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from Clinical/Therapeutic Issues
Dr. Robert Spitzer Interviewed
In 'Christianity Today' Magazine
April 5, 2005 - Christianity Today's online magazine (3/39/2005) features
an interview with Dr. Robert Spitzer, an influential member of the American
Psychiatric Association.
In "Therapeutically Incorrect," Dr. Spitzer, who had encouraged the APA to
remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the DSM, describes how NARTH
President Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D., had provided him with a list of ex-gays who
were willing to be interviewed for a survey he conducted on the reality of
change in sexual orientation.
As Dr. Spitzer conducted his interviews with these clients--and many more--he
became convinced that change was possible.
According to Spitzer, after his published his findings in the Archives of Sexual
Behavior in October, 2003, many of his colleagues were outraged at him for doing
so. "I remember when it [the survey] first appeared in the media, I got a letter
from, I think, a dean of admissions at Columbia. He wrote me that it was just a
disgrace that a Columbia professor should do such a thing. Within the gay
community, there was initially tremendous anger and feeling that I had betrayed
them."
Dr. Spitzer says he has not considered doing a follow up study on the
individuals he interviewed. "I feel a little battle fatigue. ... The study that
ought to be done is a controlled study where people go into therapy, and then
you initially evaluate them, and then you evaluate them later and see how many
actually changed. But that study is not going to be done, unfortunately."
Dr. Spitzer believes that the reason such a study will not be done is that
"reparative therapists are not scientists--they don't do studies."
Dr. A. Dean Byrd, head of the NARTH Scientific Advisory Committee recently
responded to this interview in Christianity Today. He noted:
The difficulties that Dr. Spitzer endured in conducting research on a
"politically incorrect" topic demonstrates how much science has strayed into
activist agendas. Science makes strides when researchers ask questions without
regard to whether or not the answers will support a particular agenda.
The real troubling aspect of this interview is that researchers like Spitzer
allow battle fatigue to not only prevent him from further exploration but to act
as a deterrent to others. Perhaps it is time that science reclaim its place of
objectivity at the table of truth and disassociate itself from political
agendas.
It is unfortunate that Spitzer has concluded that reorientation therapists are
not scientists. That is simply not true!
Joseph Berger, M.D., a Distinguished Fellow with the American Psychiatric
Association, is a member of NARTH's Scientific Advisory Committee and author of
The Independent Medical Examination in Psychiatry.
Dr. Berger has provided some background information on the removal of
homosexuality from the DSM in 1973. He notes:
What most people are not aware of is that when a group from the American
Psychiatric Association first proposed the removal of homosexuality from the DSM
in 1973, it was very clearly laid out in the "protocol" that the move was purely
in response to the designation of "stigma" that those who identified themselves
as homosexual claimed that they suffered as a consequence of "homosexuality"
being included as a psychiatric disorder.
It was stated very clearly that the proposed removal was not intended to make
any scientific statement about homosexuality per se.
As is so often the case, that distinction has become forgotten by the next
generation, who now have come to believe - or have been "programmed" to believe
- that the APA was in fact making a scientific statement about the "normality"
of homosexuality - and by implication its irreversibility.
What happened in the years since is that, of course, gay activists became so
"empowered" - to use that horrible contemporary word - that they started to
preach the notion that if homosexuality was "normal" then ipso facto no
treatment for "it" was necessary, and gradually that evolved into the notion
that no treatment should be permitted.
The American Psychological Association apparently endorsed this notion and the
American Psychiatric Association came under considerable pressure to also
endorse such a position.
It was then that some psychiatrists and psychologists, and especially some
self-identified "ex-gays" started protesting and saying essentially that for no
other form of presentation was there any prohibition against an individual
choosing to consult a physician or therapist. In addition, far from it being
"unethical" to treat a homosexual person-- it was totally unethical to ban or
prevent any homosexual individual who himself or herself voluntarily requested
psychotherapy, from following that option.
It was that demonstration and protest that prompted Dr. Spitzer (who presumably
also thought the proposal to ban as being too extreme) apparently with the noble
intention of objective research--decided to conduct a review about the
irreversibility of homosexuality. He was willing to reconsider his position.
Additional Reading: "The Dictionary Of Disorder: How one man revolutionized
psychiatry," New Yorker, March 1, 2005.
Updated: 9 April 2008
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