Steve Eichel

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Steve K. D. Eichel (born Steve Kenneth Eichel in 1954) is an American psychologist who specializes in destructive cults, coercive persuasion, mind control, brainwashing, and deprogramming. He has led professional groups including the Greater Philadelphia Society of Clinical Hypnosis and, in 2006–07, the American Academy of Counseling Psychology; in 2012 he became president of the board of the International Cultic Studies Association. He earned a BA from Columbia University, an MS and a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania (1989). He has practiced clinical psychology in Philadelphia and Newark and uses hypnosis in his therapy.

Eichel has collaborated with Linda Dubrow on procrastination research and studied cult-like features of groups such as Al-Qaeda after 9/11. He served as an expert witness in the 2003 Lee Boyd Malvo trial, testifying that Malvo suffered from a dissociative disorder caused by coercive persuasion. He conducted an unusual credentialing experiment by obtaining certifications for his cat, Dr. Zoe D. Katze, to show how easy it can be to obtain professional-sounding credentials; the story drew attention from major outlets. He has lectured on cults, brainwashing, terrorism, and the law, and has written about the concept of the “new age” with colleagues Langone and Dole in the Cultic Studies Journal. Eichel is the son of Holocaust survivors. In 2010 he was scheduled to speak at a conference on radicalization and de-radicalization with Husain Haqqani and Michael Langone; in 2008 he was living in Newark, Delaware.