Lykes to receive International Humanitarian Award from APA

March 2013

The American Psychological Association Committee on International Relations in Psychology (CIRP) will confer its 2013 International Humanitarian Award on Prof. Brinton Lykes.  This award is in recognition of her sustained and enduring humanitarian services to underserved populations and her many contributions to international psychology.  It is the second recent award by the APA to Dr. Lykes, the other being the Ignacio Martín-Baró Lifetime Peace Practitioner Award.

This APA award recognizes extraordinary humanitarian service and activism by a psychologist or a team of psychologists, including professional and/or volunteer work conducted primarily in the field with underserved populations.

"Extraordinary humanitarian services" are defined as professional activities initiated by psychologists, working alone or in association with others, to help alleviate severe stress and restore psychological well-being to a group of people in a variety of difficult circumstances, including but not limited to the following:

• Survivors and/or victims' families following a significant event such as a natural or person-induced disaster, a national or international incident, a civil war or a forced migration
• A community of any size in which long-term political, economic, social and/or other circumstances have caused severe stress and psychological problems for a substantial portion of that community