Therapy for Change - Cure or Snake Oil?

Therapy for change of orientation?

For some years, the idea of changing a homosexual orientation to a heterosexual one by some form of psychological therapy has had some prominence, especially in the USA.

Some believe that it is possible for a person to effect such a change using approaches broadly termed reparative therapy.

The position of those selling reparative therapy is that homosexual feelings, sometimes called same-sex attraction, may be largely due to developmental factors, especially in relation to the individual’s relationship with his (or her) parents.

Some claim that persons have completely changed their sexual feelings by means of a clinical therapeutic process.

For those who are of a homosexual or bisexual orientation and do not want to be, the idea of therapy for change seems an attractive one. (Note that we are not here discussing why or whether anyone should want to change. That is another discussion).

If one is considering any clinical therapeutic approach, it is important to know what published clinical evidence there is of safety and efficacy.

Imagine, for example, a new therapeutic approach to Type 1 (Insulin dependent) Diabetes. Before adopting any such new clinical approach, physicians would expect to find good solid published peer-reviewed clinical evidence in reputable journals, showing statistically significant results, and giving full information on safety and efficacy.

Careful and prolonged searching reveals no such evidence base whatever for the approaches broadly termed reparative therapy of homosexual feelings.

One study by a respected academic, Dr. Robert Spitzer, has been published. We will not discuss it in depth here – information is available on the Internet and in print for those who wish to know more. For this study, Dr. Spitzer telephoned 200 people who had reportedly experienced change in their sexual desire through therapeutic means. He found that a handful of those persons described a change of feeling which Dr. Spitzer believed in.

This one study is simply not enough to provide any real evidence base for reparative therapy (nor did Dr Spitzer claim that it did) Dr. Spitzer’s study did not establish any link between any reported change and any clinical methodology (“therapy”). 

Perhaps in time a very large clinical evidence base will accumulate, of methodologically sound peer-reviewed studies published in reputable journals.

Until that time, all we have to go on is Anecdote. In other words, first-hand personal accounts.

Anecdotal Evidence has long been discounted in sound medical practice. But since in the field of reparative therapy nothing else is yet available, we have sought anecdotes – ie, credible first-hand accounts of change of orientation through psychological therapy.

We cannot find any.

One person corresponded for a while, very kindly taking time to describe what he believed was, and what sounded like, some genuine change of feelings. However, after some weeks he stopped corresponding and it was clear from what he had written in his online ‘blog’, that at the time of his discontinuing correspondence, he was still attracted to his own sex.

If he was on the road – even well along it – to recovery, (as it might be called) then clearly he was still some considerable way from the end of it.

We are left then in the position of still looking for anecdote of a single person who has, as it were, reached the end of the road, and successfully changed sexual desire through therapy.

If you are such a person, or you know of one, would you be interested to write privately with a description of how the change took place?

PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE NOT ASKING FOR THE ACCOUNTS OF THE FOLLOWING:

1) Those who have recently started therapy and feel it might be working – i.e., any who have just started out along the road. We wish to hear from those who have ARRIVED AT THE DESTINATION.

2) Those who feel that their orientation has changed by the help of Holy Spirit or Divine Power in some form. Whether that is possible is another discussion; not the one we are having here. We are trying specifically to find accounts of success from a clinical therapeutic method (which those selling Reparative Therapy more-or-less claim it to be).

3) Those whose change is simply a change from being sexually active to being celibate, but with same-sex desire still present.

4) Those who have had psychological therapy to HELP DEAL WITH - BUT NOT NECESSARILY CHANGE - a homosexual or bisexual orientation

5) Those who derive income from any kind of Therapy or Ministry for changing orientation.

We would be especially interested to hear from persons whose sexual desire has changed and who are NOT MARRIED.