A Call to Solidarity
Standing with Lara Sheehi
The Editors
Jenna Hamed, The Front Door, 2023
Parapraxis stands with Lara Sheehi PsD. Dr. Sheehi is a beloved member of our community and a contributing editor at Parapraxis who has recently come under attack by far-right pro-Israeli groups. We condemn the specious accusations against Dr. Sheehi and the harassment against her and her family that she is now enduring.
On January 12, 2023, a Title VI complaint was filed with the US Department of Education against The George Washington University by StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy group. The complaint alleges antisemitism by GWU, but names only Dr. Sheehi; the names of all other parties have been redacted. Dr. Sheehi is now represented by the ADC.
Just yesterday, a Statement from the Division 39 Board of Directors was issued to its membership, urging solidarity with Dr. Sheehi, and linking the attacks she is currently experiencing with a broader set of recent attacks on clinicians by the far right, as well as by professors and activists, who stand in solidarity with Palestine. That message follows below:
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We denounce this harassment, and these threats, in the most forceful possible terms
To The Membership of APA Division 39,
We, the Board of Directors of Division 39, are writing to register our full support for our president and colleague, Dr. Lara Sheehi, as she navigates a challenging and dangerous ordeal. Regrettably, her ordeal is not unique in psychoanalysis—she is the third prominent psychoanalytic scholar in as many years to be subjected to a major, targeted campaign of politically-motivated harassment, including death threats. This is unacceptable.
Circumstances that preceded the start of this targeted campaign of harassment are not the focus of our commentary here. A Title VI complaint has been filed with the US Department of Education by Stand With Us, a pro-Israel advocacy group, against The George Washington University, in which Dr. Sheehi is named. This complaint will be adjudicated by the Department of Education, and does not involve Division 39. We trust and hope that it will be adjudicated fairly for all parties involved.
There has been very limited coverage of this issue in the mainstream press; reporters have few facts to report, and opinion writers are sharing opinions, which are necessarily based on few facts. Discussion has mainly occurred in an online ecosystem in which people identify vulnerable targets for public shaming and harassment, often leaking their target’s personal information in order to direct online mobs to harass and threaten them. The term for this kind of targeted campaign of threats and harassment is “doxxing,” and it is not just an online phenomenon—people who are doxxed are frequently attacked in real life, precisely because their personal information is leaked.
This is what has happened to our colleague, Dr. Sheehi: she is being doxxed. She has been subject to death threats that are under investigation by the police, and she and many of her colleagues, including members of the Division, have been targeted with harassing, Islamophobic messages.
We denounce this harassment, and these threats, in the most forceful possible terms. It is dangerous, irresponsible, and often bigoted. No one deserves to be treated this way. As a Board, we would not stand for any of our members being subjected to this kind of coordinated attack. Our denunciation is not confined to the recent experiences of Dr. Sheehi. We also denounce targeted campaigns of harassment of other psychoanalytic colleagues, including Dr. Donald Moss and Dr. Derek Hook, who have been subjected to baseless and dangerous attacks pulled from the same playbook (viz: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-42/essays/unfree-associations/ and https://www.aaup.org/open-letter-regarding-professor-watchlist).
We fear for psychoanalytic colleagues whose work may draw the ire of such yellow journalists and online mobs in the future, including the many members of our Division whose scholarship, clinical work, and activism address hot-button issues like reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ issues, White supremacy, and various forms of abuse and violence.
We have worked with Dr. Sheehi for many years. She has been a singularly hardworking and effective leader in Division 39 and in psychoanalysis more broadly. She has a sterling record as a professor, clinician, and scholar. Many of us have spent time in her classrooms—whether as students, invited colleagues, or supervisors—and found them to be characterized by a climate of respect, free inquiry, and intellectual rigor.
Like much of the best scholarship, teaching, and activism, Dr. Sheehi’s work is at times provocative, departing from the status quo and asking piercingly challenging questions that are discomfiting to many. Reasonable people need not agree with everything Dr. Sheehi, or any other scholar, writes or says. That is not how scholarship works; it is not how life works.
As a scholarly organization, Division 39 regards academic freedom as an indispensible pillar of scholarship. Without the freedom to do work or express oneself in ways that may trouble others, psychological science and all other scholarly work are fundamentally impossible. Academic freedom is not possible when professors are receiving death threats related to their work, because freedom is not possible when one is receiving death threats. Especially in a climate when psychologists and other scholars are under threat worldwide, from America to Afghanistan, the Board of Directors wishes to assert a clear statement of principle in favor of academic freedom.
Psychoanalysis, as a profession and a philosophy, is grounded in the ethical conviction that free association is the bedrock of all freedom. We must be free to think, to speak, to write, to follow our minds where they lead as part of the work of pursuing the truth. And we must be free to associate with each other, to think and connect together without fear. Anything less is a state of tyranny under which psychoanalysis, and freedom, are impossible.
Respectfully Submitted,
The Board of Directors
The Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology
APA Division 39
This statement was prepared by Division 39 and does not represent the position of the American Psychological Association or any of its other Divisions or subunits.