“Initial Empirical and Clinical findings Concerning the Change Process for Ex-Gays” by Warren Throckmorton, Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, June 2002, Vol. 33, No. 3.
by Dr. Ralph Blair
he director of counseling at politically and religiously conservative Grove City College presents his survey of reports of religiously-motivated and mediated “ex-gay” promise.
Acknowledging that “ex-gay is a term that often provokes extreme reactions,” he says it was introduced to the counseling professions by the Pattisons in 1980. They were husband and wife. He was a psychiatrist. She was not, though Throckmorton doesn’t note this. Neither does he note that: (1) it was she who spoke with the 11 self-styled “ex-gays,” (2) they’d been selected for her as “best cases” by a ministry’s two “ex-gay” leaders, and (3) these two men later fell in love and, as a couple, left “ex-gay” ministry. He says that “although some of the men reported homosexual fantasies postchange, Pattison and Pattison [sic] did not interpret this finding as evidence that the men had not changed. … Thus, the basic shift was assumed.” He is probably unaware that, at a national meeting of evangelicals in mental health held a short time after their article appeared in the American Journal of Psychiatry’s special issue on “folk healing,” Pattison was challenged on his too-easy dismissal of the continuing homosexual fantasies of these “ex-gays.” He shot back in anger: “Who doesn’t have homosexual fantasies?!”
“What does ex-gay mean?” Throckmorton quotes veteran “ex-gay” leader Frank Worthen: “We do not attempt to make heterosexuals out of homosexuals. Rather, we attempt to change a person’s identity, the way a person looks at himself. We encourage the former gay to drop the label homosexual from his life. However, we do not ask him to become dishonest about his struggle with homosexuality. He is a Christian who has a homosexual problem, rather than a homosexual who believes in Christ Jesus.”
Given this modest aim of a seasoned “ex-gay” leader, what does Throckmorton mean in his Abstract: “Some kind of change appears to occur for many who identify themselves as ex-gay”? “Some kind of change” includes continuing homosexual fantasies and a mere dropping of the “homosexual” label. So right after these references to the Pattisons and Worthen, he asserts: “Thus, ex-gay refers both to people who have changed and also to people who are in the process of changing their lesbian or gay male identity.”
Is this the change that is sought by those “who request sexual reorientation” – those who are the focus of his concern? Is this what their parents are pushing them to achieve? Is this what their churches expect from “ex-gay” intervention?
Throckmorton’s six reports are based in self-reported testimonies of self-styled “ex-gays,” five from evangelical Christian groups and one from a Mormon group. Findings range from the predominating identity change to behavior change. “Researchers” based their findings on in-person and telephone conversations and on written testimonies. Some observations: “ex-lesbians … reconstruct[ed] their personal biographies more in keeping with an ex-lesbian identity,” “change seems primarily related to adopting a new interpretive schema,” “the ex-gay label is evidence of a higher moral identity,” and “a hope for change [was] deemed powerful.” In one study, “The homosexual group actually reported better behavioral success than the bisexual group.” Even the study by the major “reparative” therapist, Joseph Nicolosi, “did not ask respondents to assess various aspects of sexual orientation, such as fantasies, attractions, and behaviors before and after change, so,” Throckmorton observes, “exact assessment of the degree of change is not exactly known.” He quotes Nicolosi’s admitting that “conversion therapy is not appropriate for all clients. Clients who have decided they wish to affirm a gay identity could feel shamed and emotionally hurt if therapists attempted to impose conversion therapy on them.”
Throckmorton concludes: “Neither gay-affirmative nor ex-gay interventions should be assumed to be the preferred approach to recommend to clients presenting with concerns over sexual identity.” He urges that “Practitioners can inform clients that many mental health professionals believe same-gender sexual orientation cannot be changed but that others believe change is possible.” Neither of these statements is helpful. So he adds: “When clients cannot decide which therapeutic course to pursue, practitioners could consider suggesting that clients make a choice that is consistent with their values, personal convictions, and/or religious beliefs.” But how viable is this assignment when the client has been told repeatedly that God says homosexuality is an “abomination” and that “change is possible?” Appealing to “respectful assessment of clients’ religious orientation” and “respect [for] the diversity of choice,” Throckmorton’s thrust is to push naïve and desperate Christian homosexuals into the arms of “ex-gay” practitioners. This is in spite of his frank admission that “the reports in this article do not provide proof that sexual orientation changes through religious mediation.” Indeed, he’d prefaced his review by stating: “This review does not answer the controversial question, Do ex-gay ministries help people change sexual orientation?”
Yet this is by-passed in the “ex-gay” movement’s own abridged version of his review from what it touts is a “prestigious journal.” Contrary to his more careful words in the “prestigious journal,” he’s quoted in the “ex-gay” publicity as saying: “My literature review contradicts the policies of major mental health organizations because it suggests that sexual orientation, once thought to be an unchanging sexual trait, is actually quite flexible for many people, changing as a result of therapy for some, ministry for others and spontaneously for still others.”