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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES Psychiatrist Clark, Former Medical Faculty Member, Dies
John G. Clark, a psychiatrist who studied religious sects and youth cults, died Oct. 7 at a nursing home in Belmont. He had been suffering from a long-term illness, according to his family. He was 73. Clark graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1953 and eventually became an assistant clinical professor of psychology. He worked on the staffs of the Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General and McLean hospitals. Clark’s studies of religious sects in the 1970s raised public awareness about the overwhelming influence of some groups over their members. He wrote a widely cited guest editorial in The Journal of the American Medical Association warning about the growing power of such religious groups, and discredited the widespread belief that ordinary people with no history of psychiatric problems were not vulnerable to cult group influences.
Copyright 1999 President and Fellows of Harvard College |