The Leadership Council
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 of 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 that doubtless provide a basis for their and their allies' "expertise" and paid work. It can be seen as a pressure group for further medicalisation of human behaviour, and the east coast economy, paying little attention to the negative consequences of its advocacy work.
The council 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 APA. The official HQ of the 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]
Rebuttals of LC disinformation
- The Validity and Appropriateness of Methods, Analyses, and Conclusions in Rind et al. (1998)
- A Response to Ross Cheit's "The Legend of Robert Halsey"