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APA: Psychologists can help gays reject gay lifestyle
The American Psychological Association had a task force survey “reparative therapy” — therapy that purports to help people with homosexual desires have heterosexual desires instead. It’s interesting to see how different news outlets interpret the news.
The AP, for instance, leads with the part that says psychologists shouldn’t tell gays they can become straight. And the WSJ notes the “striking departure” from past policy: the APA also said that it’s ethical and even beneficial for psychologists to help people who don’t want to practice the homosexual lifestyle, by helping them construct an identity that puts their sexuality to the side. Therapist Warren Throckmorton practices this, telling his clients who are struggling with homosexual attraction that they are not insane or mentally ill, that he can’t make them straight, but that they can also choose not to practice the homosexual lifestyle.
Here’s a link to the lengthy report.
back to top41 Comments to “APA: Psychologists can help gays reject gay lifestyle”
Yes, that isn’t how the news report I heard put it at all.
How one conducts oneself is always a choice.
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James Dobson: “they arent born that way but neither do they ‘choose’ to be that way”
I’ve never had any reason to reject as false the above quote.
Still, I’m sure those who successfully use reparative therapy will have to be on guard. Were I such a therapist the last thing I’d want to see would be Mel White and a legion of “Soulforce” crusading gays camped outside my clinic or office.
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Too late I guess for Ray Boltz?!
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What a joke. According to new APA guidelines, the therapist must make clear that homosexuality doesn’t signal a mental or emotional disorder. The counselor must advise clients that gay men and women can lead happy and healthy lives, and emphasize that there is no evidence therapy can change sexual orientation.
Of COURSE you can choose not to have sex. That’s a no brainer. However, WHY should one choose not to have sex and IS IT healthy for most people? If I am in a relationship with a man and don’t have sex, is that better than being in the exact same relationship with a man and having sex? It’s about time we separated the act from the orientation. I can’t imagine convincing a straight man that he should be attracted to other men. I can imagine him not having sex with them (or women). Is anyone comfortable enough with themselves to say that they CAN be convinced to alter his/her orientation? If so, step to the front of the line.
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The thread says: “…to help people who don’t want to practice the homosexual lifestyle, by helping them construct an identity that puts their sexuality to the side.”
That’s a far cry from “…I can’t imagine convincing a straight man that he should be attracted to other men.”
It’s not CONVINCING anyone to be attracted to women, it’s about helping people who don’t want to live that way.
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The WSJ article was very interesting. What I heard was a recognition that the desire to biblically faithful was legitimate. This seems a step back from a more materialistic, body-focused approach to sexual issues.
If anything I see this as strengthening how the evangelical church does it pastoral work with those who face the challenges of same-sex attraction.
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This is a pretty obvious conclusion for anyone in touch with their sexuality.
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Didn’t the president of the National Association of Evangelicals claim to have been cured of his gay?
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The APA is always about 50 steps behind everyone else.
For people who experience deep amounts of shame, regret, or anxiety over sex, don’t have sex.
It’s advice that you could also find doled out by gay sex columnist Dan Savage. I’m mean not exactly in the most encouraging tone; but no one is going to tel someone who doesn’t want to have sex to have it.
Now given that, I think we should encourage people to want to have sex! And while the APA might be okaying an act that is not morally-prohibitory, they are not encouraging one that is morally-praiseworthy.
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Masturbation s good for you too.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3072021.stm
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Yeah RPN, but how does a self-hating gay masturbate successfully while still being all pure and not-gay?! Jesus seemed to say that God counts your fantasies against you.
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Just wondering, how much would this reconciliation to abstinence or negation of desire cost? Three years of psycho-dynamic therapy @ three times a week has got to push $150K. That’s not counting the opportunity costs. Those whom God has not made rich must consider Jesus’ recommendation of self-mutilation. But still the celibate may remain guilty at heart, right?
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Of course homosexuals can choose to reject the gay lifestyle. Of course they can change their sexual preferences or inclinations over time. After all, they are human beings (and not just animals or chemical robots) aren’t they? Humans have moral choices and they can make them in all moral matters.
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And, most of all, of course sinners can repent and be forgiven and transformed by God’s Holy Spirit.
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Joel-
In post 13 are you telling us you could over time become a homosexual and enjoy it, given enough effort? I seriously doubt I could.
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Scott, yes, it’s healthier (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) for a man with homosexual desires not to have sex. That’s a bit of a no-brainer, actually.
It’s also healthier for a sexually normal single person to abstain from sex, though that’s a slightly different issue, because in that case it isn’t the sex that’s unhealthy, just the timing of being outside marriage.
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“The AP, for instance, leads with the part that says psychologists shouldn’t tell gays they can become straight.”
Gays can become straight any day they want because homosexuality is a behavior, not an inherent trait. A homosexual is normal human being who chooses a particular sexual lifestyle or to fulfill certain sexual appetites.
I have sexual appetites that I don’t fulfill because I am married. Sometimes I am shocked at how strong those appetites can be. Yet I choose to remain faithful.
People with homosexual behavior can choose other behaviors. Alcoholics can get their lives under control, with help in some cases. It isn’t necessarily easy, but it is neither impossible nor contrary to their nature. They’ve told themselves lies for years and need to start facing the truth.
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Xion-
Could you turn gay and enjoy it if you really tried? I couldn’t.
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#8 – “cured of his gay” – What kind of wording is that?
I don’t know about the President of NAE, but some people have had victory over their former homosexual temptations and practice, and gone on to have a happy marriage, such as Dennis Jernigan.
For a psychologist to promise a homosexual that he will be freed from his homosexuality would be wrong; but for the psychologist to say he cannot is also wrong. God’s plan is different from person to person, and for some, it may be His plan that they remain celibate, without actually becoming heterosexual.
…my two cents.
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James Dobson: “they arent born that way but neither do they ‘choose’ to be that way”
I suppose he could be talking about baldness, or maybe fitting in to a size 10.5 shoe.
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RPN Xion-Could you turn gay and enjoy it if you really tried? I couldn’t.
It doesn’t happen like that. The mind is very powerful and very deceptive. I believe that every person is capable of any sin given the right circumstances. Put men in prison and watch what happens. Sex is an appetite which knows no boundaries. You can descend into all sorts of deviancy. I suspect most males here have seen these things on the Internet and didn’t avert their eyes.
So yes, if I were a confused teenager and my peers were experimenting and it were unique and offered certain advantages like sympathy or coolness or independence. If I were trying to be different and got in with a certain crowd. Or these days, if I watched anything on TV, heterosexuals are dorks and gay folk are cool. I know my mind well enough to not put anything past it.
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The doctor that delivered our children was a prominent man in the community and beloved by all. He had a beautiful wife and great kids. He attended our church and was a pinnacle of society by all accounts. Then one day he ran off with another man and destroyed his entire life, his marriage, his family, his medical practice, his honor. Eventually he forsook that lifestyle and came back to ruins.
The human mind is a very powerful tool of deception. It can lie and convince us that something must be obtained at all costs. In the end, one’s mouth is full of gravel. For anyone to pretend they are above such things is to not understand themselves.
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The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it? (Jer 17:9)
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“I believe that every person is capable of any sin given the right circumstances.”
Xion, do these “circumstances” include sexual orientation?
“if I watched anything on TV, heterosexuals are dorks and gay folk are cool.”
Coolness is in the eye of the beholder Xion. Be careful not to generalize on the basis of personal experience alone. There is always the possibility that you are more homosexually inclined than most other heterosexuals, whose sexual appetites may be more anchored within heterosexual boundaries.
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The pro-gay arguments make the assumption that everyone is born with two possible, natural defaults: you were either born “gay” or you were born “straight.” The actual reality is completely different, as homosexually-oriented people know and will admit in their own circles. There are not two poles of sexual attraction or of sexual behavior. Nor are sexual attraction and sexual behavior always set for life, as many prominent people have demonstrated–mostly people who went from “straight” to “bi” or “gay.”
Stories of “curious” people trying it out are rife, especially among girls and young women. Adolescent boys, too, although they are even more embarrassed about reporting it. As somebody else mentioned, prisons are places where such encounters occur. Experience just does not seem to show that people are born either one way or the other.
Oddly enough, people can admit that under certain circumstances “straight” people have intimate relations with members of the same sex. Why can’t it work the other way around? Why can’t a “gay” person learn to have intimate relations with a member of the opposite sex and actually come to enjoy it?
The question, “Could you become gay if you really wanted to?” is silly. It assumes that both ways to live are equally valid. However, if being attracted to the opposite sex and mating with the opposite sex is the natural default for human beings (for all sexual animals, really) and homosexuality is an abnormality of some sort (whether inborn or caused by outside factors), then it would be odd for anyone to purposely try to become “gay”.one way or the other.
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“The question, ‘Could you become gay if you really wanted to?’ is silly. It assumes that both ways to live are equally valid.”
How does the question assume that? Does the question “Could you stop acting like a criminal if you really wanted to?” assume that acting like a criminal is an “equally valid” way to live? Presumably not.
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However, let’s suppose that homosexuality is unnatural. The habit of chewing bubblegum is surely unnatural in the same sort of way. After all, chewing has a digestive design that is frustrated by bubblegum. Let’s be consistent: if we’re gonna decry homosexuality, let’s also decry bubblegum chewing – a pure abomination against nature if ever there was. And who’s gonna claim that bubblegum chewing isn’t a choice?
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CT:
Honestly, relevance? Where does God say we shouldn’t chew gum, for one thing?
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Thank you, Xion.
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Ultimately I liken this to someone trying to give up smoking cigarettes. If you have folks who support you and are there to help you overcome your craving (for cigs or homo sex) you can probably overcome it.
The problem is unlike cig smoking we dont have unanimity in the view of homosexuality. I attended University Baptist Church in Austin. When several of the college-aged members became concerned over a gay deacon (viewing homosexuality as inconsistent with being a deacon) those students learned that the older liberal members of the fellowship were undecided about or even supportive of the young man in the homosexual lifestyle.
Its difficult for a fellowship to lovingly support and affirm a gay person’s struggle to exit that lifestyle and be free of the yearning for it if that fellowship is overtly hostile to any gays
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It would be a terrible shame if gay people all became straight. Whether or not that would improve the morals of society is a matter for debate, but without question I’m sure it would degrade and impoverish the quality of our lives.
Imagine taking all the art, music, and literature that queers palmed off on us and tossing it in the incinerator. Now imagine waiting around for the graduates of “restorative therapy” to restore all that with ex-queer art, music, and literature. Yuk.
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As human beings, we can choose our actions AND our attitudes. That includes our sexuality. For non-human animals, there may be more raw determinism in their sexuality.
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“…are you telling us you could over time become a homosexual and enjoy it, given enough effort?”
Of course! Human beings have the capacity to make moral choices and live them out. Those choices shape our attitudes and attractions over time. Duh!
Would I? That is the more crucial question. I would have to turn my back on God first. Don’t hold your breath, RPN.
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Some interesting points from the report:
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Psychological Association concludes that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological interventions to change sexual orientation;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Psychological Association encourages mental health professionals to avoid misrepresenting the efficacy of sexual orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change in sexual orientation when providing assistance to individuals distressed by their own or others’ sexual orientation;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Psychological Association concludes that the benefits reported by participants in sexual orientation change efforts can be gained through approaches that do not attempt to change sexual orientation;”
But more importantly:
“BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Psychological Association opposes the distortion and selective use of scientific data about homosexuality by individuals and organizations seeking to influence public policy and public opinion and will take a leadership role in responding to such distortions;
The resolution also recognizes that:
Those operating from religious/spiritual traditions are encouraged to recognize that it is outside their role and expertise to adjudicate empirical scientific issues in psychology, while also recognizing they can appropriately speak to theological implications of psychological science.”
My goodness, if the APA actually starts going after the lies, misinformation and distortions perpetrated by Exodus, NARTH, NOW, etc., etc., where will all these good christians get there misinformation from?
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The pro-gay arguments make the assumption that everyone is born with two possible, natural defaults: you were either born “gay” or you were born “straight.” The actual reality is completely different, as homosexually-oriented people know and will admit in their own circles. There are not two poles of sexual attraction or of sexual behavior. Nor are sexual attraction and sexual behavior always set for life, as many prominent people have demonstrated–mostly people who went from “straight” to “bi” or “gay.”
There’s a kernel of truth but also a lot to unpack in Kyle’s statement. I think he’s right that there isn’t sufficient evidence for the born gay theory AND we don’t live in a pure binary world of “gay” or “straight.” Even gender is not as purely binary (although it’s close) as we might think as hermaphrodites and folks with AIS (XYs who don’t have the ability to process testosterone which Jamie Lee Curtis and Anne Coulter have been rumored to be).
Homosexuality like race for instance, exists on a continuum. There are some folks who are really black, some who are really white and some who are in between at all levels. I think Kyle’s mistake is to assume that everyone is or can be “in between.” That’s just not so.
Human experiences shows that a great deal of the people (though not all) who call themselves “straight” or “gay” really are pure 100% immutable as though they were born that way. The question is what to do about them? These are for instance the majority of straight men who go into prisons or navy boats are given opportunities to have opportunistic homosexual sex sometimes pretty looking smaller more feminine men (i.e., female substitutes) but won’t do it because…well it’s a man.
Likewise there are many homosexual men who have never had sex with a woman; or if they did it was a horrible experience. We are talking about a great deal of perhaps the overwhelming majority of folks who call themselves “gay” or “straight.”
But I do admit there are lots of waverers, experimenters, different kinds of bisexuals and folks all over the continuum as well.
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Oddly enough, people can admit that under certain circumstances “straight” people have intimate relations with members of the same sex. Why can’t it work the other way around? Why can’t a “gay” person learn to have intimate relations with a member of the opposite sex and actually come to enjoy it? [Bold mine.]
To answer your bolded question; they can and do; but it doesn’t work the way you proposed, but the very opposite.
Books have been written about this (I suggest the work of Richard Isay]. I’ve always wondered about the many gay friends I have (most but not all on the very masculine end of the continuum] who were married to women, sired children with them and then came out close to middle age. [Like Jim McGreevy, Ray Boltz]
The way I understand them they are not pure Kinsey 6s (that’s someone who is 100% homosexual in their orientation) but rather have a full attraction to the same sex, some sort of very diminished attraction to the opposite sex. If there were NO attraction to the opposite sex, I don’t see how they’d be able to perform and have children.
What happens when such a person begins a heterosexual relationship (especially when in the 20s when testosterone is at its highest level) they can marshal their sexual energy into performance; but what little spark there was to begin with goes out quickly. In a few short years, the sex life ends.
In other words, those of us who are married know that a lifetime of monogamous sex with the same person can be a challenge — that full spark has to be there in order to have a lifetime of romantic-sexual martial love. If you begin with a diminished spark, the flame goes out all the quicker.
Though I will admit, perhaps — to a Christian — the notion of self sacrifice should kick in. In other words, so Ray Boltz has zero spark left for his wife and no longer has sex with her, but rather is strongly attracted to men? So what? Why not just NOT have sex with your wife, the mother of your children and sublimate your desires for the rest of your life?
I think Christians argue badly when they propose easy answers like you just need a little therapy or the Holy Spirit and the gay can go away.
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Psychologists can help gays reject gay lifestyle
The real point, here, is that APA is recognizing that there are people who want to put their religious beliefs ahead of their natural sexuality. APA says therapists should decidedly NOT counsel gays and lesbians to try and change their sexuality, a tactic which can lead to “depression” and “suicide.” So this is a direct repudiation of the pseudo-psychology of organizations like Exodus International. Rather – the homophobically religious person who happens to be gay can be helped in his or her choice to be celibate, if he or she chooses. This is similarly true for the straight unmarried person who is trying to choose not to be sexually active. There’s not really any difference.
BTW – there is no such thing as “the homosexual lifestyle.” This is simply about when and where gays and lesbians should be encouraged to be sexually active or not, whether with a monogamous partner or otherwise.
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#28, “Where does God say we shouldn’t chew gum, for one thing?”
I believe it’s in the Greek:
Now consider Kyle A’s apt use of nature to derive normative significance:
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Spinoza,
Thanks for making points. Conservative comfort requires developing a lot of euphemisms for gay sex, especially for anal sex. That’s the role “homosexual lifestyle” is playing here.
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#28 Actually CT your argument is not as ridiculous as it sounds.
Homosexuality is a behavior. Chewing gum is a behavior. Picking your nose is a behavior.
People choose their behaviors.
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Xion, What’s the relevance of these things being behaviors?
Do you agree that bubblegum chewing is an unnatural behavior, perverting the natural use of digestive organs? Are you defending behavior that goes against nature?
How about comment #24, addressed to you: “There is always the possibility that you are more homosexually inclined than most other heterosexuals, whose sexual appetites may be more anchored within heterosexual boundaries.
As I see it, there’s nothing wrong with being a little bit gay (or, for that matter, being entirely gay). However, it would make sense of why you would want to defend other “unnatural behaviors” such as bubblegum chewing.
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