Bryant L. Welch, J.D., Ph.D is a clinical psychologist and attorney and author of State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind. (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, June, 2008.) Dr. Welch graduated from Harvard College and received a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

After completing his education Dr. Welch joined the UNC medical school faculty and practiced clinical psychology for ten years . In 1986 Dr. Welch moved to Washington, DC to build the American Psychological Association's Practice Directorate.. He was the first Executive Director for Professional Practice of the American Psychological Association and had overall responsibility for all APA programs relating to the practice of psychology including government relations, legal and regulatory affairs, marketing, state psychological associations, and public relations.

During his tenure, Dr. Welch guided the APA through one of psychology's most successful advocacy eras. He filed a successful class action anti-trust suit against the medically dominated American Psychoanalytic Association opening the field of psychoanalyis to non-MD mental health professionals and helping to revitalize American psychoanalytic thought. (Dr. Welch is himself a research associate graduate of the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.) He successfully secured passage of legislation to make psychological services available to seniors and to persons with disabilities thorugh the Medicare program, and he expanded access to psychological services into a number of new venues. He was also one of the first and most outspoken healthcare professionals to warn of the impending new problems created by HMO's and corporate managed health care.

Upon leaving the APA, Dr. Welch represented the American Psychological Association in the ill-fated Clinton Health Plan, and established a boutique law firm specializing in litigation against managed health care companies on behalf of suicide victims and their families.

For over twenty years Dr. Welch has written regular monthly columns on psychology and political issues for the mental health trade press including the Psychiatric TImes and the American Psychological Association Monitor. He has appeared on all major media networks and been quoted in over two hundred newspapers across the country. He is board certified in clinical psychology, a Distinuished Practitioner Member of the National Academy of Practice and in 2005 was awarded the American Psychological Association Presidential Citation for "seminal contributions to professional psychology. " He has held academic appointments at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, George Washington University, and the University of South Carolina-Beaufort.

In 2003, Dr. Welch moved to Hilton Head Island, S.C. where he practices clinical psychology, consults on legal psychological matters, and writes on political psychological matters. He has just published his first book, State of Confusion: Political Manipulation and the Assault on the American Mind (Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, June 2008.) State of Confusion draws on Dr. Welch's combined experience in the political and psychological worlds to provide a psychological explanation for the regression or "dumbing down" of America that has concerned so many Americans. Buzzflash described the book this way:

"This is one of those few books -- and a bit under-noticed -- that is a virtual Rosetta stone to understanding how so many Americans are living in an alternative reality. And although it's a psycho-social analysis of the American psyche at this point in our history, it is in many ways like a Hitchcockian film that leads us from a state of confusion to a clarity about the current existence of an alternative reality among many Americans, on Capitol Hill, and in the corporate media. (FOX "News" is virtually a sci-fi program when it comes to national politics.)"

Dr. Welch lives with his wife, Debbie, an architectural designer. They have two adult sons. Lucas founded Soliya, a non-profit corporationhttp://soliya.net that runs interactive classrooms for college students from both middle eastern universities and American universities to focus on the effects of cultural bias on media presentation in the two cultures. Tucker, is a child therapist working in the inner city Boston public schools with special needs children and for Wediko Children's services. He is attending graduate school in social work.

Dr. Welch is happy to communicate with Huffington Post readers through posts or directly and be reached at welchfirm@aol.com.

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