Who We Are
We are a collective of psychologists, psychology students, and affiliated mental health workers from diverse backgrounds who are in solidarity with the struggle for Palestinian Liberation. As a collective, we are organizing to have our discipline and related organizations take action towards an immediate and permanent ceasefire/end to the genocide in Gaza and a Free Palestine, where all individuals have the same rights, living with dignity and self-determination.
PJP Origins
PJP started at the National Multicultural Conference and Summit (NMCS), where a group of 50 or so folks gathered impromptu because there was an echoing absence of any recognition of the current and ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. This silence and absence in NMCS opening statements, general discussion, or specific programming was particularly jarring given that NMCS is organized by the leading social justice divisions within the American Psychological Association, whose missions address advancing intersectional social justice, and that the NMCS mission is itself to “inform and inspire multicultural theory, research, practice, and advocacy.”
At NMCS, we organized to stand in solidarity during the closing town hall and ask the APA and the sponsoring NMCS divisions to stand with Palestine by calling for a ceasefire, advocating for BDS, asserting the distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, and fostering open conversations instead of silencing and attacking those who speak for Palestine. Our expression of distress at the silencing and our call for solidarity with Palestine were met with a standing ovation from the vast majority of the audience, including past, current, and future APA and division leaders. This was followed by audience member testimonios, sharing the distress, alienation, confusion, and pain experienced, particularly by students and early career professionals, at the silence and silencing within the field and organizations of psychology.
Building from our gathering at NMCS, we initially formed a Google group list and are now organizing to bring psychologists, psychology students, and affiliated mental health professionals together to advance justice for Palestine within psychology organizations and the discipline as a whole.
Our Role as Psychologists
Our fundamental role as psychologists, psychology students, and mental health professionals is to promote the health and well-being of all people. As a field, we have not lived up to roles and ethics rooted in care and humanity in the past (e.g., see APA’s 2021 Apology). To uphold our role and facilitate reconciliation for our past and ongoing harms, we must act to dismantle all forms of oppression and violence (e.g., see APA’s 2021 Role of Psychology). We oppose the idea that one group’s liberation should be achieved by oppressing another. We refuse to accept binary conclusions about justice, healing, and liberation (IDHA, n.d.). Leveraging our intersectional and liberatory understandings of psychology and wellbeing, we know that healing cannot be apolitical because multiplicative intersecting oppressions impact the well-being of individuals and communities (IDHA, n.d.). No longer turning away as a field, we aim to leverage our role as psychologists, psychology students, and affiliated mental health professionals to invite our organizations and colleagues to take action.