Ex-Gay Watch

NARTH founder Joseph Nicolosi, arguably the father of modern reparative therapy, has retracted his claim that a patient was able to change his sexual orientation through an SSRI.

In 2009, Dr Nicolosi said his client had made no progress in eight years of therapy, but after a course of Lexapro, a brand of the antidepressant escitalopram, “he discovered that he had no more sexual attractions to men.” Although his claim failed to find a publisher, it didn’t stop NARTH using it as evidence in its 2009 ground-breaking, peer-reviewed study, the notorious publication that turned out not to be ground-breaking, peer-reviewed or even a study — it was a mere (very selective) literature review, published by NARTH and reviewed internally.

Nicolosi has now said the evidence doesn’t support Lexapro as a gay cure. Writes Dr Warren Throckmorton, who reported this story:

Instead of noting that the case reported was only one success out of four tries, the authors [of the NARTH paper] only noted the one case which appeared to be a success at the time. Now, according to Dr. Nicolosi, Lexapro has not lived up to that claim.

This report can be added to others where significant questions have been raised (e.g., the Bieber study, the Kaye study, the work of Masters and Johnson, the Pattison and Pattison research).

Exodus International has relaunched its online bookstore at Exodusbooks.org, but some key titles are missing from the shelves.

In particular, there appear to be no books by the notorious Dr Joseph Nicolosi, the father of ex-gay reparative therapy and former president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.

Nicolosi’s seminal work Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (1992), in which he articulated his view that distant fathers and overbearing mothers cause homosexuality, is no longer listed. Also missing are Nicolosi’s A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality and NARTH’s Handbook of Therapy for Unwanted Homosexual Attractions, although I can’t confirm if those two were previously in the catalogue.

So is it an oversight, or has Exodus made a conscious decision to disassociate from NARTH and its promise of a gay cure through psychiatry? If the latter, I can’t help but note that Exodus chief Alan Chambers has harsh words for apostates who try to distance themselves from his own organization.

Anyone notice any other glaring omissions from Exodus’s new bookstore?

A conference on gay-to-straight therapy has been forced to seek a new venue after a Polish university withdrew its support.

The event, featuring notorious NARTH therapist Joseph Nicolosi, was due to take place on September 16 at the Medical School Foundation in Poznan, Poland. The institution cancelled the event before the contract was signed, however, following criticism by the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza. A front-page story pointed to the American Psychological Association (APA) resolution stating there was a lack of evidence to support the claims of reparative therapists to reverse or cure homosexuality.

The university said hosting the conference “identifies [reparative therapy] with its organization.”

Source: LifeSiteNews.com

Image: BTB

Conservative Christian psychologist Dr Warren Throckmorton says that the story of Kirk Murphy, aka “Kraig,” should provoke “a serious re-examination” of gay-to-straight therapy.

Yesterday, Box Turtle Bulletin and CNN broke the true story behind the “Sissy Boy” experiment, during which Kirk, then five, underwent psychiatric treatment intended to turn an effeminate, “gender-confused” homosexual-in-waiting into a masculine, heterosexual boy. That was in 1970. In 2003, aged 38 and gay, Kirk committed suicide. The experiment — which George Rekers hailed throughout his career as an “ex-gay” success — was a failure.

Now Throckmorton, a former advocate of reparative therapy, says the revelation calls all ex-gay therapy into question. He found that the “classic” reparative therapy volume A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, by Joseph Nicolosi, refers to Rekers over 20 times and cites the 1974 paper about Kirk — renamed “Kraig” — as evidence that such therapy can change children with “Gender Identity Disorder,” or GID. Nicolosi writes:

GID Children Can Change

In fact, experts have reported that GID children who were assumed to have a biological problem may in fact respond surprisingly well to therapeutic intervention. Researchers Reker, Lovaas, and Low describe one of their young clients:

When we first saw him, the extent of his feminine identification was so profound (his mannerisms, gestures, fantasies, flirtations, etc., as shown in his “swishing” around the home and clinic, fully dressed as a woman with long dress, wig, nail polish, high screechy voice, slovenly seductive eyes) that it suggested irreversible neurological and biochemical determinants. At the 26-month follow-up he looked and acted like any other boy. People who view the videotaped recordings of him before and after treatment talk of him as “two different boys.”

Interestingly, a look at NARTH’s 2009 literature review, which purported to represent a century’s worth of research into reparative therapy, makes no mention of the 1974 paper. Yet the Journal of Human Sexuality — the discredited NARTH created this and published the literature review in the first edition so it could claim to have published this “significant milestone” in a “peer-reviewed journal” — lists George A Rekers as an associate editor.

Could it be that Rekers and his colleagues, knowing by now that Kirk had committed suicide and was a failed experiment, ensured the paper went uncited? The omission may be telling.

Part 2 of the CNN investigation “The Sissy Boy Experiment: Uncovering the Truth,” will air tonight (Wednesday, June 8th) at 10pm ET on Anderson Cooper 360. According to yesterday’s preview, George Rekers will appear in the segment.

See also Jim Burroway’s online project about Kirk: What Are Little Boys Made Of?

Journey into Manhood, the immersion course that claims to help men solve the problem of homosexual attractions, is hosting a weekend retreat in the UK later this month.

According to JiM, 80 percent of participants report a decrease in homosexual attractions following the course, and over half say they have experienced increased heterosexual attractions. Patrick Chapman addressed the survey’s flaws briefly, but decisively here on Ex-Gay Watch.

JiM is not strictly Christian, but participation does require belief in a “higher power,” and the course’s contents mimic all the familiar traits of the mostly Christian ex-gay movement. While the website says JiM is “not a gay-bashing weekend” and it will “affirm your inherent value as a man, just as you are,” it also suggests that, as a gay man, you have “issues that are alienating you from your authentic heterosexual masculinity.” Same-sex attraction is due to a lack of “masculine affirmation and healthy male bonding,” among other things.

If you need more convincing that Journey into Manhood is comfortably in the lap of the mainstream ex-gay movement, anti-gay UK group Anglican Mainstream proudly names Arthur Goldberg and Dr Joseph Nicolosi among JiM’s endorsers. Arthur Abba Goldberg, who heads up Jewish ex-gay ministry JONAH, was forced to resign from NARTH in early 2010, after his conviction for fraud–which he has tried to conceal for almost two decades–made headlines. Joseph Nicolosi, also of NARTH, is the chief proponent of the theory that absent fathers and overbearing mothers are the cause of male homosexuality.

To mark the 10th anniversary of People Can Change, Journey into Manhood will also be hosting weekend programs in Texas and Florida.