John Gordon Clark (1926 – 1999) was a Harvard psychiatrist and authority in research on the alleged damaging effects of cults.

He was the target of harassment from Scientologists after he testified against them to the Vermont congress in 1976.

His similarly harassed colleague Louis Jolyon West remarked: "I was lucky that I was a full-time professor in a big university like UCLA. Others, like Harvard's Jack Clark. who was primarily in private practice, nearly had their lives ruined by the Scientologists." (Psychiatric Times, 1991)

In 1985, John G. Clark received the Leo J. Ryan Award, named for the California congressman murdered in Jonestown.

The Psychiatric Times, when naming him 1991 psychiatrist of the year, described him as "a quiet, courageous man of conviction, who was fighting an all-too-lonely and unappreciated battle against well-financed, ruthless organizations."

Works

• Testimony of John Clark regarding cults Read on 3rd November 1977 by Leo J. Ryan to the United States House of Representatives
• Clark, John G. Cults. Journal of the American Medical Association. 242, 279-281. 1979
• Clark, J.G., et al.: Destructive cult conversion. Weston, MA: American Family Foundation. 1981
• Clark, John G.: On the further study of destructive cultism. In Halperin (ed.), 363-368 1983
• Langone, Michael D. and John G. Clark, Jr.: New religions and public policy: research implications for social and behavioural scientists Weston (MA.): American Family Foundation 1983

Awards

• Leo J. Ryan Award, 1985
• Psychiatrist of the year, The Psychiatric Times, 1991

See also

• John G. Clark Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Cultic Studies

References

External links

• Obituaries on John Clark
• Prozac frees Ex-Scientology Leader from Depression, The Psychiatric Times, Volume VIII, June 1991