The Leadership Council

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191 Presidential Boulevard, Bala Cynwyd - in which LC is officially headquartered

The Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence (f. 1998, formerly the Leadership Council on Mental Health, Justice, and the Media) is a Philadelphia based "non-profit" organisation. It can be seen as a pressure group for further medicalisation of human behaviour, paying little attention to the negative consequences of its advocacy work.

The LC is composed almost wholly of psychoanalytically minded medics and academics of child abuse/trauma, who use pseudo-scientific "research" and advocacy, in an attempt legitimise the vague, esoteric and unfounded psychiatric trauma theories, including recovered memories. Many of its members are known for having agitated from a pro-SRA standpoint in the past. The organisation's work is most probably undertaken to provide a scientific basis for members and their allies' "expertise" and paid work - a highly profitable institution to uphold in an economy rooted so firmly in "mental health". The LC is notable for publishing Secretary Stephanie Dallam's poorly researched critique of Rind et al.

The current president is Paul J. Fink - a former president of the American Psychiatric Association. The official HQ of the Leadership Council corresponds to the address of Fink's apartment, in a suburb of Philadelphia, within roughly equal walking distance of his place of work and Temple University - where Bruce Rind was working when he published his famous study.

Bruce Rind on LC composition

Fink's group claims to be comprised of "many of the nation's most prominent mental health leaders" whose mission it is to "insure the public receives accurate information about mental health issues" (Leadership Council press release, May 24, 1999). In fact, the publications of its members suggest that the Leadership Council is composed mainly of professionals who advocate for the validity of repressed memories and multiple personality disorder (MPD) as well as for recovered memory therapy as the means to treat these alleged problems. Central to this focus is the belief that CSA is pervasively and intensely traumatic and pathogenic -- a belief that our meta-analysis challenged.[1]

Further analysis of the Leadership Council's political and professional agenda can be found here.

Rebuttals of LC disinformation

External Link