Psychiatrists Need to Act

Psychiatrists Need to Act

I was relieved and grateful to read the statement issued by APA condemning the policy of separating children from their parents on our border.

I grew up in South Africa under apartheid. When that terrifying system finally ended, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission shone a light on ways in which ordinary people had perpetrated violence through those years and whether or not citizens took action to change things.

I believe there will one day be such a commission looking at the events in the United States of 2018. We will have to face the questions: what did we do, as individuals and as organizations, to stop the harm we saw being inflicted? What did we do when we heard the cries of children torn from their families? What action did we take when we knew that a father killed himself in a prison cell after his child was forcibly removed from his arms?

As psychiatrists, we have an ethical duty to speak out against child abuse and mental torture when we see it. I see both those happening in our country right now, and it is our job to name it, to report it, and to take action.

Paul Browde, M.D. (New York, N.Y.) ■