Psychologist Criticizes ‘The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality’ for Distorting Research Findings
December 9th, 2008
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.”
©Copyright 2008 by Daniel Brezenoff, Licensed Clinical Social Worker, therapist in Long Beach, CA. All Rights Reserved.
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Comments
Good for Lisa Diamond. I am tired of all of these national groups with lots of funding taking research and distorting info to make it look as if it supports their position. I am a gay male and have heard for years that I make the choice to be gay- look I have no more chosen ths lifestyle than heterosexuals choose that for themselves. It is just the way I am. Why would I choose to live my life in such a way that I know is going to make people angry and hate me simply because of who I go out with? This is so crazy- I can scarcely believe we are still having these arguments in the 21st century.
It is so sad to think our society still judges gay people. I agree with Gary, you don’t choose this lifestyle, it chooses you and Gary has a point, why would anyone want to put themselves, purposely in front of negative people, just to be badgered. People need to wake up and stop inflicting hate toward gay people.
It is easy for people to point there fingers and judge someone who is gay, when they don’t have any clue how it is. I applaud Lisa Diamond for standing up to this. It seems to me, that the people pointing their fingers, need a little more education. They don’t have to understand it, but they can sure stop all the negativity they aim at these people.
I just hate when anyone takes wording out of context to support their own argument no matter which side of the issue they are on.
I have a male friend who is gay and he is probably one of the most friendliest person I know. It’s a shame to think gay people have to take the hatred from others who don’t understand that these people are just as human as we are. I believe once you actually know someone who is gay, you may actually change your tune about them.
Stereotypes are so painful for any community, especially one which has been so prone to them like the gay community has been over the years. Perhaps it is going to take a group of well educated people to finally stand up against this type of prejudice and hatred to get it to stop. There are people who are just so mean spirited toward others- and that is a real shame! Think of all the good that could be done if they would put some of that energy into positive things instead of things that are so hateful!
As the parent of a gay child I have to say that I have been troubled and dismayed throughout her adult life to see the many misrepresentations of her lifesty;le that have been perpetuated in our society. I look at it as I have a sweet kind and loving daughter who just happens to be a lesbian. She is in a committed relationship, just as many of us are, and she is very content with her partner and their lives together. Why do some people feel that they have been given the job to continually tell her how wrong she is for making this decision to live in peace and love and to continually tell her she is going to pay for this through the wrath of God. My God is a kind and gracious God and I think He will be saddened for all of the nasty things that are wrought in His name. It makes me both angry and sad that organizations continue to have a voice and that there are still people who lend them any sort of credence through listening to what they have to say.
But if the studies show something to be true, how can we ignore the facts?
Paul I have to disagree with you. There are so many narrow minded organizations out there that are willing to twist the facts and distort the truth that you have to take much of what some of them say with a grain of salt. Are we to believe that homosexual couples cannot function together as a loving and caring family unit simply because of the fact that their partner happens to be the same sex that they are? That is ridiculous. I think that we have to wrap our minds around the fact that even though homosexuality may not be the lifestyle that we choose for oursleves, for some people it is not a choice- it is who they are and we should support them and their rights just the same as we have always supported those in the heterosexual connunity.
Perhaps some clarifying details will illuminate the dialogue between Paul and Marjorie. Lisa Diamond’s research followed several women over ten years and found that their sexual identities were fluid; some identified at various times as bisexual, gay, or straight, changing their self-descriptions from time to time and refusing to be nailed down into one category. Anyone who’s gone to a liberal arts college outside the Bible belt in the last 20 years or who lives in a large city and has a decent social life will probably recognize the phenomenon.
Now, for NARTH to say this has anything in the slightest to do with converting people to heterosexuality is ludicrous. That young women change their minds, experiment, explore, and take time to figure out who they are and what they want sexually and romantically – and in a culture that expects strict labels, that they may compromise, waver or be confused – should not surprise anyone, and certainly does not imply that homosexuality is an illness or that it can be “cured”.
To the contrary, what NARTH advocates is strict homosexuality, while what Diamond discovered (or rediscovered; after all, this was Kinsey’s point as well) is that strict orientation either way is rare and probably unnatural, while a fluid, improvisational, open, unlabeled sexual life is healthy and maybe typical. In other words, Diamond found women who in no way, even while dating men, could be called straight by NARTH standards – and were happy being free of labels and sexual constraints, labels and constraints NARTH not only wants to impose on people, but without which they cannot seem to fathom the human race in all its diverse glory.
If this research has any implication for the “work” of NARTH to convert people to strict heterosexuality, it’s that such work is pointless, because sexuality DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.
To say that NARTH distorted Diamond’s findings is putting it mildly. They turned them upside down, shook them around, changed their meaning 180 degrees, and missed the point entirely, which is the opposite of what they preach.
So, yes, report the facts. Let’s report all of them, in context, with an appropriate knowledge base and an honest intent – not just the few facts we like, spun to our purposes, twisted to imply the opposite of what they actually mean. What NARTH is doing not only harms the cause of equality and human dignity, it poisons the public perception of scientific research, which should be neutral tool of knowledge, not a political weapon.
Hope that helps.
d
It seems that NARTH is being misrepresented. From Professors Byrd’s quote above, “…there is freedom of choice…”, they seem to be advocating FREEDOM of choice, not a demand for conversion.
From what I understand, they are not forcing people to change. Just fighting for the human rights of those that want to change to have options for this change. I do not think they are all that interested in changing anyone who believes they are wholeheartedly homosexual.
No one in NARTH is campaigning to convert anyone that does not want to change. That’s misrepresenting them.
Sam, I dont think I’ve misrepresented NARTH. NARTH’s official position is that homosexuality is “against our nature” (an entirely unscientific and therefore, in the context of ‘research’ (the “r” in NARTH), utterly meaningless term) that “traditional marriage” (also scientifically meaningless) is “ideal,” and that homosexual men are more likely to molest children than heterosexual men (the opposite of what the overwhelming research base says).
The idea that anyone’s “rights” are being protected by this group is farcical. No one in the mental health community would deny the “right” to change unwanted homosexual feelings – that’s a classic straw man argument. What many therapists would point out is that unwanted homosexual feelings may not, in many cases, be changeable, and that the healthier path is to accept those feelings. But client self-determination is a key value in this profession, and that’s not in question. Truly, the only right in question is the right of gays, lesbians, and transgendered persons to receive actual therapy and not be pushed by ideologues into phony conversion treatment which has zero scientific basis.
NARTH is devoted to convincing therapists we should seek to cure gays and lesbians of their homosexuality – rather than attempting to advocate at the macro level for equal, dignified, scientifically sound treatment options.
What NARTH did with Diamond’s research is all anyone really needs to know. If NARTH was truly a “research” organization, it wouldn’t need to distort the meaning of an actual researcher’s findings. In fact, what it consistently does is cite independent research (it never does its own, that I can tell) but grossly distort the researchers’ conclusions, for example frequently conflating “fluidity” of orientation with suitability for treatment-based change in orientation, and, as a rule, assuming homosexuality as an illness a priori.
NARTH doesn’t have the power to “force” people to change, but it does perhaps have the power to influence therapists, who in turn have the ability to strongly influence our clients, who come to us in a vulnerable position seeking wisdom and guidance, and give us their trust. To betray that trust by pushing NARTH’s baseless ideology is patently unethical.
It’s bad enough to devote yourself to proving that what is different is necessarily sick. To do so under the false rubric of science is truly despicable.
But whatever one thinks of NARTH and of homosexuality generally, there is no doubt that NARTH distorted Diamond’s research, and that reflects very poorly on NARTH.
Daniel, you may be right about NARTH. I know very little about them. I was taking my argument from your quote above.
I did just check out their website. And I found some very interesting stuff. I am unsure where you are getting your strong attack on their lack of research. The website seems to speak to the opposite.
For example, read this article I found at random
http://www.narth.com/docs/essentialist.html
You may not agree with their conclusions. But your statement about them lacking evidence is just not true.
Actually, Sam, the report you cite supports exactly what I’m arguing. First, it is not original research, but a review of independent research. Second, it utterly distorts the findings to mean what NARTH wants them to mean, specifically, by conflating/confusing fluidity with changeability through treatment. One has nothing to do with the other. It’s like saying that since I like both chocolate and vanilla, a therapist can get me to stop liking one and only like the other. Third, NARTH uses a straw man argument: “Yet the national organizations continue to offer the essentialist argument as a guide for law and public policy. No reputable scientist on either side of the political spectrum would disagree with the conclusion of Friedman and Downey. Even the gay-activist researchers themselves who studies have been used by the media to trumpet the message that homosexuality is biologically determined do not support the “born that way” myth.”
So, who, exactly, IS making the argument that homosexuality is 100% genetic?
Well, no one. That’s the straw man. But saying that sexual orientation is determined by a combination of biological and environmental factors is not the same thing as saying it can or should be changed in therapy.
The page you cite is outright dishonest. Either that, or the folks at NARTH are just incapable of interpreting research. If this interests you, I implore you to go an look at the research NARTH is citing for yourself. You’ll see that it doesn’t mean what they it means – in fact, it often means the opposite: that sexual orientation isn’t an illness that can be cured, nor a moral failing, as NARTH would have us believe, but a dynamic, complicated, multidimensional, evolving part of the personality.
Educated, broad minded people would know what is acceptable or not. Being gay doesnt make one a criminal. Encouraging demeaning and deranged behaviour in anyone can be dangerous to society. Child abuse is not a homosexual thing.
I am a gay male, 23 years old. I accept being gay but deep down inside I don’t feel that its something I was born with. But, I have no desire to change and I feel that I will never change. I visited the NARTH page and I agree with alot of the articles, such as, the origin of my sexual orientation. The root of it has everything to do with my child hood, as well as my sensitive personality.. It may not be true for everyone, but there are more people like me. I think that if someone wants to change then let them. It’s not so much wanting to become a different orientation, but wanting to understand why you are the way you are. Its very important and its helped me to see that , yes I am gay, and I wasnt born gay, but straight people arent born straight either. You live, you do what you want to do, then you die. It’s that simple. One thing I disagree with is that alot of the things on thier page have to do with religion, which is a farce to begin with. Thanks or listening!
Hi, I’m a 20 year old gay man.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re born gay or you become gay. Either way we don’t choose. As a gay man myself I’ve found myself many times troughout my teenage years wondering about my sexuality but only because of social pressure in my country that led me to belive homosexuality was unnatural.
A persons sexuality cannot be changed by any means just like a person’s preference of a scent for example. It is just an attraction that can vary according to one’s experiences (or not) but it is not suposed to be treated since it’s not a condition!
People who wish to treat their homosexual feelings are actually in need of treating the social and family pressure they carry on their backs that causes them to feel uncomfortable with their sexuality and leads them to seek help for their “unwanted feelings”.
I went trough it for myself. As soon as I found myself in a homosexuality acceptant environement, I stoped feeling troubeld, fearfull, stressed and anxious. I started to feel comfortable, confident, happy and newborned! The real diseases are homophobia and the misunderstanding of homosexuality that puts so much psycological pressure to change on homosexuals and makes them feel unstable. People should start informing themselves about it (leaving aside unscientific religious arguments).
For example, for those who think homosexuality is a menace for the traditional family model, you should know that homosexuality is present in the world since the dawn of civilisation and the percentage of homosexuals was always a small constant one troughout history, whether homosexuality was accepted (ancient civilisations) or not (since the appearance of the church). So accepting homosexuality in our societies will not increase the number of homosexuals (nor will diminish it). It will only allow repressed homosexuals to live their lives without hidding and troubled homosexuals to find peace, thus creating a healthier society.
The correct treatment for homosexuality is educating the population about it!
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