19:59:46 +0100 (CET)

This FAQ about the sci.psychology.psychotherapy newsgroup and
 its sister newsgroup, sci.psychology.psychotherapy.moderated.

 It is sent out to warn people of the problems in the spp newsgroup and
real dangers in participating in the spp newsgroup without being anon.
(A QUICK SENSIBLE 'ADVANCED SEARCH' using http://groups.google.com
 will quickly verify all the charges made below.)



The following is a summary of the way the regular psychologists in sci.psychology.psychotherapy and
their friends have responded to the posting of certain facts and views. They have responded with
aggression and abject thuggery. While they complain about this summary of their behavior (below),
it is all true. Their libelous personal "FAQ" against their primary critic was originally
"maintained" by a  notorious 'Net hoodlum, Peter Hood who threatened physical assault several times
-- he was once and may still be a graduate student and has obtained a masters degree in Forensic
Psychology at the Leicester Univ. , U.K ) Here is the summary of the aggression of psychologists
and other regulars in the sci.psychology.psychotherapy newsgroup, known as the official sppFAQ:

The Psychologists in spp: Irresponsible Hoodlums and NOT to be TRUSTED. Be anonymous in spp or do
not be in spp at all, for your own good. All the following is true of many, if not the majority of
psychologists participating on this newsgroup (and a number of them are leaders of the sister
newsgroup, sppm) Psychologists on Usenet are lucky that the APA does not view most all of what they
do as acting as professionals. Psychologists, without sanction from the Amer. Psychological Assoc.,
can act in just about any asinine way anyone else can.

Psychologists on this newsgroup (regular participants) have done all of the following. :

* repeated groundless accusations in a harassing manner (many, many times and many, many place over
several years) (esp. Dr. Leslie Packer)

* stalked people to their local and jobs newsgroups (Dr. John Price and other psychologists and
their terroristic pals)

* participated in abusive newsgroups (Dr. Leslie Packer & Dr. Dan Rogers most but several others as
well)

* led campaigns to have people voted as "KOOKS" in abuse newgroups (esp. Dr. Leslie Packer and sppm
moderators, Dan Rogers and Kim Barnard (aka "Kali" of lart.com))

* intentionally lied and misrepresented things to do character assassination (many, many times and
many, many places over several years) (too many to list)

* told psychotherapy clients to "blow their brains out" (Dr. Leslie Packer)

* supported libelous web sites making many false and groundless accusations and engaging in much
intentional misrepresentation (e.g. Peter Hood's libelous web site filled with unsubstantiated
allegations, esp. about "aliases, and full of misrepresentations has been foremost.  This thuggery
is now conducted anonymously by coward hoodlums, linked to abuse domains set up by the hoodlums)

* encouraged thugs to join in and do whatever nasty stuff they might to "punish" people with views
they do not like (Cipher and Phoenix, Taylor Jimenez (aka Taylor Netsum) -- known Usenet hoodlums,
foremost) (Their abuse domains appear to be used not only for their terroristic activities, but by
at least one convicted child molester)

* supported people who posted personal info.  about people they did not like in a clear effort to 
olicit harassment (and they did quite a bit of this themselves) (John Price, most recently and
notably, but he has done so several times)

* supported a person who repeatedly made threats of physical assault and who threatened to actually
stalk another in RL (Note: The person making the threats was Peter Hood. Dr. Leslie Packer after
those threats of physical assualt declared herself Peter Hood #2 and virtually all the psychologists
who participate in spp have given themselve PH#. ASK ALL THE PSYCHOLOGISTS IN SPP FOR THEIR PH#,
they proudly have one!)

* supported a person who expressly threatened illegal actions against another (Peter Hood was again
the threatening individual)

* supported the frequent, improper and harassing posting of "FAQs" that were off-topic and existed
ONLY to do slander/libel/character assassination or to solicit harassment of that person (including
those by anonymous cowards out of abuse newsgroups) (but Paul Berhardt, sppm ombudsman, also among
them)

* guided their children to vote for people as "KOOKS" on abuse newsgroups (Dr. Leslie Packer).

* threatened and slandered/libeled people whose views they disagreed with in many ways -- still
going on, along with email harassment, and other forms of harassment and terroristic threats.

* posted repeats of unsubstantiated allegations in an intentionally off-topic and extremely
harassing manner (incl. Dr. John Price again very recently)

* joined abusive newsgroup groups (several psychologists did this and, of course, Peter Hood) 
(psychologists Leslie Packer and John Price and Dan Rogers -- the latter 2 being sppm moderators)

* some psychologists have clearly themselves engaged in stalking and harassing behavior, posting to
peoples' local newsgroups and to jobs newsgroups (esp. Dr. John Price, sppm moderator).

* supported sending out "evidence" against people to people in the real world to destroy a person's
chances to get work ( Peter Hood, especially but others were clearly involved)

* filed many bogus actions and complaints with authorities of all types to do further harassment
(eventually many of the authorities came to know the "true colors" of these hoodlum psychologists
and their pals). (spearheaded by "Dr." Leslie Packer and Peter Hood)

* filed many false complaints with ISPs and EMPLOYERS to have services canceled. ("Dr." Packer, esp.
also, 'Dr.' Mark Morin has made complaints against an ISP of someone he disagrees with)

* set up automatic remailers to allow and encourage anonymous harassment of people with views they
did not like. (John Grohol, founder of spp and sppm  -- this abuse device is still in existence
after many many years)

* engaged in obvious lying about and misrepresentation of research and the facts. (Done by
virtually all regularly participating psychologists in the spp newsgroup BUT was done in the most
scientifically unacceptable way by Dr. John Grohol.)

This is the way psychologists on Usenet have acted.  Two of the psychologists involved in much of
the above activity had complaints filed against them with the APA. One quit the APA before the
charges could be considered. The other got off.

In short people, the psychologists on Usenet can act as badly as anyone and have no obligation to
treat you even decently. They might very well tell you to FOAD ("Fuck off and die") or tell you to
"blow your brains out" (and they HAVE).

The aggression noted above has also been associated with harassing phonings and emailings. Nasty
hackers have also been engaged in their dirty work (such as currently)


 ---------------------------

---------------------------

Story of the spp newsgroup (in brief)



After a year and a half of debating with certain person, a debate this won because the field had no
good citations and offerred up only ones that were bogus (for example, one supposed study to make
their point was written only in a journal in Chinese and only available at a university in the
California (or was it Oregon)!!  -- the old deja record, now supposedly part of google, would make 
for some very fun reading here (use search terms: Grohol, Chinese...))



[Then A NEW LEADER APPEARS FOR THE 'THERAPISTS' ('Dr.' Leslie Packer, aka Peter Hood #2)]


Then, the evil "therapists" turned to: about a year and a half of making baseless accusations over
and over and over again and again in this newsgroup and began some of their anonymous and FAQ
campaigns. The first anon posts which occurred in this newsgroup were pro-therapy and FREQUENT. A
special device to encourage and enable anon email abuse and the filing of anon bogus complaints was
set up by the psychologist who founded this newsgroup. This did not work.


Then, the evil "therapists" turned to: spending much or most of their time befriending the hoodlum
leaders of alt.usenet.kooks and voting for people as kooks and voting people as "not human". Peter
Hood #1 made his threats of illegal activity during this period and behaved shamelessly, since he
was not yet in psychology graduate school yet. (His behavior, out of necessity, is now better --
unless he is one of the anon hoodlums)  That did not work.


Then the evil "therapists" began enlisting the help of whoever, Usenet's most notorious and nasty
hoodlums (such as those from alt.hackers.malicious). They have supported and aided and abetted
these terrorists for over a year now.  THIS WILL NOT WORK.



IT IS DOUBTFUL PSYCHOLOGISTS WILL FIGURE OUT WHAT DOES WORK EVEN THOUGH THE ANSWERS TO THE FIELD'S
PROBLEMS APPEARS HERE REGULARLY. Some of the best psychologists in the field agree with the science
FAQ posted here monthly.  The psychologists defend against testing themselves as they would have to
in order to establish a science BY AGGRESSING (they have done over 5 years now).




FINALLY, as you can see from the quoted material below, the APA has no real regard for their general
ethical principles and will do NOTHING to protect you from these hoodlums.:


Here is a post from Leslie Packer quoted from another newsgroup: (The post indicates that Brad was
cleared of all the ethical charges brought against him.) Too bad Dr. Packer quit the APA before
charges against her could be considered.


>To All:
>
>I would like to summarize a letter I just received from the APA
>Ethics Committee, because it addresses an issue that is relevant to
>both psychologists and the public here, and one we have discussed many
> times in spp: whether we are "on-duty" or "off-duty" in usenet.
>
>The APA Ethical Guidelines state that the conduct of an APA member may
>be reviewed under the code "... only if the activity is part of his or
>her work-related functions or the activity is psychological in nature.
>Personal activities having no connection to or effect on specifically
>psychological roles are not subject to the Ethics Code." (from
>Standard 1.01)
>
>In 1998, and as many people here know because he publicized it, I
> filed a formal ethical complaint against Brad Jesness. That
>complaint had nothing to do with the substance of his FAQ or his
>views. It had everything to do with his conduct towards those who
>disagree with him. But are usenet threads or discussions
>"work-related" or "activities.... psychological nature"? That question
>is the first one the Ethics Committee had to address, as if the
>behavior did NOT occur within a work-related function or function
>circumscribed by the standards, they could not consider whether the
>behavior was reviewable under the ethical guidelines.
>
>After conducting an initial investigation pursuant to their rules and
>procedures -- and as Brad (not I) made public -- the Ethics Committee
>decided to open a formal case against Brad, and they sent him a letter
>charging him with possible violation of (two of) the ethical
>standards. Following initial meetings, they voted to continue their
>investigation, and held another meeting last month.
>
>So why did they eventually close the case without action? Their
>letter gives their rationale, and states that they wanted to
>articulate their rationale because they do not want their decision to
>be interpreted as to indicate approval of Brad's behavior. The bottom
>line for the Committee was that they were unable to conclusively
>determine that Brad's behavior was "work-related" or in connection
>with the psycholgist's activities or roles as a psychologist."
>Without that determination, the Committee could not go forward to
>determine what, if any action, should be taken.
>
>So..... where does that leave all of us in terms of our understanding
>of the application of the guidelines? It would appear that when APA
>members are in usenet, they are generally not considered to be
>"working" or in a "psychologist role" when they are having discussions
>about psychotherapy or otherwise interacting. What is not clear from
>this case and their statement is what would happen if the APA member
>was giving specific advice of a psychological nature to a member of
>the public or if the APA member was actively promoting their
>professional services in usenet, but I suspect that might
>significantly change things and make the behavior reviewable.
>
>Historically, the APA has taken a different perspective on the public
>conduct of its members than our European counterparts. I do remember
>Edna explaining to me how they were always considered "on duty" and
>needed to write or post as if colleagues and patients were reading the
>posts. The APA recognized that its members are entitled to private
>lives. It just never really clarified what constitutes an unpaid --
>but still professional -- switch in hats.
>
>Their decision in response to this complaint is the first indication
>we have of how they are really viewing discussions and conduct in
>usenet. Their decision also explains why they dismissed Brad's
>complaint against Dan Rogers [another one of Brad's errors today was
>in claiming that some spp posters are under investigation by the
>Ethics Committee -- none are.] While Brad might want to claim that Dan
>or any other APA member acted unethically in a professional capacity
>because of statements in usenet, the APA Ethics Committee probably
>won't be able to hear those complaints for the same reason they
>dismissed the case against him -- lack of determination that the APA
>member was in a 'work-related' role. And if the state boards of
>psychology follow the APA's lead, then they will not be able to hear
>complaints about conduct in usenet threads unless their state's
>regulations or statutes indicate that a psychologist is always
>"on-duty." This is separate, of course, from what might happen if
>the psychologist actually engages in giving advice or attempts to
>promote their professional practice, etc.
>
>In summary, their closing of the case doesn't mean that they approve
>of his behavior or that the complaint was "bogus," or that he is owed
>any apology at all. I think it means that they need to give greater
>clarity in the guidelines to the definition of "activities of a
>psychological nature" and issue some statement for the membership
>about usenet. I will be writing back to the Committee to thank them
>for their deliberations and explanation and to encourage them to take
>a more proactive stance by issuing some statement that can be freely
>disseminated.
>
>I hope that this post can stimulate a serious discussion of the topic
>and not just be a jumping off point for more attacks on individuals.
>
>Leslie

My assessment:

Well, I think the APA is way off base and think
that the extent to which it allows its members to
obviously act in ways not congruent with general ethical
principles they have sworn to uphold is nothing
short of insane (by the legal definition).

Of course, the same APA publishes bogus studies
and actively avoids doing or supporting necessary
basic foundation research, because it is bad for
business.


Related note:
It should be noted that a number of the same psychologists
who have aggressed in so many inappropriate ways are
"moderators" of the sister newsgroup, sppm.