| Christopher Barden | |
| Born | 1955 |
| Residence | Edina, Minnesota |
| Profession | attorney, psychologist |
| Political Affiliation | Republican Party of Minnesota |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota University of California Harvard Law School |
R. Christopher Barden (born 1955) Ph.D., J.D., L.P. is a psychologist and attorney who lives in Edina, Minnesota. He served as the director of the National Association for Consumer Protection In Mental Health Practices (NACPMHP) from 1995-2005. In 2005, the NACPMHP merged into the Commission for Scientific Medicine and Mental Health (CSMMH), a national health care consumer protection agency whose members include physicians, scientists and researchers.[1]
Barden has participated as an attorney or consultant in dozens of lawsuits against "recovered memory" therapists. [2] A recent amicus curiae brief to the California Supreme Court drafted by Barden and signed by nearly 100 international experts in the field of human memory emphasized that there is no credible scientific support for the notions of repressed and recovered memories.[3]
Barden was educated at the Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota, receiving his B.A. Summa Cum Laude, Distinguished Graduating Senior Award, in 1976. He attended graduate school at the University of California in Berkeley, the University of Minnesota, and the Palo Alto V.A./Stanford University Medical Center, where he interned, receiving his Ph.D. in Child and Adult Clinical Psychology in 1982. He later attended Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, receiving his J.D. cum laude in 1992. He became a licensed psychologist in Texas in 1984 and in Minnesota in 1988. He has been a licensed Minnesota attorney since 1992, and a certified Minnesota mediator since 1994.[4]
On April 28, 2010, Barden announced that he would seek the Republican Party of Minnesota's endorsement for Attorney General of Minnesota.[5] He received that endorsement at the party's state convention on April 29, 2010, and lost his challenge to incumbent Attorney General Lori Swanson in the November 2010 general election.[6]