A GoodTherapy.org News Update Presented by Daniel Brezenoff, LCSW
A University of Utah psychologist whose research has been cited by groups that identify homosexuality as a mental disorder and promote “reparative” therapy is defending her work and criticizing the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality for distorting her findings.
“If NARTH had read the study more carefully they would find that it is not supported by my data at all,” says Lisa Diamond of the University of Utah. “When people are motivated to twist something for political purposes, they’ll find a way to do it.” Diamond’s videotaped comments are available in full on the Internet.
A national group that advocates “treatment” of homosexuality, NARTH was founded by psychologist Joseph Nicolosi (author of “Healing Homosexuality” and “A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality”) and is currently run by A. Dean Byrd, an adjunct professor at the University of Utah’s Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. Byrd has pointed to Diamond’s research as evidence that gays’ sexual orientation can be straightened out through treatment.
Byrd retorted, “NARTH’s view is that people can adapt any way they want and there is freedom of choice,” Byrd says. “If it says ‘fluidity’ it says ‘fluidity.’ How you interpret it is something else.”
But Diamond accuses NARTH of “cherry-picking” findings that may ostensibly appear to support their position. “You know exactly what you’re doing,” she says in the video. “It’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you should stop doing it.”
NARTH’s past president, psychiatrist Charles Socarides (1922-2005), fought long against the American Psychiatric Association’s removal of homosexuality from its list of mental disorders in 1973.
The American Psychological Association also rejects so-called “reparative therapies” that attempt to convert gay men and women to exclusive heterosexuality. Its position is that, “there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation is safe or effective. Furthermore…the promotion of change therapies reinforces stereotypes and contributes to a negative climate for lesbian, gay, and bisexual persons.”
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