A Letter To the APA Leadership and Membership Committee

To the APA Leadership and Membership Committee:

This letter constitutes my formal resignation from the American Psychiatric Association. Although my feeling that the APA does not have its members' interests at heart has been growing for many years, the precipitant for this action is, first, the selection of Archbishop Desmond Tutu as recipient of one of APA's highest honors, the role of convocation speaker and second (and more important), the complete indifference and non-responsiveness of the leadership when his despicable record of anti-semitism and anti-Israel communications was explicitly pointed out by actual cites and quotations. The leadership's refusal not only to dis-invite him but even to respond to members' concerns was, for me, the final straw.

I will, of course, also be boycotting the Hawaii meeting and urging all I communicate with to do the same.

Thomas G. Gutheil, MD
Distinguished Life Fellow (resigned)
 

[Editor's note: Dr Gutheil sent Psychiatric Times a copy of his letter. Interested readers can learn more about this controversy by reading "Boycotts and Protests to Meet APA Keynote Speaker, Desmond Tutu."]