by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

The primary focus of reparative therapy for men is always on the healing of same-sex relationships. A reparative therapist strongly encourages the establishment of healthy, non-erotic friendships with men.

There comes a time, however, when some clients evolve to a point of readiness to enter an intimate relationship with a woman. This readiness must be expressed by the client himself, and cannot be encouraged by the therapist in the same way we would urge a client to seek out male friendships.

Any success with women will not endure without the continuation of the client’s ongoing, satisfying male relationships.

To understand the particular challenges of the homosexually oriented man in his relationship to women, we must first begin by understanding the classic triadic relationship which is seen so predictably in the history of our clients. This triadic relationship throws the boy on the side of the mother, with father isolated from his wife and son. This misalignment gives the boy a distorted perspective of himself in relationship to the masculine and the feminine. The boy’s father remains a mystery, and his mother is all too well known.

In life, men and women are always challenged to try to understand each other. Straight men are often accused of failing to meet this challenge, and it is said that they are typically insensitive to women. Paradoxically, however, it is the same insensitivity which allows the heterosexual man to develop an intimate relationship with the woman. He is not so attuned to females that he overreacts and loses himself in response to their needs.

To the straight man, women are mysteries, but this is the price the straight man must pay for the development of his heterosexuality.

If the straight man can be faulted for insensitivity, the homosexual man can be faulted for being too sensitive to women and emotionally over-involved with them. Said one homosexual client as he reviewed his failed female relationships, “I have learned to be too open to women in an unhealthy way.” Growing up, he had been too intensely tied in to his mother’s emotions.

Mothers want a compliant, well-behaved, good little boy. The prehomosexual boy offers this appealing image of the good boy to please his mother–behind which, however, he hides his true self in self-protection. He becomes the good little boy on the outside, but on the inside, he remains intensely confused about his needs and his identity.

As the client approaches the challenge of an intimate adult relationship with a woman, this drama of the early relationship with the mother will be re-enacted.

The Challenge

For the man with a homosexual background, the challenge is to enter into a relationship with a woman while maintaining a sense of self-possession. The job of the therapist is to monitor the client’s internal sense of self as he approaches the woman. The therapist keeps the client honest with himself and prevents him from falling into the false self, which he will easily do as he did in relationship with mother. While there may be numerous versions, the typical false selves that emerge in a relationship with a woman are:

1. The passive-compliant.
2. The theatrical entertainer.
3. The empathic counselor.

The therapist is watching for the client’s tendency to abandon himself and slip into one of those false selves when he is with her. By becoming too sensitive to the woman’s expectations for him, he abandons all of his needs and wants and desires for her needs, thus losing his self-reference.

Trust

The successful shift to heterosexual marriage is all about trust:

“Can I trust this woman with my feelings? Will she manipulate and confuse me? Will she fail to see me for who I am, and smother me with her expectations? Will she act like she cares for me but really use me or try to control me? Will I be able to be myself?”

The role of the therapist is to listen for the man’s compromises of selfhood.

The Ongoing Need for Male Friendships

No matter how successful his relationship with his wife, the man with the homosexual background will always need to have good male friendships. Many wives–even those wives who did not know that their husbands had a homosexual problem–have told me that when their husbands spend time with their male friends, they are happier and more attentive at home, and more emotionally available to them and the children. When their husbands shrink from men and fail to maintain male friendships, they become withdrawn, moody and emotionally unavailable to them and the children.

The married man with a homosexual background may find conjugal relations with his wife to be less intense. However, he is left with a sense of rightness, contentment and well-being. Rather than feeling left depleted by sex (as he felt with men) he is renewed and feels satisfied and good about himself, as he experiences himself to be more fully a participant in the gendered world.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

“Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex and family, and in the process, transforming the very fabric of society.”

–National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy director,
Paul Ettelbrick (Kurtz, 2003)

Today, with homosexuality no longer a disadvantage in many Western cultures, the promiscuous nature of gay men’s relationships is being more openly acknowledged.

In 1948, Kinsey observed that long-term homosexual relationships were notably few.  Now, more than fifty years later, long-term gay male relationships may be more common, but the fact remains that they are typically not monogamous.

In one notable study of gay male couples, 41.3% had open sexual agreements with some conditions or restrictions, and 10% had open sexual agreements with no restrictions on sex with outside partners. One-fifth of participants (21.9%) reported breaking their agreement in the preceding 12 months, and 13.2% of the sample reported having unprotected anal intercourse in the preceding three months with an outside partner of unknown or discordant HIV-status (1).

This study follows the classic research of McWhirter and Mattison, reported in The Male Couple (1984), which found that not a single male pair was able to maintain fidelity in their relationship for more than five years.  Outside affairs, the researchers found, were not damaging to the relationship’s endurance, but were in fact essential to it. “The single most important factor that keeps couples together past the ten-year mark is the lack of possessiveness they feel,” says the authors (p. 256).

The gay community has long walked a thin public-relations line, presenting their relationships as equivalent to those of heterosexual married couples.  But many gay activists portray a very different cultural ethic. Michelangelo Signorile describes the campaign “to fight for same-sex marriage and its benefits and then, once granted, redefine the institution completely–to demand the right to marry not as a way of adhering to society’s moral codes, but rather to debunk a myth and radically alter an archaic institution.” (1974, p 3).

Research Findings On Promiscuity

In 1968, Hoffman stated: “Sexual promiscuity is one of the most striking, distinguishing features of gay life in America” (p. 45).  A much-cited study by Bell and Weinberg (1978), published by the Kinsey Institute, and often called the most ambitious study of homosexuality ever attempted, gathered its data before the AIDS crisis had begun. This study showed that 28 percent of homosexual males had had sexual encounters with one thousand or more partners. Furthermore, 79 percent said more than half of their sex partners were strangers.  Only 1 percent of the sexually active men had had fewer than five lifetime partners.  The authors concede: “Little credence can be given to the supposition that homosexual men’s ‘promiscuity’ has been overestimated” (p.82).  “Almost half of the white homosexual males…said that they had had at least 500 different sexual partners during the course of their homosexual careers,” (p. 85).

A few years later, Pollak (1985) described sexual behavior among gays as “an average several dozen partners a year” and “some hundreds in a lifetime” with “tremendous promiscuity” (p.44).  He said:

The homosexual pick-up system is the product of a search for efficiency and economy in attaining the maximization of “yield” (in numbers of partners and orgasms) and the minimization of “cost” (waste of time and risk of one’s advances being rejected). Certain places are known for a particular clientele and immediate consummation: such as “leather” bars, which often have a back room specially reserved for the purpose, saunas and public parks. (p. 44)

William Aaron’s autobiographical book Straight draws similar conclusions:

In the gay life, fidelity is almost impossible.  Since part of the compulsion of homosexuality seems to be a need on the part of the homophile to “absorb” masculinity from his sexual partners, he must be constantly on the lookout for [new partners].  Constantly the most successful homophile “marriages” are those where there is an agreement between the two to have affairs on the side while maintaining the semblance of permanence in their living arrangement. [p. 208]

He concludes:

Gay life is most typical and works best when sexual contacts are impersonal and even anonymous.  As a group the homosexuals I have known seem far more preoccupied with sex than heterosexuals are, and far more likely to think of a good sex life as many partners under many exciting circumstances. [p.209]

Emphasis On Sexuality

One writer – who, it should be mentioned, strongly sympathizes with the gay community about the stresses of social discrimination – observes conditions among gay men as follows:

It must be remembered that in the gay world the only real criterion of value is physical attractiveness…The young homosexual will find that his homosexual brothers usually only care for him as a sexual object.  Although they may invite him out to dinner and give him a place to stay, when they have satisfied their sexual interest in him, they will likely forget about his existence and his own personal needs….Since the sole criterion of value in the homosexual world is physical attractiveness, being young and handsome in gay life is like being a millionaire in a community where wealth is the only criterion of value. [Hoffman 1968, pp. 58, 153, 155]

Aging is also viewed particularly negatively in the homosexual culture, with high value placed on youth (Bell and Weinberg 1978).

In his psychoanalytic study of ten couples, six of whom were homosexual, Gershman (1981) observed that in homosexual coupling, “sexuality is of greater importance and plays a larger role.” Gershman found that the majority of male couples he studied had agreed upon an open relationship, as long as the affairs were conducted discreetly.  He found that while the male couples studied were capable of high compatibility in many other respects, there was great difficulty in maintaining sexual interest.

With the exception of the pioneering work of Warren (1974), for many years, little attention was given to long term gay relationships.  When McWhirter and Mattison published The Male Couple in 1984, their study was undertaken to disprove the reputation that gay male relationships do not last.  The authors themselves were a homosexual couple, one a psychiatrist, the other a psychologist.  After much searching they were able to locate 156 male couples in relationships that had lasted from 1 to 37 years.  Two-thirds of the respondents had entered the relationship with either the implicit or the explicit expectation of sexual fidelity.

The results of their study show that of those 156 couples, only seven had been able to maintain sexual fidelity.  Furthermore, of those seven couples, none had been together more than 5 years.  In other words, the researchers were unable to find a single male couple that was able to maintain sexual fidelity for more than five years. They reported:

The expectation for outside sexual activity was the rule for male couples and the exception for heterosexuals.  Heterosexual couples lived with some expectation that their relationships were to last “until death do us part,” whereas gay couples wondered if their relationships could survive. (p.3)

McWhirter and Mattison admit that sexual activity outside the relationship often raises issues of trust, self-esteem, and dependency.  However, they believe that

“the single most important factor that keeps couples together past the ten-year mark is the lack of possessiveness they feel.  Many couples learn very early in their relationship that ownership of each other sexually can become the greatest internal threat to their staying together. (p. 256)

Other researchers have also seen sexual freedom as beneficial to gay relationships (Harry 1978, Peplau, 1982).

Yet in reality, there remains a contradictory longing for greater stability. In a study of thirty couples, Hooker (1965, p. 46) found that all but three couples expressed “an intense longing for relationships with stability, sexual continuity, intimacy, love and affection”- but only one couple in her study had been able to maintain a monogamous relationship for ten years.  Hooker concluded, “For many homosexuals, one-night stands or short-term relationships are typical” (p.49).

The desire for sexual fidelity in relationships and the benefits of such a commitment are universal.  In the long history of man, infidelity has never been associated with maturity.  Even in cultures where it is relatively common, it is no more than discreetly tolerated.

Faced with the fact that gay male relationships are in fact promiscuous, gay writers have no choice but to promote the message that monogamy is not necessary.

Redefining “Fidelity”

McWhirter and Mattison believe that gays must redefine “fidelity” to mean not sexual faithfulness, but simply “emotional dependability.”

How can a relationship without sexual fidelity remain emotionally faithful?  Fidelity as such is only an abstraction, divorced from the body.  The agreement to have outside affairs precludes any possibility of genuine trust and intimacy.

A Clinical Understanding Of Gay Infidelity

Gay relationships are typically burdened with each man’s same-sex defensive detachment, and their need to compensate for that same-sex detachment.  Therefore the relationship will often take the form of an unrealistic idealization of the other person as an “image.”  In pursuing the other man as a representation the masculine introject that he himself lacks, many gay men either develop a self-denigrating dependency on the partner, or they become disillusioned because they discover “he has the same deficit I have.”

As he did in relationship with his father, the homosexual man fails to fully and accurately perceive the other man.  His same-sex ambivalence and defensive detachment mitigate against trust and intimacy.  When he becomes disillusioned, he will often continually set his hopes on the possibility of yet another, more satisfying partner.

In seeking out and sexualizing relationships with other males, the homosexual is attempting to integrate a lost part of himself.  Because this attraction emerges out of a deficit, he is not completely free to love.  He often perceives other men in terms of what they can do to fulfill his deficit.  Thus, a giving of the self may seem like more of a diminishment than a self-enhancement.

A man who is depressed may gain a temporary sense of mastery through anonymous sex because of its excitement, intensity, even danger – followed by sexual release and an immediate reduction of tension.  Later he is likely to feel disgusted, remorseful, and out of control.  He feels regretful, regains control and feels all right again.  But when there is nothing to “feed” that healthy state, it will be a matter of time until he gets depressed, feels powerless and out of touch with himself, and seeks anonymous sex again as a short-term solution to getting back in touch and feeling in control.

Often a homosexual client will report seeking anonymous sex following an incident in which he felt ignored or slighted by another male.  Feeling shamed and victimized, he acts out sexually as a way of reasserting himself and getting something back he feels was taken from him.  Once again, he feels guilty and has to repent or make amends.  Many gay men become addicted not just to the sexual release, but to the entire compulsive, life-dominating cycle– if not through overt behavior, then through preoccupation and fantasy.

In these repetitive, compulsive, and impersonal sexual behaviors, we see a focused engagement with the object–with a desire for an intense relationship, but at the same time, a resistance toward genuine intimacy.  Hoffman (1968) describes the “sex fetishization” found in gay life (p. 168), and Gottlieb (1977) points out the strong element of sexual fantasy that has become institutionalized in gay culture.  Masters and Johnson (1979) also found that those fantasies tend to be more violent than those of heterosexuals.

Homosexual attraction is often characterized by a localized response to body parts or aspects of the person, but when interest in these traits diminishes through familiarity, there follows a loss of interest in the person as a whole.  In comparison, “straight” men are generally, in my clinical experience, not as trait-fixated.  While some men may envision their ideal woman as tall, blond, blue-eyed, and large-breasted, we hardly see a distinct disinterest in women without these specific traits.

The Problem Of Sexual Sameness

In homosexual sex, the “body parts don’t fit.” Therefore sex must be “individually enjoyed rather than mutually experienced” (p. 214) by a technique of “my turn – your turn” (p.214) and “you do me, I do you.” (Masters and Johnson, 1979). Where orgasmic episodes are experienced separately, considerable discussion is required for their negotiation.

Sexual sameness also diminishes long term interest and creates the need for greater variety, including other partners (Masters and Johnson 1979).

McWhirter and Mattison (1984)  corroborate this viewpoint, saying, “The equality and similarities found in male couples are formidable obstacles to continuing high sexual vitality in their lasting relationships” (p. 134).

These similarities between two men provide one possible explanation for gay promiscuity. Women are “wired” for nurturance and child-rearing, and a stable primary relationship is necessary for their protection and the protection of their children. Thus a woman introduces a restraining influence into the relationship that two men will never experience.

Indeed, gay-activist social commentator Andrew Sullivan has found that as a gay man matures, his relationships will likely split between those men he is friends with, and those he has sex with, but that the two groups will not likely overlap. Gay men, he says, “have a need for extramarital outlets.” (1995, p. 95).

This “new order” approach advocated by gay activists is part of a general cynicism toward mainstream values and the possibility of monogamy. Churchill, for example, is a gay advocate a and strong critic of Judeo-Christian influence in society. His work in the social-science literature reveals a deep hopelessness about the possibility of enduring relationships, either homosexual or heterosexual:

It may be reasonably supposed that there never was nor ever will be any person who can fulfill all of the spiritual and physical needs of another person.  Hence, husbands and wives alike must spend a good deal of time and effort in artful deception and flattery… They must sustain the illusion upon which their marriage is based and upon which their sexual relationship is justified. [1967, p. 301]

Churchill describes the “dreary” picture brought to mind by the term family man:

It is difficult…to imagine any person who is engaged with the world at large as a family man or a homebody.  It is almost impossibility for any man or woman who is laden with the cares and preoccupations particular to family life to be very deeply concerned with others. (p. 305)

Of the traditional Judeo-Christian family, he says:

Far from being the source of each and every good, it is one source of a great many social and moral evils.  If all the homely virtues are learned in the bosom of the family….it should not be forgotten that many of the more contemptible vices are also learned in the bosom of the family: complacency, jealousy, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, envy, selfishness, rivalry, avarice, prejudice, vanity, and greed. (p. 304)

Conclusion

Although homosexuals do lack cultural supports, such as the freedom in every culture to marry a same-sex partner, I believe this is not the cause of gay promiscuity. I believe the central cause of gay promiscuity is to be found in the inherent sexual and emotional incompatability between two males. Men were designed for women, and when some factor—psychological, biological, or a combination of both—interferes with that wired-in design, the freedom to marry a partner of the same sex cannot change the fact that “something’s not working.”

For additional data, see “Romantic Relationship Difficulties,” (pages 70-71), “Interpersonal Relationships,” (page 80-81) and “Promiscuity as a New Social Norm,” (pages 81- 83), in the Journal of Human Sexuality, Vol. 1, 2009, published by NARTH, www.narth.com.

Footnote

(1)   Neilands, Torsten B.; Chakravarty, Deepalika; Darbes, Lynae A.; Beougher, Sean C.; and Hoff, Colleen C. (2010), “Development and Validation of the Sexual Agreement Investment Scale,” Journal of Sex Research, 47: 1, 24 — 37, April 2009.

References:

Aaron, W. (1972). Straight. New York: Bantam Books.

Bell, A., and Weinberg, M. (1978). Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity among Men and Women. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Churchill, W. (1967). Homosexual Behavior Among Males: A Cross-cultural and Cross-species Investigation. New York: Hawthorne Books.

Gershman, H. (1981). Homosexual Marriages. American Journal of Psychoanalysis 41:149-159.

Gottlieb, D. (1977). The Gay Tapes. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Stein and Day Scarborough House.

Harry, J. (1978).  Marriages between gay males. In the Social Organization of Gay Males, ed. J. Harry and V. Devall. New York: Praeger.

Hoffman, M. (1968). The Gay World: Male Homosexuality and the Social Creation of Evil. New York: Basic Books.

Hooker, E. (1965). An empirical study of some relations between sexual patterns and gender identity in male homosexuals. In Sex Research, New Developments, ed. J. Money, pp.24-52. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston.

Kinsey, A. C., Pomeroy, W. B. and Martin, C. E. (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders.

Kurtz, Stanley, “Beyond Gay Marriage,” The Weekly Standard, August 4 – August 11, 2003, Vol. 8, No. 45.

Masters, W., and Johnson, V. (1979). Homosexuality in Perspective. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.

McWhirter, D., and Mattison, A. (1984). The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Peplau, L. (1982). Research on homosexual couples: An overview. Journal of Homosexuality 8:3-7.

Pollak, M. (1985). Male homosexuality. In Western Sexuality: Practice and Precept in Past and Present Times, ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, pp. 40-61. New York: Basil Blackwell.

Signorile, Michaelangelo, “Bridal Wave.” In Out, December 1994.

Sullivan, Andrew, Virtually Norman: An Argument about Homosexuality, New York: Knopf, 1995.

Warren, C. (1974). Identity and Community in the Gay World. New York: Wiley & Sons.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

In this December 2009 transcript, Dr. Nicolosi interviews Gordon Opp.

“There is within me, and I think there is within all of us, what I call the inner person — the real me,” Gordon says. Sometimes the “real me” or “inner person” will be in conflict with what he wants to do.

But these desires do not change nature’s reality: men and women were designed for one another.

JN: Gordon, it’s been about eleven years since we did our last interview, which is still available on the NARTH web site. I know that interview has been helpful to many people.

Let me begin today with this question: How long has it been since you’ve been out of homosexuality?

GO: I’ve been married 31 years, and about a year before our marriage, I stopped acting out homosexually.

JN: When you say “acting out,” can you explain?

GO: There was about a four-year period in my twenties when I practiced homosexuality off and on. I experienced quite a few one-time sexual contacts with individual men and I had a few relationships that lasted three or four months each.

JN: Do you have any regrets now about leaving homosexuality?

GO: No. Not at all.

JN: So you’ve been married now for 31 years, with three grown children, and—how many grandchildren?

GO: Five grandkids.

JN: And so your life story is open, everyone knows—it’s not a big secret.

GO: No, it’s not a big secret at all. Our daughters are just barely a year apart, and when they were in junior-high school, people started asking me to give interviews about my ministry, so we decided to tell the girls then, before I became more public about it.

JN: Any advice for young people who are trying to decide whether or not to pursue a gay lifestyle? I guess for you and your own experience, you’d say that it didn’t work.

GO: No, I wouldn’t say it that way—it just sounds so trite, “Don’t pursue homosexuality—it doesn’t work.”

JN: Could you elaborate on that?

GO: Well, especially for men (and that’s been my experience, obviously), we men are attracted primarily through sight. I remember when I was going to gay parties and such in my early 20’s, I would see other guys about ten or fifteen years older—in their mid- to late-30’s—and I would think that I wouldn’t want those guys around me, because they’re already old. So I learned that for me, anyway, and for the circles I ran in, this was going to be a short-lived life—without permanency, without real roots.

JN: What other advice might help others in the process of discernment?

GO: I’d say, “Become a critical thinker.” You shouldn’t trust the sound bites you get in the news, or even the politically correct things you’re going to get in the classrooms at the universities and such. This decision concerns your whole life, so be a critical thinker and search out the truth. I did a lot of searching as a young kid, but there wasn’t much information out there.

JN: I agree. Why do you think the gay movement been so successful in taking over our culture?

GO: I think it’s because as a culture, we want to please people. We’re in the “microwave age”—we want everything to be fixed quickly and with little effort, but pursuing heterosexuality is not for the faint-hearted. For a man who’s struggled with same-sex attractions, it’s hard work.

JN: Yes. As a therapist, too, I can tell you it’s hard work.

GO: And people don’t want to work hard.

JN: What were the deciding factors in your own decision to leave homosexuality?

GO: I wanted what most everybody wants—I wanted family, security. I wanted to grow old together with somebody that I was committed to. I wanted children, a house, a job, and a picket fence, all of those things—the American dream. And I couldn’t have that with homosexuality.

JN: Gays would argue with you that certainly you can have a family and children and a picket fence, and community. How would you answer that?

GO: I’ll address the family thing first. As far as children, and the issue of adoption for gays, it’s not that the gay parent can’t love the child, but what is it doing to the child? First and foremost, I’m concerned about the child. He needs a mother and a father.

JN: What are the consequences to a child to be raised by two lesbians or two gay men?

GO: We are designed to have a mother and a father. Of course, for all kinds of reasons not every child can have that—but that is the ideal, and we hurt kids when we deliberately and intentionally deprive them of that experience. I’m a real estate agent now, and the other day, I was working on a listing—it was a home with a single mother who was raising four boys, a couple of adolescents and a couple of young ones—and I don’t know what situation occurred that put her into the position of being a single mom, but my heart just went out to her, and my heart also went out to those boys. The absence of the father in that home was just tragic.

JN: I think you’re absolutely right.

What are the factors that made it possible for you to successfully follow through on your decision over so many years?

GO: I suppose one of the beginning factors was my tenacity, to try to beat it. Going back to what I said in the beginning about being a critical thinker, I’m a Christian and whatever I do, I either want to do it wholeheartedly, or I’m not going to waste my time. So when I became convinced that Christianity was true, there was no way I could embrace homosexual behavior and practice as a good thing in the context of my faith.

You cannot support both gay unions and “true” Christianity. It doesn’t work, because they’re incompatible.

JN: I’d like to bring up the recent American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force Report, which says that there is “insufficient evidence” to prove that change is possible. What would you say to those APA Task Force members—all of whom, by the way, are activists in gay causes, and none of whom are reorientation therapists—if you could speak to them?

GO: Well the first thing I would ask the APA is, “What is your definition of change?” Because I believe the APA is asking, when it defines change, “Do you ever have any more homosexual thoughts? Then you haven’t changed.” But “complete change” wouldn’t be realistic—for a man with a homosexual background, or a man struggling with any other issue. I’m an honest person and I would say, “Yes, those thoughts are there occasionally, and they give me a little grief.” But do those thoughts and feelings control my life? No way.

I’ve been married now for 31 years—very happily married. No marriage is without its problems, but, do I have any regrets? No. I have no regrets. I have lived a heterosexual life and been faithful to my wife, and I’ve had my family and enjoyed everything that goes along with family life.

I would like to compare change of sexual orientation to alcoholism. In medical terms, an alcoholic would seem to have what we call a disease (that can be debatable, too), but let’s just say it is a disease. So let’s say I’ve been sober for 31 years. But then, I lose my job, my wife’s mad at me, and I drive home, and I drive past the bar. Man, I want to turn in and get drunk! But I don’t. Would it be fair for the APA to say, “See—you haven’t changed after all! You’re still an alcoholic!”

JN: Sure.

GO: That is how offended I am by the APA’s saying I haven’t changed—just because I, like a former alcoholic, can have the temptation. Still, pride comes before a fall, and I would be the last one to say that I couldn’t ever possibly fall; but even if I did, it doesn’t change my fundamental commitment to my identity—not as a gay man, but as a heterosexual man who has struggled with a homosexual problem.

JN: What would you say to encourage people considering coming out of a lifestyle?

GO: Each person must ask—who am I? What do I want to be? There is within me, and I think there is within all of us, what I call the inner person—the real me. Sometimes that real person in me is in conflict with what I want to do, and sometimes there are those homosexual urges. But I’m going to say no to those same-sex desires, because that’s not the real me. I refuse to be identified by my occasional homosexual feelings. My body is designed to be intimate with a female, and so that is the real me. This true heterosexual man is not going to be sexually intimate with another male.

JN: Let me give you a little metaphor to see if this makes sense to you, because the APA Task Force says you can change your identity, you can say, “I am not a homosexual…I am not identifying with homosexuality,” but that doesn’t change your sexual orientation. Their implication is that homosexuality is “who you are” whether you acknowledge it or not. But I believe that if you change your identity, it will change not only the quantity of your homosexual behaviors, but also the quality. Let me give you an example of this qualitative change. You’re sitting in front of the television and it’s 8:00 at night, and suddenly you feel hungry and you remember there’s that one slice of chocolate pie still in the refrigerator. You’re eating it and while you’re eating it, you’re saying to yourself, “I really am hungry!” But then, rewind the tape: You’re sitting in front of the television, you feel hungry, but you realize you’re really not hungry—actually, you’re bored. You eat the pie anyway to relieve the boredom, and while you’re eating the pie you know you’re just eating it because you were bored. When will you enjoy the pie more, when you believe you’re truly hungry, or when you believe you’re bored?

GO: Of course, when you believe you’re hungry.

JN: Yes, and I think that a gay-identified person is going to interpret his sexual experiences differently—as a form of genuine “hunger.” But men like yourself will reflect and then say to themselves, “This attraction I’m feeling right now is not part of who I am. It’s about my frustrations, or my disconnectedness, or it’s about the way I handle shame.”

GO: Yes, that makes a lot of sense. It describes me.

JN: You had the feelings, but they were not “you”; you didn’t accept the identity.

GO: Exactly. In the beginning, though, I questioned it. I thought, “Maybe it’s not a lie, maybe there’s just something wrong with me and eventually, I’ll fit into this ‘gay’ thing and it will feel right and feel true.” But the real me was resisting this.

JN: You thought, “If I just keep trying a little longer, I’ll overcome my internalized homophobia.” But even though you engaged in the behavior, it wasn’t satisfying. Clients will tell me, the more I understand the origins of my same-sex attraction, the more it changes the quality of the homosexual experience because I know this attraction is not happening to me just because this guy with me is “hot.”

GO: Yes. Recognizing this has helped me to understand where some of these longings were coming from. I found myself attracted to “ever-straight” guys, and I think that’s because I wasn’t really looking for sex, I was looking for something much deeper than that.

JN: Yes. For a deeper same-sex bonding.

GO: But the problem is how compelling the act is. I remember how one of your articles on the NARTH website was saying that gay sex is a whole lot more intense for same-sex attracted guys than heterosexual sex is—there’s more of a “zing” to it—because gay sex is trying to meet needs that were never intended to be met in the sexual act. And I remember in the last interview you and I did, I talked about how whenever you add sex to a deeper need—when you try to gratify that deeper, unmet need in a sexual way—it really ramps the experience up, and so there’s this zing.

JN: Yes.

GO: But when you’re trying to get your emotional needs with men met in a non-sexual way, there’s inevitably this disappointment, and it’s like, “OK, I’ve got this great male friend and he’s really attentive to me and he wants to be with me and we do good things—but why is this experience not doing for me what the sexual experience did?”

JN: Right.

GO: Then, when you’re looking at being properly attracted to your wife, you can’t take all those deficit needs that you were trying to get fulfilled through sex with a man and transfer that same feeling to your experience with wife. They’re totally different things.

JN: Yes…they originate from totally different needs.

GO: Uh huh. . And so you have a couple of things to work on—first, getting your needs met properly with men without sex, without undue emotional dependency; and second, developing your true heterosexuality with your wife and letting that relationship become the complementary one that it has been naturally designed to be.

Fortunately, my wife long ago caught on to the fact that when I was having good, healthy relationships with men, I was more attentive to her.

JN: Yes, that’s what all my clients tell me….that healthy, ongoing male relationships are essential. Now, I’d like to go back to something you said before—“I was attracted to ever-straight men”….

GO: Yes, when I was acting out, I would be in a homosexual relationship two- to three-months or so, and I would get tired of my partner because he didn’t have what I was looking for. Before too long, I could see that the other man had the same void that I had.

JN: A void in masculine identity.

GO: Exactly.

JN: Let me ask this….has anything changed for you since our last interview, which was eleven years ago?

GO: Well, a lot has changed. I’ve gotten older! By this time in my life, I’m pretty much at ease now with all men. Once in a while I am still intimidated, but that was a big part of the origins of my homosexuality—that, and everyday envy.

JN: With just about every client I deal with, those same issues are there—intimidation and envy.

GO: So the older I get, the more I can just enjoy other men. Men used to seem more “mysterious” to me, and sometimes they still do, but whenever I get to know them a little bit better and get under their skin, I find out that we’re not so different after all.

JN: Of course! They’re not so mysterious after all; they’re “who you are.” Now, can you explain a little further why you believe that heterosexuality is the norm?

GO: I believe that we were designed and created for our bodies to go together, and for our emotions go together. I believe this is pretty self-evident.

JN: So you see the evidence of our biological design—our male-female complementarity.

GO: Yes. I mean, two tomcats really aren’t friends with each other—there’s always some form of rivalry. Of course, men can in fact be buddies and very close friends, but they can’t really be committed partners who meet each other’s sexual needs in a deep and ongoing way. They’re just not made for that. That’s where the promiscuity eventually comes in.

JN: And without the stabilizing and the grounding effect of a woman in the relationship, what two men have together, just can’t be marriage-like. It inevitably turns into an open relationship, as research on gay men shows. With lesbians, it’s the other way around; there’s the natural female tendency –doubled up when two women are together—for the relationship to become excessively dependent.

GO: Right. And speaking of marriage, that’s one of the wonderful things, the blessings I’ve had—I’ve got a wonderful wife. We are blessed to have a lot of the same interests and same values. And of course, as members of the opposite sex, we complement each other in terms of gender. In our relationship, I take a leadership role; she is very perceptive and a wise woman that does not “lord it over” me in any way. We’re made for each other, as a man and a woman. A man and a man simply aren’t capable of that type of a relationship.

JN: Looking back, what do you think were the things that happened to you in your childhood that could have laid the foundation for your homosexuality?

GO: Well, I have an older brother, and then there was me, but my dad just took a shine to my older brother. By the time I came along, they had been hoping for a girl, so when I was born, my mom, on the other hand, took a shine to me. I related more to her in the things we did, and it was understood that I was hers, and my brother was my dad’s.

JN: You know, a lot of the men I work with will say to me, “I was my mother’s son and my brother was my father’s son.” There’s often that same unspoken division.

GO: Uh huh. So that was the beginning of my feeling different from other men. Looking back in my own life and especially when I see other children, I believe some kids are saved from homosexuality by the intervention of a same-sex family member—for boys, sometimes an uncle or a grandpa. When I see this intervention in other families, I say, I’m so thankful that that little boy has this adult male is his life.

JN: All they need is one man who is involved in their life.ah

GO: I was so deficient in male relatives. No one around me.

JN: Did your father ever reach out to you; did he ever try to pull you into this circle of himself and his other son?

GO: You know, there was a time when I was really hard on both my parents. I blamed them for everything. My mom would often say, “You were always so special… we just had this bond.” Yeah, Mom, and that “special bond” really messed me up. My dad wasn’t all that bad of a guy. I was just one of those kids that especially needed a dad. He didn’t know how to be super-sensitive to what was going on with me. He was kind of into himself and the things he did.

JN: So you’re saying that he didn’t reach out to you and try to work with you?

GO: I can’t say that he did. But I don’t want to really degrade my dad; he had his faults, definitely, but later in life (he died when I was 34), and the last several years of his life especially, let’s just say that he was open to having a relationship with me. He didn’t pursue it and I was pretty defensive about a relationship myself, because when you grew up with a dad not wanting to hold you…there’s a certain block that stays there.

JN: That detachment.

GO: My parents had a difficult marriage and my mother looked to me for emotional support when my dad wasn’t available. Then, they would come back together, and things would be good again. During those good times, she didn’t need me, and I resented that.

JN: You resented being made to feel special, and then being dropped.

GO: Yes, but in the marriage, I saw her as the victim, and so I had to protect her. Of course, neither of my parents hurt me intentionally.

JN: Of course. There was no awareness of how this was affecting you.

GO: My mother is still alive, and I have a good relationship with her. I think she understands all this as best as she can, and she feels bad. I don’t know if she sees it as clearly as I might like her to, but she sees it enough, and that’s OK with me.

JN: Yes. So, over time, you have made peace about this.

GO: Yes.

JN: How did your brother fit into this?

GO: I actually had two brothers; one older and one younger. I also have a younger sister. Neither of my brothers struggled with this issue. I know that my older brother always cared about me, and I appreciated that. I told him about my homosexuality during the years I was acting out—roughly when I was age 20 to 24. He was three years older and married to a great lady, and had a couple of kids and lived in another state, and at the time, he and his wife were home with our extended family for the holidays and they came to my apartment to say goodbye. I was in a bad way—depressed and stuff—and as I said goodbye standing outside the window of their car, I said, “Oh by the way, I struggle with homosexuality…” He and his wife had eight hours driving home to think about what I had said, and when he got home he called me and said he loved me and cared about me and was sorry about my struggle.

JN: So you felt this loving from him many years later….What about when you were younger?

GO: He was older and more athletic and there was this rivalry thing at school. When your brother goes to junior high and is great in sports and you come along three years later, they expect all that from you, too, and then you fall on your face…Because I couldn’t do that, not surprisingly, at that time, there was this feeling from him of rejection.

JN: Was there any sexual stuff that set you up for homosexuality anywhere in childhood?

GO: There was one thing when I was eleven. At summer camp there was a counselor…he was probably 21 or 22. I just needed male acceptance, and here was this counselor that dotes over us—you know, boy, was he important to us kids…. The third night we were there, my bed was next to his, and he had his hand on my penis. But you know what? I never told anybody about that. At the time I didn’t think of it as bad.

JN: That’s very often the psychology of the abused child; they don’t think of what happened to them as significant. But here you were, a boy who craved male attention and esteem, and unfortunately, when the attention came to you, it had sex attached to it.

GO: Yes. But I never thought he was a bad guy for it. I just always thought of him fondly.

JN: Do you think this experience did you any harm?

GO: Looking back now, I think it did. It really fixated the object of my same-sex attraction. The guys that I’m most attracted to, are like he was—they are built like he was.

JN: If the sexual contact did not happen then, you would not have been fixated so much on that image?

GO: No, I think I probably would not have been fixated on that. I think I still would have had a lot of problems, though….Yeah…now that you mention it, it is funny I never thought that event was significant.

JN: I don’t know if you remember, but a number of years ago a prestigious journal of the American Psychological Association reported a study, and the conclusion was that boys are not necessarily harmed by sexual contact with an older man, and in fact in many cases, the boys remembered the experience positively, and considered it beneficial. So the authors of the article said we should stop using judgmental terms like “sexual abuse” to describe “positive” childhood experiences like these.

We protested this conclusion. As psychologists, shouldn’t we know that what feels, to the child, beneficial, can in fact be very harmful? Dr. Laura Schlesinger got involved in condemning the study—even Congress got involved. The APA had to issue a clarification and a partial disclaimer. That was the biggest public-relations crisis of the American Psychological Association, and it was NARTH that brought it to public attention. Before we got involved, no one in our profession had noticed the harmfulness and simplistic conclusions of the study…there seemed to be the typical prevailing attitude, “Who’s to say…???” Not surprisingly, that study had already begun to be used in legal cases as justification for excusing some same-sex child abusers from responsibility.

GO: Good for you. You know, I’ve thought about that childhood incident often…wondering , why is it that the “look” of that counselor remained so powerful in my memory for so long, and is still sometimes what I respond to…?

JN: Yes. You can see how that experience first put into motion the sexualization of your same-sex emotional needs.

Well, it’s about time for us to end this interview. Any last thing that you would like to add?

GO: Yes. I guess sometimes people have said of me, because I reject homosexuality, “You’re just not being true to yourself.” You know, I just don’t feel that way. I have indeed been true to myself—and I have so many blessings because of it. My family is just unbelievably important to me, and I can’t imagine life without them. I never would have had that if I had been true to what I once thought was myself – if I had been “true to” homosexuality and let it define me.

JN: Yes. That certainly summarizes it.

GO: Sex is so over-rated—heterosexual or homosexual. It’s a wonderful thing and it’s to be enjoyed and taken care of, but in the end, what’s really important is relationships, healthy relationships. That—to me—is being true to myself… being able to live out whatever days or years I have left in this lifetime, and to enjoy the healthy and full relationships that I never really experienced in my childhood.

JN: I certainly respect that decision and that understanding of your identity. And I am sure that your experience will give inspiration to others.

Thank you very much, Gordon.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has just released its “Task Force Report on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” (August 2009), a report issued by five psychologists and one psychiatrist who are all activists in gay causes.

Remarkably, the APA rejected, for membership on this committee, every practitioner of sexual-reorientation therapy who applied for inclusion.

The rejected applicants included–

• NARTH Past-President A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., a distinguished professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine, longtime practitioner of reorientation therapy, and co-author of several peer-reviewed journal articles studying change of sexual orientation. Dr. Byrd is considered one of the foremost experts on same-sex attraction and reorientation therapy. He has published numerous articles on sexual reorientation, as well as gender and parenting issues.

• George Rekers, Ph.D., Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioral Science at the University of South Carolina, editor of the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, a National Institute of Mental Health grant recipient, author of the book Growing Up Straight, as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles on gender-identity issues.

• Stanton Jones, Ph.D., Provost and Dean of the Graduate School and Professor of Psychology at Wheaton College, Illinois, the co-author of Homosexuality: The Use Of Scientific Research In The Church’s Moral Debate..

• Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. (author of this article), a founder of NARTH, practitioner of Reparative Therapy® for 25 years, and author of Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality and the 2009 book, Shame and Attachment Loss.

• Mark A. Yarhouse, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology, Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Dr. Yarhouse is co-author of Homosexuality: The Use Of Scientific Research In The Church’s Moral Debate and has published many peer-reviewed articles on homosexuality.

All of these highly-qualified candidates were rejected by APA President Brehm. Instead, Dr. Brehm appointed the following individuals:

Chair: Judith M. Glassgold, Psy.D. She sits on the board of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy and is past president of APA’s Gay and Lesbian Division 44.

Jack Drescher, M.D., well-known as a gay-activist psychiatrist, serves on the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy and is one of the most vocal opponents of Reparative Therapy®.

A. Lee Beckstead, Ph.D., is a counseling psychologist who counsels LBBT-oriented clients from traditional religious backgrounds. He is a staff associate at the University of Utah’s Counseling Center and although he believes reorientation therapy can sometimes be helpful, he has expressed strong skepticism, and has urged the Mormon Church to revise its policy on homosexuality and instead, affirm church members who believe homosexuality reflects their true identity.

Beverly Greene, Ph.D., ABPP, was the founding co-editor of the APA Division 44 (gay and lesbian division) series, Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Issues.

Robin Lin Miller, Ph.D., is a community psychologist and associate professor at Michigan State University. From 1990-1995, she worked for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City and has written for gay publications.

Roger L. Worthington, Ph.D., is the interim Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In 2001 he was awarded the “2001 Catalyst Award,” from the LGBT Resource Center, University of Missouri, Columbia, for “speaking up and out and often regarding LGBT issues.” He co-authored “Becoming an LGBT-Affirmative Career Advisor: Guidelines for Faculty, Staff, and Administrators” for the National Consortium of Directors of Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Resources in Higher Education.

Why a Gay Identity
Obstructs Objectivity

The fact that the Task Force was composed entirely of activists in gay causes, most of whom are also personally gay, goes a long way toward explaining their failure to be scientifically objective.

To be “gay-identified” means to have undergone a counter-cultural rite of passage. According to the coming-out literature, when a person accepts and integrates a gay identity, he must give up the hope of ever changing his feelings and fantasies. The process is as follows: the adolescent discovers his same-sex attraction; this causes him confusion, shame and guilt. He desperately hopes that he will somehow become straight so that he will fit in with his friends and family. However, he eventually comes to believe that he is gay, and in fact can never be otherwise. Therefore, he must accept his homosexuality in the face of social rejection, and find pride in his homoerotic desires as something good, desirable, natural, and (if he is a person of faith) a gift from his creator.

The majority of the Task Force members clearly underwent this same process of abandoning the hope that they could diminish their homosexuality and develop their heterosexual potential. Coming to the Task Force from this perspective, they would be strongly invested in discouraging others from having the opportunity to change — i.e., “If it did not work for me, then it cannot work for you.”

Conducting the Task Force Study

As the basis of their report, the Task Force members say they reviewed several hundred studies which, over the past century, have found subjects who changed their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual.

The published and peer-reviewed studies they considered are all in some way flawed, the committee concluded, and therefore constitute “insufficient evidence” of the possibility of change. As a result, psychologists are advised to avoid telling their clients they can change their feelings. (The committee does grant, however, that some people can and do change their sexual identity–their sense of “who they are”–and go on to live heterosexually functional lives.)

How could the committee have reached a conclusion that would so sweepingly dismiss decades of research evidence? Some of it was conducted by well-known and highly prestigious professsionals, such as Irving Bieber, Charles Socarides, Houston MacIntosh, and Robert Spitzer–the same psychiatrist who oversaw the removal of homosexuality in 1973 from the diagnostic manual.

It was Dr. Spitzer who concluded in his recent report (published thirty years later by a prestigious journal — the Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol. 32, No. 5, October 2003, pp. 403-417):

“Many patients, provided with informed consent about the possibility that they will be disappointed if the therapy does not succeed, can make a rational choice to work toward developing their heterosexual potential and minimizing their unwanted homosexual attractions.”

He adds, “[T]he ability to make such a choice should be considered fundamental to client autonomy and self-determination.”

Lack of Diversity Among Task Force Members

If the APA truly wished to study sexual orientation, they would have followed established scientific practice by choosing a balanced committee that included individuals with differing values and worldviews. Particularly, they would have selected clinicians who see the value of sexual-reorientation — not just such therapy’s philosophical opponents.

Instead, they “turned the henhouse over to the foxes” by selecting gay-activists members who are well-known for their disapproval of efforts on the part of other homosexual individuals to seek change. The committee prefaces their report by stating as “scientific fact” their view — which has not been scientifically demonstrated (and, which is as much a question of philosophy as of science) that homosexual attractions and behavior are no different from heterosexuality.

Why did the APA select only such individuals? Perhaps, in well-meaning ignorance, they thought only gay activists could be experts on homosexuality. Perhaps they were intimidated by the threat of “homophobia” if they invited reorientation therapists to participate.

The scientific bias of the Task Force is further evidenced by four facts:

• The Task Force failed to reveal the well-documented, far-higher level of pathology associated with a homosexual lifestyle. If they had truly been interested in science, they would have believed it their duty to warn the public about the psychological and medical health risks associated with homosexual and bisexual behavior. Their failure to advise the public about the risks not only betrays their lack of commitment to science, but prevents sexually confused young people from accurately assessing the choices available to them.

• Why do some people become homosexual? The reader of the Report might justifiably expect some discussion of the factors associated with the development of same-sex attractions. Instead, the Task Force failed to study the risk factors—instead, saying that it is a “scientific fact” that homosexuality is “as developmentally normal as heterosexuality.”

• The Task Force did not study individuals who reported treatment success. Even if (for the sake of argument) therapeutic change had been reported to be successful in only one case, then the committee should have asked, “What therapeutic methods brought about this change?” But since the Task Force considered change unnecessary and undesirable, they showed no interest in pursuing this avenue of investigation.

• The Task Force’s standard for successful treatment for unwanted homosexuality was far higher than that for any other psychological condition. What if they had studied treatment success for narcissism, borderline personality disorder, or alcohol/food/drug abuse? All of these conditions, like unwanted homosexuality, cannot be expected to resolve totally, and necessitate some degree of lifelong struggle. Many of these conditions are, in fact, notoriously resistant to treatment. Yet there is no debate about the usefulness of treatment for these conditions: psychologists continue to treat them, despite their uncertain outcomes.

Different Concepts of Wholeness

The Task Force moved on to address religious beliefs that conflict with the affirmation of homosexuality. They attempt to resolve this conflict through creating a false distinction.

Organismic Congruence. Their report says, “Affirmative and multicultural models of LGB psychology give priority to organismic congruence (i.e., living with a sense of wholeness in one’s experiential self)” (p. 18).

Telic Congruence. This applies to people of faith who do not wish to integrate their homosexuality; they are instead “living consistently within one’s valuative goals.”

This is a half-truth, and a deceptive distinction. It implies that persons striving to live a life consistent with their religious values must deny their true sexual selves. They will not experience organismic wholeness, self-awareness and mature development of their identity. These attributes are only possible, by their definition, for individuals who embrace, rather than reject, their same-sex attractions. Religious individuals seeking “valuative congruence” are assumed to experience instead a constriction of their true selves through a religiously imposed behavioral control.

This erroneous distinction (one that can only be made by persons who have never known the harmonious integration of religious teachings) misunderstands and offends persons belonging to traditional faiths.

Rather, the members of the Task Force need to understand that the person of traditional faith finds his biblically based values to be guides, signposts, and sources of inspiration that will guide him on his journey toward wholeness. He intuitively senses that they lead him toward a rightly-gendered wholeness which allows him to live his life in a manner congruent with his creator’s design.

This wholeness is satisfying, experiential, and deeply integrated into the person’s being. It is achieved not by suppression, repression or denial–but by understanding homosexuality within the greater context of a mature religious wisdom that is integrated into a scientifically accurate psychology.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

The client who enters Reparative Therapy® is in the midst of a crisis that is disordering his life. Now, his heart and mind have been opened to the need to look within. His intent is to rid himself of a behavioral problem as quickly as possible, but there will be no quick fixes: to re-order the dis-order, he must first descend into the depths of his deeply felt emotions.

Reparative Body Work

During therapy, he will encounter a course of what we call Body Work. It consists of three phases – (1) the defensive; (2) the core-affective encounter, and (3) a final, integrative phase.

Our client begins the session in the defensive phase, not wanting to face and fully feel the conflict in his life. His state of mind is dominated by self-protection as the therapist attempts to move him beyond his anxiety and into the core-affective phase.

Slowly surrendering his defenses, he will enter into and become overwhelmed by his deepest feelings about his personal struggle. This is the essence of Body Work; while maintaining emotional contact with the therapist, he must fully engage (on a body-memory as well as psychic level) his core-affective state, along with the physical tension responses that retain those feelings.

Then begins the cognitive integration phase, where he attempts to understand how his life history has influenced the behavioral decisions that have brought him into therapy. This is the period of Meaning Transformation, which integrates his life crisis into a larger perspective.

Those three phases of the psychological journey may be understood as a microcosmic sequence of the same personal transformation that is represented in the epic themes of both Greek classic and religious literature. Across time and cultures, the three phases convey the same universal truth about human development.

The client believes his problem is one of unwanted attractions; but as he plumbs the depths of the unconscious, he discovers that his problem is really not so much about sexuality, as it is about everything else – particularly, it is a deeper identity problem.

The Universal Transformative Experience

In the epic poems of the Greeks, the transformative experience shows us a three-phase passage: exile, journey, and the return home. Christian literature portrays the three phases as descent, conversion, and ascent. Old Testament biblical stories depict sin, repentance, and grace. In the Book of Exodus, the great transition is the journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land; in psychology, the slavery is emotional repression and the Promised Land is self-autonomy.

This journey always begins with the warrior (or pilgrim) who must radically interrupt his everyday life to be confronted with a test. Our client, confronting his deepest emotions, like the warrior, will encounter frightening forces which are to be wrestled with and tamed.

Returning Home: The Classic Tradition

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Virgil’s Aeneid, we have epic tales of descent into the wilderness, and of progress through purification experiences – ending with a final, glorious ascent. Among the Greek mythologies, the allegory of the soul’s progress is found in Homer’s Odyssey. With the warrior Ulysses, we see a man cast on the ocean and tossed about in a small boat that brings home the lesson of his frail human power.

The Christian Tradition

This same quest to go home, to people of faith, is the struggle toward holiness. Within the Christian literary tradition we see the inspiration of the Biblical stories, foremost of which is Christ’s crucifixion and death; his descent into Hell; and his final resurrection. In the Bible, we see the story of the prodigal son who squandered his inheritance, then returned, chastened, and was ultimately redeemed. Greatest among the Old Testament stories is the account of the exodus from Egypt, vividly describing Israel’s escape from slavery, the perilous desert crossing and fording of the Jordan River, and ultimate release into the Promised Land.

In Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress and St. Bonaventure’s The Journey of the Mind Into God, the wayfarer takes a similar journey. In Dante’s medieval poem, The Divine Comedy, we see the pilgrim traveling into the Inferno, through Purgatory, and then into Paradise. The Divine Comedy portrays the same three phases of interior transformation: descent, conversion, and finally, ascent.

The Journey as Purification

In many of the texts about transformation, the journey is viewed as a process of purification. Successful completion of the process, in Greek mythology, requires the purging of pride (hubris). In religious texts, the pilgrim must purify himself of the Seven Deadly Sins. Within both secular and religious traditions, this purging process is vividly experienced as a sort of “death.”

Reparative Therapy® acknowledges a similar process; we see a death of narcissistic and False-Self defenses with which the client on some level identifies, mistakenly thinking them to represent his True Self. Here, something old (the False Self) must die in order for something new, more beautiful, to be born. Re-birth involves the client’s transformative discovery that life can be lived without those old defenses. When he surrenders the Shame Posture and begins to relate to others through the Assertive Self, he sees his True-Gendered Self slowly emerging.

And always, the journey ends the same way: with a return home to the woman. In all these traditions, it is the feminine who is the giver of life, the mediator of the inner world. Fulfillment of masculine identity – the goal of Reparative Therapy® – now permits the client to receive this once-feared feminine power.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

When the client opens up his emotional life to the therapist, he has engaged in an act of trust which links him to the therapist in an elegant, intimate “dance.” The central healing process of psychotherapy is this experience of attunement.

One very important lesson the client learns in psychotherapy is the vital art of simultaneous feeling-describing. Typically, he has “disowned” aspects of his interior emotional life.Therefore, making that connection between feeling-describing in the presence of another person is almost always distressing to him.

When parents have failed to accurately mirror the small child’s internal experience, and failed to model the lesson that feeling and expressing his feelings is safe, the child will become emotionally disorganized and emotionally isolated. He grows up learning to distrust his own interior perceptions, and becomes prone to shame-infused shutdowns of emotional relations.

The child’s defenses will cause him to shift his attention back and forth from content to feelings, and then back again to content, but avoiding making the link between the two.

At critical moments of strong emotion, I often need to encourage the client, “Try to stay in contact with me and with your feelings at the same time.” Establishing this neural link between thinking and feeling initiates the vital process of unification between left-brain and right brain-hemispheres, between cognitive and affective, between conscious and unconscious, through the medium of human interaction.

Misunderstandings, hurt feelings and hidden resentments are inevitable in the therapeutic relationship. They offer the client an opportunity to learn how to reengage emotionally after a relational breach. Negotiating his way through such an experience shows the client how relationships can survive the critical process of “attunement–misattunement—reattunement” and reveals how relational trust, when lost, can in fact be regained.

Reattunement moments link the client back to the therapist, and also back to himself. Through this process, he gradually increases his capacity to tolerate distress in human relationships. At its best, this emotional reconnection is reminiscent of the earliest, most primal attunement between mother and child.

One never actually “undo” a trauma of the past, of course.Yet a good therapeutic relationship can lay down new, positive neurological pathways on top of the old, traumatic experiences.For too long, these traumas have prevented the person from engaging others through the full sense of personhood that he now longs to claim.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

Over the years, many men have come to my office for help in changing their sexual orientation. Homosexuality doesn’t work in their lives. It just never feels right or true. To these men, it is clear that gay relationships don’t reflect who they are as gendered beings, and that they have been designed–physically and emotionally–for opposite-sex coupling.

But reorientation therapy is a long and difficult process, with no guarantee of success. What if the man doesn’t change? Will he have gained anything of value?

People are often surprised to hear that in Reparative Therapy®, typically there is very little discussion about sex. In fact, it is a mistake for any psychotherapy to focus exclusively on one particular symptom. Clients come in with a difficulty that they want removed from their life–an eating disorder, gambling obsession, or unwanted same-sex attraction– but good therapy addresses the whole person.

I typically tell my clients in the very first session, “Rule Number One is, never accept anything I say unless it resonates as true for you.” The experience of the client, whatever that may be, must always trump any preconceived theory. Reparative theory holds that the origin of SSA is in unmet emotional and identification needs with the same sex, and the client is free to accept or reject that premise. If that doesn’t feel true to him, he will usually decide to leave therapy after one or two sessions.

Through a relationship with an attuned therapist, the client discovers how it feels to emotionally disclose to another man–revealing those long-buried, shame-evoking feelings. He experiences from him a deep acceptance of wherever he is in his life, at that point in time, whether he changes or not. Such an experience is always deeply therapeutic.

Besides an enhanced ability to develop genuine male friendships, the client will discover healthier relationships with females– where he learns to prohibit the boundary violations with women that may have caused him to surrender his separate, masculine selfhood.

But what about the client who fails to change; will he be left in a sort of “intimacy limbo” — not heterosexual, yet unable to be intimate with men? The truth is, our client was never intimate with men. That is why he came to therapy. He also came to us because he believes that true sexual intimacy with a person of the same gender is, in fact, not possible: same-sex eroticism simply fails to match his biological and emotional design, and does not reflect who he is on the deepest level.

Other men enter Reparative Therapy® as gay-identified from the start. With those clients, we agree on a precondition to our working together–that is, we will not address the issue of sexual-identity change, but we will work on all of their other problems in living. And so we work on issues like capacity for intimacy, problems with self-esteem, internalized shame, childhood trauma, and the search for identity.

Some of our clients decide to change course and embrace homosexuality as “who they are.” Others never lose their conviction that they were designed to be heterosexual, and they persist toward that goal. Still others remain ambivalent about change, while going in and out of gay life over a period of months. We accept their choices even if we don’t agree with them, because we accept the person.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

In recent years, I have been gratified to see an increasing number of graduate students interested in working with same-sex attracted (SSA) clients who seek change. Some of these young students struggled with this issue in their own personal lives, and now, they want to take the lessons they learned to help others.

“But is this work worth the price?” they ask.

In reply, I’d like to describe both the positives and the negatives.

The Negatives

People who cannot handle controversy “need not apply.” You’ll quickly learn to refrain from telling the friendly passenger sitting next to you on a plane, what you really do for a living. (You may well discover that this newfound acquaintance is not as open-minded as he seemed at first.) Ditto for cocktail parties. Some people will laud you as a modern-day hero, while others will intolerantly accuse you of intolerance–quite oblivious to that inherent contradiction. Prepare yourself to be misunderstood.

If you use the term “Reparative Therapy®” to describe your approach, know that it’s both a blessing and a curse. Taken literally, it may sound insulting (as in the idea of “repairing” someone, as you would fix a car). Yet that’s not what the term really means. “Reparative” refers to the concept of homosexuality as a reparative drive, which is actually good news to for the client suffering with unwanted SSA. Many men were led to believe that their SSA reveals them to be “weird,” “perverted,” and “degenerate.” But now, through the concept of reparative drive, they realize that their felt needs are a normal and healthy (although developmentally delayed) attempt to gain the gender bonding that they failed to get in childhood. Grasping the reparative-drive concept diminishes the client’s shame and self-loathing, and it also lays out a positive blueprint for change; namely, through the acquisition of nonsexual masculine intimacy. All this requires considerable explanation, but to very many clients, it gradually begins to ring true as the story that explains their lives.

The client quickly discovers that the reparative therapist offers him a more profound acceptance than he has found in the gay community, where the # 1 taboo says, “Never ask why you’re gay.” (See my interview on the NARTH website with former gay activist Michael Glatze.). In contrast, in Reparative Therapy®, the client is encouraged to openly investigate the emotional and bonding deficits of his childhood.

Another disadvantage…you’ll be repeatedly frustrated to see the popular media misrepresent you and quote you out of context. Be prepared to be betrayed by that nice LA Times staff writer who calls your home, gets a half-hour of great quotes, and only uses one sentence–out of context…the very one that mischaracterizes you. Some time later, you may be absolutely convinced by the friendly Washington Post reporter that she, unlike the other reporters, really does want a fair and balanced story, so you bite the bait–believing that fairness will ultimately prevail. But then when the article comes out, you are outraged once again.

Here’s another paradox: Expect that quite a few therapist-colleagues will privately encourage you and reassure you, “You’re doing a great job.” They admire your work and say they are on your side. But, they admit, “I could never say this publicly– it would be too destructive to my career.”

Possibly the most difficult negative is this: Expect to work sincerely with a hurting teenager who’s exploring his sexual-identity options, who sincerely believes that humanity is designed for heterosexuality, and who does very well during the months he’s with you. Then five years later, you find out that he’s been elected president of his college’s Gay and Lesbian Club–and, to your dismay, he now has a video on YouTube that trashes you and your work.

It’s not unusual for young people who are questioning their sexuality to go back-and-forth one or two times before they settle on their sexual identity. The young client with whom you have a close and understanding relationship today, may very well find comfort and support with a newfound group of gay-activist friends, and then decide to publicly reject you and your ideas.

The Positives

If you have not been discouraged by now, read on. The benefits do far outweigh the costs. You have the privilege of investigating and developing a new area of treatment that flies in the face of what the APA–under their current stranglehold of enforced silence about the origins of homosexuality–is trying to accomplish in this area. There’s a counter-cultural satisfaction in achieving success in a field where political correctness reigns. (This satisfaction far outweighs the numbing outrage you feel each time you hear about another episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show.)

But most of all, you have the privilege of working in the most intimate way with idealistic men who are determined not to follow their unwanted feelings, but to fulfill their dream of a traditional marriage and family.

There is great satisfaction is seeing a man come into your consulting room for the first time after having lived a life of private torture; for years, he has struggled against his unwanted SSA, having no clue as to why it torments him so, or what he can do to help himself. As a victim of political correctness in the culture war, he was never offered another perspective about the origins of his SSA. His coming to you is the last step in the road, and in 45 minutes, he “knows that you know,” and he begins to assemble all the little fragments of his life–the hurts, the confusion, the shame, the distractions, the pain, the alienation, the loneliness–and after he presents all these fragments, you, as his therapist, can step into the middle of all of it and help him sort it all out in a way that suddenly makes really profound sense, and has life-transforming effect. For the therapist, this work requires a level of self-giving and exquisite attunement that leaves us exhausted, yet paradoxically exhilarated, at the end of the day.

A powerful fringe benefit, at times when you feel discouraged and begin to believe that the debate will never be won, is receiving a letter in the mail with a picture enclosed of a bride and groom. The note inside says “thank you” from a man you worked with many years ago. Or, when you get a letter from a man who expresses his profound appreciation that you helped him save his decades-long marriage–after another psychologist had told him he was born homosexual and would only find peace if he left his wife and children to begin life anew with another man. In my desk drawer, I keep a collection of such letters and pictures to remind myself what the work is all about.

Indeed, we have the privilege of walking with many such clients to Hell and back.

by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D.

It is widely agreed that many factors likely contribute to the formation of male homosexuality. One factor may be the predisposing biological influence of temperament (Byne and Parsons, l993). No scientific evidence, however, shows homosexuality to be directly inherited in the sense that eye color is inherited (Satinover, 1996).

Recent political pressure has resulted in a denial of the importance of the factor most strongly implicated by decades of previous clinical research–developmental factors, particularly the influence of parents. A review of the literature on male homosexuality reveals extensive reference to the prehomosexual boy’s relational problems with both parents (West 1959, Socarides 1978, Evans 1969); among some researchers, the father-son relationship has been particularly implicated (Bieber et al 1962, Moberly 1983).

One psychoanalytic hypothesis for the connection between poor early father-son relationship and homosexuality is that during the critical gender-identity phase of development, the boy perceives the father as rejecting. As a result, he grows up failing to fully identify with his father and the masculinity he represents.

Nonmasculine or feminine behavior in boyhood has been repeatedly shown to be correlated with later homosexuality (Green, l987, Zuger, l988); taken together with related factors–particularly the often-reported alienation from same-sex peers and poor relationship with father–this suggests a failure to fully gender-identify. In its more extreme form, this same syndrome (usually resulting in homosexuality) is diagnosed as Childhood Gender-Identity Deficit (Zucker and Bradley, 1996).

One likely cause for “failure to identify” is a narcissistic injury inflicted by the father onto the son (who is usually temperamentally sensitive) during the preoedipal stage of the boy’s development. This hurt appears to have been inflicted during the critical gender-identity phase when the boy must undertake the task of assuming a masculine identification. The hurt manifests itself as a defensive detachment from masculinity in the self, and in others. As an adult, the homosexual is often characterized by this complex which takes the form of “the hurt little boy” (Nicolosi, 1991).

During the course of my treatment of ego-dystonic male homosexuals, I have sometimes requested that fathers participate in their sons’ treatment. Thus I have been able to familiarize myself with some of the fathers’ most common personality traits. This discussion attempts to identify some clinical features common to those fathers of homosexuals.

For this report, I have focused on sixteen fathers who I consider typical in my practice–twelve fathers of homosexual sons (mid-teens to early 30’s), and four fathers of young, gender-disturbed, evidently prehomosexual boys (4- to 7- year-olds). The vast majority of these fathers appeared to be psychologically normal and, also like most fathers, well-intentioned with regard to their sons; in only one case was the father seriously disturbed, inflicting significant emotional cruelty upon his son.

However as a group, these fathers were characterized by the inability to counter their sons’ defensive detachment from them. They felt helpless to attract the boy into their own masculine sphere.

Clinical Impressions

As a whole, these fathers could be characterized as emotionally avoidant. Exploration of their histories revealed that they had typically had poor relationships with their own fathers. They tended to defer to their wives in emotional matters and appeared particularly dependent on them to be their guides, interpreters and spokespersons.

While these men expressed sincere hope that their sons would transition to heterosexuality, nevertheless they proved incapable of living up to a long-term commitment to help them toward that goal. In his first conjoint session, one father cried openly as his 15-year-old son expressed his deep disappointment with him; yet for months afterward, he would drive his son to his appointment without saying a word to him in the car.

Further, while they often appeared to be gregarious and popular, these fathers tended not to have significant male friendships. The extent to which they lacked the ability for male emotional encounter was too consistent and pronounced to be dismissed as simply “typical of the American male.” Rather, my clinical impression of these fathers as a group was that there existed some significant limitation in their ability to engage emotionally with males.

From their sons’ earliest years, these fathers showed a considerable variation in their ability to recognize and respond to the boys’ emotional withdrawal from them. Some naively reported their perception of having had a “great” relationship with their sons, while their sons themselves described the relationship as having been “terrible.” Approximately half the fathers, however, sadly admitted that the relationship was always poor and, in retrospect, perceived their sons as rejecting them from early childhood. Why their sons rejected them remained for most fathers a mystery, and they could only express a helpless sense of resignation and confusion. When pushed, these men would go further to express hurt and deep sadness. Ironically, these sentiments–helplessness, hurt and confusion–seemed to be mutual; they are the same expressed by my clients in describing their own feelings in the relationship with their fathers.

The trait common to fathers of homosexuals seemed to be an incapacity to summon the ability to correct relational problems with their sons. All the men reported feeling “stuck” and helpless in the face of their sons’ indifference or explicit rejection of them. Rather than actively extending themselves, they seemed characteristically inclined to retreat, avoid and feel hurt. Preoccupied with self-protection and unwilling to risk the vulnerability required to give to their sons, they were unable to close the emotional breach. Some showed narcissistic personality features. Some fathers were severe and capable of harsh criticism; some were brittle and rigid; overall, most were soft, weak and placid, with a characteristic emotional inadequacy. The term that comes to mind is the classic psycholanalytic term “acquiescent” – the acquiescent father.

Homosexuality is almost certainly due to multiple factors and cannot be reduced soley to a faulty father-son relationship. Fathers of homosexual sons are usually also fathers of heterosexual sons–so the personality of the father is clearly not the sole cause of homosexuality. Other factors I have seen in the development of homosexuality include a hostile, feared older brother; a mother who is a very warm and attractive personality and proves more appealing to the boy than an emotionally removed father; a mother who is actively disdainful of masculinity; childhood seduction by another male; peer labelling of the boy due to poor athletic ability or timidity; in recent years, cultural factors encouraging a confused and uncertain youngster into an embracing gay community; and in the boy himself, a particularly sensitive, relatively fragile, often passive disposition.

At the same time, we cannot ignore the striking commonality of these fathers’ personalities.

In two cases, the fathers were very involved and deeply committed to the treatment of their sons, but conceded that they were not emotionally present during their sons’ early years. In both cases it was not personality, but circumstance that caused the fathers’ emotional distance. In one case the father was a surgeon from New Jersey who reported atteding medical school while trying to provide financial support for his young family of three children. The second father, an auto mechanic from Arizona, reported that when he was only 21 years old, he was forced to marry the boy’s mother because she was pregnant. He admitted never loving the boy’s mother, having been physically absent from the home, and essentially having abandoned both mother and boy. Both fathers, now more mature and committed to re-establishing contact with their sons, participated enthusiastically in their therapy. But in both cases, the sons had, by then, become resistant to establishing an emotional connection with their fathers.

Attempt at Therapeutic Dialogue

My overall impression of fathers in conjoint sessions was of a sense of helplessness, discomfort and awkwardness when required to directly interact with their sons.

These men tended not to trust psychological concepts and communication techniques and often seemed confused and easily overwhelmed with the challenge to dialogue in depth. Instructions which I offered during consultation, when followed, were followed literally, mechanically and without spontaneity. A mutual antipathy, a stubborn resistance and a deep grievance on the part of both fathers and sons was clearly observable. At times I felt myself placed in the position of “mother interpreter,” a role encouraged by fathers and at times by sons. As “mother interpreter,” I found myself inferring feeling and intent from the father’s fragmented phrases and conveying that fuller meaning to the son, and vice versa from son to father.

Some fathers expressed concern with “saying the wrong thing,” while others seemed paralyzed by fear. During dialogue, fathers demonstrated great difficulty in getting past their own self-consciousness and their own reactions to what their sons were saying. This limited their empathetic attunement to the therapeutic situation, and to their sons’ position and feelings.

As their sons spoke to them, these fathers seemed blocked and unable to respond. Often they could only respond by saying that they were “too confused,” “too hurt,” or “too frustrated” to dialogue. One father said he was “too angry” to attend the sessions of his teenage son–a message conveyed to me by the mother. At the slightest sign of improvement in the father-son relationship, a few fathers seemed too ready to flee, concluding “Everything is okay – can I go now?”

Treatment Interventions

Before conjoint father-son sessions begin, the client should be helped to gain a clear sense of what he wants from his father. To simply expose the father to a list of complaints is of no value. He should also decide on a clear, constructive way to ask for this. Such preparation shifts the son from a position of helpless complaining, to staying centered on his genuine needs and the effective expression of them.

The Deadly Dilemma

Eventually, within the course of conjoint sessions a particular point will be reached which I call “the deadly dilemma.” This deadlock in dialogue–which seems to duplicate the earliest father-son rupture–occurs in two phases as follows:

Phase 1: With the therapist’s assistance, the son expresses his needs and wants to his father. Hearing his son, the father becomes emotionally affected, so much so that he cannot respond to his son’s disclosure. He is overwhelmed by his own reactions, becoming so “angered,” “hurt,” “upset,” or “confused” that he cannot attend to his son’s needs. Blocked by his own internal reactions, he is unable to give what his son asks of him.

Phase 2: In turn, the son is unable to tolerate his father’s insular emotional reaction in place of the affirmative response he seeks from him. To accept his father’s non-responses, the son feels he must abandon the needs he has expressed. The only recourse for the son is to retreat again to the defensive distancing which is already at the core of the father-son relationship. The son cannot empathize with the father’s non-responsiveness because to do so is painfully reminiscent of childhood patterns that are associated with his own deep hurt and anger: namely the imperative, “My father’s needs must always come before mine.” The son’s hurt and anger is in reaction to what appears to him to be “just more lame excuses” for Dad’s inability to give the attention, affection or approval he has so long desired from him. Indeed, to the son this seems like Dad’s old ploy, with all the associated historical pain.

This deadly dilemma originated, I believe, during the preverbal level of infancy. As one father’s recollections confirmed, “My son would never look at me. I would hold his face with my hands and force him to look at me, but he would always avert his eyes.” Other men have described an “unnatural indifference” to their fathers during their growing-up years.

During the course of therapy with these fathers, I began to see the deep hurt in them–a hurt that came from their sons’ indifference to their attempts (however meager) to improve the relationship.

Reflecting on his now-elderly father, one client sadly recalled:

“I feel sorry for my father. He always had a certain insensitivity, an emotional incompetence. Many of the interactions at home simply went over his head. He was dense, inadequate. I feel a pity for him.”

These fathers appeared unwilling or unable to be open and vulnerable to their sons; unable to reach out, to hear their sons’ pain and anger with respect to them, and unable to respond honestly. Their emotional availability was blocked and they were unable to turn the relational problem around. Rather they remained removed, seemingly dispassionate and helpless.

In conjoint sessions, none of the fathers were capable of taking the lead in dialogue. When dialogue became stagnant, they were unable to initiate communication. I believe the consistent inability of these fathers to get past their own blocks and reach out to their sons played a significant role in these boys’ inability to move forward into full, normal masculine identification and heterosexuality.

Bibliography

Bieber, I. et al (1962) Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals. New York: Basic Books.

Byne, W. and Parsons, B., “Human sexual orientation: the biologic theories reappraised,” Archives of General Psychiatry, vol. 50:228-239, March l993.

Evans, R. (1969). Childhood parental relationships of homosexual men. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 33:129-135.

Green, Richard (l987) “The Sissy Boy Syndrome” and the Development of Homosexuality. New Haven, Ct.: Yale U. Press.

Moberly, Elizabeth (1983) Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic. Greenwood, S.C.: Attic Press.

Nicolosi, Joseph (l991) Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality; A New Clinical Approach. Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson, 1991.

Satinover, J. (1996). Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books.

Socarides, Charles (1978). Homosexuality. New York: Jason Aronson.

West, D.J. (1959). Parental figures in the genesis of male homosexuality. International Journal of Social Psychiatry 5:85-97.

Zucker, K. and Bradley, S. (1995) Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents. N.Y.: The Guilford Press.

Zuger, Bernard (l988) Is Early Effeminate Behavior in Boys Early Homosexuality? Comprehensive Psychiatry, vol. 29, no. 5 (September/October) p. 509-519.