News :: GLBT
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My Ex-Gay Life :: Dissecting Reparative Therapy
by David Foucher
EDGE Publisher
Wednesday Jul 25, 2007
| [Editor’s Note: this article is the third in a four-part exclusive EDGE series on "ex-gays." Click here to begin with the first article.
"Sexuality is a fluid, dynamic thing. There’s no such thing as sexually-fixed identities - those are things that are fabricated by man." - Michael Glatze
Counseling those who are distressed by their same-sex attractions is a field around which ethical battles are far more subtle than their religious counterparts. Psychologists who practice one of a number of forms of "reparative therapy" (also known as "conversion therapy" or "reorientation therapy") are quick to distance themselves from ex-gay ministries; however, their targeted results are similar, and their degrees of success are similarly low (approximately 30% on average in the short-term).
At heart: what should be done therapeutically with a man or a woman who no longer wishes to be attracted to their own sex?
Building up to the 1940s, homosexuality was largely understood to be a mental illness - a pathology that presumably resulted from any number of perceived "issues" with a person’s upbringing. For a period of time, psychologists set about attempting to "cure" homosexuality with a variety of documented therapies, from hysterectomies for women to castration for males. More holistically damaging treatments including the widely-used electro-shock therapies offered the increasingly desperate opportunities for extreme pain. It was not until 1948, when Alfred Kinsey published the first moderately exhaustive study on homosexuality, that these physical treatments were proved to be entirely ineffective in suppressing same-sex desires. Largely speaking, the psychological world foundered on the issue for nearly thirty years.
The American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Position Statement on Homosexuality and Civil Rights, in which homosexuality was removed from that body’s list of mental disorders, ushered in a new era of confrontation surrounding ex-gay therapies.
In 1983, psychologist-theologian Elizabeth Moberly ("Homosexuality and the Truth") coined the term "Reparative" with regard to the pursuit of repairing the damage done early in life as a result of an inferior relationship between a father and his son. This theory was refined and expanded, leading to the development in 1992 of NARTH, the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a body of psychologists who remain at the forefront of reparative therapy today.
"We are an organization of psychologists, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists around the country who really are committed to helping individuals who are dissatisfied with their same-sex attractions," says Joseph Nicolosi, one of the founders of the organization who currently serves as its President. "We’re defending their right to receive such treatment, and our right to offer such treatment."
Implicit in Dr. Nicolosi’s statement to EDGE is a building confrontation between NARTH and the American Psychological Association, which published a resolution in 1997 that hinted against practices that claim to be able to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals, urging that therapists not make "false or deceptive statements concerning... the scientific or clinical basis for... their services" - and who recently commissioned the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Nicolosi believes the task force will lead to an overt statement by the APA banning reparative therapy.
Both sides are grasping at the small amount of research data available on reparative therapy in order to respectively support or condemn the practice - and for those who truly wish to denounce their same-sex lifestyle, the result is a confusing crossfire.
"When I feel down and lonely, the idea of having a guy pay attention to me, put his arm around me, etc, is at it’s strongest. But when I’m feeling good, confident, strong, loved and happy, all of my erotic and emotional desires turn to the opposite sex." - Jake Taylor
Reparative therapy requires a significant amount of time (usually 1-2 years) working with a therapist at least once a week.
"[Success] occurs by their understanding the causes of their same-sex attraction," Nicolosi explains. "We call it the three A’s: attention, affection, approval. These are underlying emotional needs that were not fulfilled by their same-sex parent - the father for the male homosexual and the mother for the lesbian.
"There are two jobs [for the patient]," he continues. "The first task is about the past, and the other is about the present. The past aspect is facing the reality that they did not get this love, making it very clear and conscious, and then going through a grief process. They have to grieve that their father never did and never will love them the way they need to be loved - to the extent they need it. And what that does is free them up from the illusion that they are going to get it somehow either by that father or by somebody else of the same sex."
According to Nicolosi, the next challenge is to replace that need with an emotional connection in their present.
"[They need to] get those needs met thought a relationship with other men," he says. "The focus is not on not having gay sex... it’s putting the emphasis on making deep emotional attachments. And we have seen that when these men make deep emotional attachments to other men, their sexual interest diminishes."
For such a conversion to be considered clinically supportable, the scientific basis for the change - that homosexuality is the result of patterns of family relationships in the early part of a person’s life - must be proved viable.
According to Robert-Jay Green, PhD, Executive Director of the Rockway Institute, there is no evidence to support such a claim.
"All these theories are all promulgated by the ex-gay people," he points out. "They have this theory that distant fathers and overly-close mothers cause homosexuality. Well, that’s been disproved. The research shows that there is no similarities in the pattern of family development in kids who grow up to be lesbian or gay versus kids who grow up to be straight."
Next: Going back... way back
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