Anglican Mainstream

I am writing to challenge the article in the October Issue of Therapy Today about reparative therapy entitled “The Gay Cure.” This article is factually incorrect and raises a number of issues that could lead to abusive practices across the field of counselling and psychotherapy. What makes this article worse is that the author, John Daniel, spoke at length with me and another ex-gay who works in this area, and we provided him with a large amount of evidence which, if taken into account, would have made much of the article redundant.  Instead, Mr Daniel relies on the claims and attitudes of one psychiatrist. The bias of this article cannot go unchallenged and I would ask Therapy Today to give the pro-choice side of the argument equal space to the pro-gay propaganda published in the October issue.

 

Firstly, Mr Daniel quotes BACP fellow Philip Hodson, who says “It would be absurd to attempt to alter such fundamental aspects of personal identity as sexual orientation by counselling.”  There are two problems with this statement. The first is that while people involved with the homosexual movement see their sexuality as central to their identity there is no evidence that homosexuality is inborn.  From the gay gene to twin studies science has shown again and again that homosexuality is not biological in cause. Secondly, if it is absurd to try and change fundamental aspects of personality through counselling where does this leave a lot of the work we do as therapists concerning depression, eating disorders, self harm? Surely our personality type is a fundamental part of who we are, so if that leads to depression in someone we should not counsel them. Messrs Hodson and Daniel, and Dr King, cannot have this both ways. Either we can deal with fundamental issues such as sexual orientation and help the client if they want to change them or we cannot deal with addictions, anger, and depression if the person claims that they were just born that way. If we follow this argument of Philip Hodson’s to the logical conclusion BACP members would have little if any work.

 

Secondly there is the suggestion that reparative therapy should not be practiced because of the use of electric shocks and drugs used as aversion therapy during the fifties and sixties. If we were to stop treating anyone with a condition that was subject to this type of treatment in the past we would not help people with eating disorders, people with suicidal tendencies, alcoholics, drug addicts, or those with problems such as bi-polar disorder. Again the use of this illustration shows the bias of the author.

 

We now move onto the claim that Professor King’s research has found no evidence for the effectiveness for reparative therapy while a lot of evidence for harm. This statement in itself shows the bias of Professor King. In August 2009 Professors Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones presented a research paper to the American Psychological Association. This research paper “Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation” shows that reparative therapy works, and raises no evidence for harm. A similar piece of research is mentioned in the article, that of Robert Spitzer. While in the article Professor King and Mr. Daniel attempt to dismiss this research as unsound, Spitzer’s research was subjected to a statistical test designed to check out the truth of the claims. This test, the Guttman Scalability Matrix, is a globally recognised tool used by governments and universities to check the reliability of statistical research. The person who applied this to Spitzer’s research was Dr S Hershberger of California State University, Long Beach. Like Spitzer (who was the psychiatrist who spearheaded the removal of homosexuality from the list of illnesses in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual) Hershberger believed homosexuality to be inborn. Hershberger claims that Spitzer’s research passes the Guttman matrix. What is important about this? Not only does this support the claim that change is possible as yet no similar test has been applied to research by Professor King and others.

 

There are also other problems with the research done by King and others such as Schildo and Schroder. This is that the people involved are usually found by advertising in gay clubs and media. Also there are no attempts to distinguish between damage caused by reparative therapy and damage that pre-dates the reparative therapy which any form of counselling can and does touch upon. If Professor King bothered to do the research he would find similar complaints about many forms of counselling. So why the continued attempts to dismiss reparative therapy and promote gay affirmative therapy? The only answer can be a political agenda. When we look at the gay affirming nations such as those in Scandinavia and the Netherlands we find a higher rate of deliberate self-harm and suicide than in countries such as the UK and the USA, something the pro-gay activists are quick to ignore.

 

Professor King claims that gay affirmative therapy is not an equivalent to reparative therapy yet at close inspection the similarities are much more obvious than people would think. Reparative therapy relies on the belief that homosexual behaviour is an acting out of emotional needs, and is therefore no different from other psychological behaviours. Gay affirmative therapy relies on the belief that homosexuality is biological in causation. We can not prove a hypothesis, only support a conclusion through research. As yet there is no scientific research that supports the idea that homosexuality is inborn while there is support for the hypothesis of psychological and sociological factors causing same sex attraction – something even Professor King will admit in private conversation. As such gay affirmative therapy, just with reparative therapy, is based on a philosophical concept but, unlike reparative therapy, gay affirmative therapy has no evidence for success. We see this in the 1998 report published in the spring edition of the American Psychoanalytic Journal. Entitled “Treatment of Homophobia in a Gay Male Adolescent” Prof James Lock (assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Stamford University) reports his work with a male who came to him at the age of 14. This client (who Lock identifies as J) stated that he had unwanted homosexual feelings. Lock diagnoses J as having internalised homophobia (or hatred of self for being gay) and starts on a treatment programme that includes exposing J to homosexual pornography to desensitise him to gay sex, involvement with gay clubs, and encouragement to engage with gay sex, though at the time and even today many States in the USA have an age of consent of 18 or 21 and ban the viewing of pornography of anyone under that age. When Lock dismisses J as a client not only has he been breaking the law by providing J with homosexual pornography, encouraged J to break the law by engaging in homosexual sex below the legal age, he claims that J has been cured of internalised homophobia even though he states that internalised homophobia still exists as J is not happy with short term relationships and that he (Lock) is concerned that suicide may occur. This though, according to Lock, was a successful treatment programme.

 

Analysing this account further we have the problem that while Lock diagnosed internalised homophobia, and King claims that people who seek reparative therapy have this condition, internalised homophobia is not recognised as a mental condition by the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association or their British equivalents. This means there is no recognised diagnostic criterion for internalised homophobia. So those who promote gay affirmative therapy are asking us to deal with an unrecognised condition for which there is no way of diagnosing. This sits against those who King researched (and condemns) who do reparative therapy who have the backing of the medical journals such as the Psychiatric Diagnostical Statistical manual which recognises ego-dystonic sexuality, that is where homosexual feelings cause problems, and that reparative therapy is the best method of helping these people.

 

We must also question the issue of bias by Professor King. As part of his research for the treatment of homosexuality website I, and others with stories of success, have offered our testimonies. These offers have been ignored. When I had a lunch meeting with Professor King in July and told him my story of change from a gay relationship of five years to completely heterosexual, he chose to question the success of my healing by raising the issue that I am not in a relationship at the moment. If the criterion for success in his mind is being in a relationship, Professor King is using a false measure, as many gay men engage in heterosexual activity in the hope of becoming a father. Professor King is biased and hides behind a false homophobia, claiming that people would not raise issues of bias if the researcher was coloured. In this he attempts to raise pro-gay research out of reach of proper academic criticism, as legitimate criticism of research includes a recognition of cultural and sociological bias, including race or gender based, of the researcher. Professor King does not appear to want research conducted on homosexuality to be subject to the same checks and balances as other psychological and scientific research It is disappointing that through Therapy Today the BACP appears to encourage this position of “do not question.”

 

My final concern is that of the attitude of Professor King and John Daniel concerning the ethical position which all counselling and psychotherapy must be based upon – that of the need of the client. Prof King believes that when someone has unwanted homosexual feelings we must not work with the wishes of the clients but must transcend the authority of the counsellor to engage the client with gay-affirmative therapy. This violates the counsellor/client relationship in the name of political correctness, and is as much an abuse of therapy as the aversion therapy mentioned by John Daniel in the article. By not questioning this position John Daniel appears to agree that the boundary between client and counsellor is not important, a position that opens the vulnerable who seek our help as professional counsellors and psychotherapists to abuse through the whims of society. If we are not willing to violate the counselling relationship on drug abuse, eating disorders or any other issue we must not violate this when dealing with the sexually confused, especially in the light of lack of scientific support through the 20th century for the born gay hypothesis.

 

I trust that Therapy Today will allow a proper refuting of the article by John Daniel and that this issue will be explored properly through the BACP rather than a simple accepting of the heterophobic manipulation of scientific evidence in the name of the pro-gay a genda.

 

Attached is a summary of the inaccuracies in both the article and the statement by Prof Michael King. The publication of this summary in its complete form would go some way to balancing the bias shown in the Therapy Today article.

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 Summary of problems with Therapy Today article “The Gay Cure”

“It would be absurd to attempt to alter such fundamental aspects of personal identity as sexual orientation by counselling.” – many people see issues such as anger, depression, nervousness, anxiety and other conditions as fundamental aspects of their personal identity. If it is absurd to deal with sexual orientation as it is fundamental then it is absurd to deal with other perceived aspects of personality through counselling a psychotherapy.

While electroshock treatment was used on those with homosexual feelings in the 1950s and 60s it was also used on alcoholics, those with mental heath problems and those with eating disorders. If we reject a therapy because of the misuses of the past then we must apply that across the board, meaning that many clients would be without help.

Prof King claims that there is no evidence for the effectiveness of reparative therapy yet:

In August 2009 Professors Mark Yarhouse and Stanton Jones presented the paper “Ex-Gays? A Longitudinal Study of Religiously Mediated Change in Sexual Orientation” to the American Psychological Association (APA) at their annual conference. This paper was accepted as valid research by the APA and shows not only success of change therapy for sexual orientation but also no real evidence for harm.

Prof Robert Spitzer’s research into reparative therapy is mentioned in the article, though Prof King attempts to dismiss this as propaganda. Prof Robert Spitzer’s research is important for a number of reasons. Firstly Prof Spitzer was the psychiatrist who spearheaded the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Associations list of mental illnesses (the Diagnositcal Statistical Manual). Secondly, unlike the anti-reparative therapy of Schido and Schroder, this research was not financed by pro-gay bodies. Thirdly, unlike the anti-reparative therapy research of Schildo and Schroder, Harrison, and King the research by Prof Spitzer has been subjected to proper checks and balances, in particular the use of the Guttman Scaleability Matrix by Prof S Hershberger of the University of California, Long Beach.

Since 1980 over twenty pieces of research at PhD level and above have been done looking at the success and safety of reparative therapy, none of which show any real level of harm.
Prof King claims that there is evidence for harm done by reparative therapy, yet:

The research by Schildo and Schroder was financed by the Gay and Lesbian Task Force in America, and interviewees were recruited from adverts in the gay press and gay bars using the words “help us record the damage”. As such the researchers declared the outcome they were looking for. Even so Schildo and Schroder found evidence for the success of reparative therapy and state that their research should not be used as anti-reparative therapy propaganda.

People, including myself, have offered testimonies of change to Professor King which remain unpublished, as such it would appear Prof King rejects any testimony which does not fit into his own worldview.

None of the research done by King, Schildo and Schroder or others have any diagnostic criteria to distinguish between harm caused by reparative therapy and issues that predate that therapy. This is often due to the reversal of cause and effect by pro-gay therapists (“you had a poor relationship with your father because you re gay” rather than “your poor relationship with your father may be a factor in your homosexuality”).

• Gay affirmative therapy relies on the philosophical concept of homosexuality as inborn. In science a hypothesis can only be supported rather than proven yet, contrary to the claims of the pro-gay lobby, the idea of people being born gay is an unsupported hypothesis:
 

1. Research into gay twins, including that by Prof Michael King, gives the chances of where one identical twin is homosexual the other being homosexual as between 1 in 10 and 1 in 15.
2. Prof Francis S Collins, ex-head of the Human Genome Project and now director of the US Institute of Health states that there is no evidence for homosexuality being genetic in cause.
3. No evidence exists for influence of hormones in the womb due to birth order or any other biological factor.
4. It is recognised that the brain is plastic (neural pathways change due to behaviour) and there is no evidence that brain structure (specifically the structure of the hypothalamus) is the cause of homosexual feelings and could actually be caused by homosexual behaviour.

• Reparative Therapy relies on the philosophical concept that homosexuality is the acting out of inner needs and is therefore no different from many other behaviour patterns, a belief supported by nearly 100 years of research evidence.

• Countries which are gay affirmative, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and much of Scandinavia have a much higher rate of deliberate self harm and suicide than less gay affirmative countries such as the UK and the USA.

• We have one major report of gay affirmative therapy (“Treatment of Homophobia in a Gay Male Adolescent” Prof James Lock (assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at Stamford University) American