Ex-Gay Research

In 2001, Robert L. Spitzer, MD, presented his study on sexual conversion therapy with its controversial findings that some homosexuals can change their sexual orientation. The resulting media sensation and political firestorm enraged the study's critics and emboldened its supporters. Ex-Gay Research: Analyzing the Spitzer Study and Its Relation to Science, Religion, Politics, and Culture presents leading experts examining Spitzer's research methodology and findings to discern whether the study itself deserves deeper consideration or outright dismissal. Every facet of the study is reviewed to discuss the positive or negative aspects of the results, its significance in political and social terms, and the implications for the future.

Jack Drescher, MD, is a fellow and a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology and a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at SUNY-Downstate. A distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, he chairs the APA's Committee on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues. Dr. Drescher is a founding member of the Committee on Sexual Minorities of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) and former chair of its Committee on Human Sexuality. He is author of Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man (1998, The Analytic Press), co-editor, with Ariel Shidlo and Michael Schroeder, of Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives (2001, The Haworth Medical Press), and edits The Analytic Press's Bending Psychoanalysis book series. Dr. Drescher is in full-time private practice in New York City. Kenneth J. Zucker, PhD, is professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Toronto. He is the head of the Gender Identity Service in the Child, Youth, and Family Program at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. He has served on the DSM-III-R, DSM-IV, and DSM-IV-TR Subcommittees on Gender Identity Dis[1]orders. He co-authored with Susan J. Bradley Gender Identity Disor[1]der and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents (Guil[1]ford Press, 1995). Since 2002, he has been the editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior and is currently president-elect of the International Academy of Sex Research.

About the Editors Contributors Preface Section I: Editors' Introductions 1. The Politics and Science of Reparative Therapy (Kenneth J. Zucker) 2. Gold or Lead? Introductory Remarks on Conversions (Jack Drescher) Section II: Perspectives on Changing Sexual Orientation 3. Position Statement on Therapies Focused on Attempts to Change Sexual Orientation (Reparative or Conversion Therapies) (Commission on Psychotherapy by Psychiatrists [COPP] and American Psychiatric Association) 4. Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? 200 Participants Reporting a Change from Homosexual to Heterosexual Orientation (Robert L. Spitzer) Section III: Commentaries on the Spitzer Study and Dr. Spitzer's Response from Archives of Sexual Behavior 5. Can Sexual Orientation Change? A Long-Running Saga (John Bancroft) 6. Understanding the Self-Reports of Reparative Therapy Successes (A. Lee Beckstead) 7. The Malleability of Homosexuality: A Debate Long Overdue (A. Dean Byrd) 8. A Methodological Critique of Spitzer's Research on Reparative Therapy (Helena M. Carlson) 9. Are Converts to Be Believed? Assessing Sexual Orientation Conversions (Kenneth M. Cohen and Ritch C. Savin-Williams) 10. Reconsidering Sexual Desire in the Context of Reparative Therapy (Lisa M. Diamond) 11. The Spitzer Study and the Culture Wars (Jack Drescher) 12. Sexual Orientation Change: A Study of Atypical Cases (Richard C. Friedman) 13. The Politics of Sexual Choices (John H. Gagnon) 14. Too Flawed: Don't Publish (Lawrence Hartmann) 15. Evaluating Interventions to Alter Sexual Orientation: Methodological and Ethical Considerations (Gregory M. Herek) 16. Guttman Scalability Confirms the Effectiveness of Reparative Therapy (Scott L. Hershberger) 17. Methodological Limitations Do Not Justify the Claim That Same-Sex Attraction Changed Through Reparative Therapy (Craig A. Hill and Jeannie D. DiClementi) 18. Initiating Treatment Evaluations (Donald F. Klein) 19. A Positive View of Spitzer's Research and an Argument for Further Research (Richard B. Krueger) 20. Penile Plethysomography and Change in Sexual Orientation (Nathaniel McConaghy) 21. Finally, Recognition of a Long-Neglected Population (Joseph Nicolosi) 22. Sexual Orientation Change and Informed Consent in Reparative Therapy (Bruce Rind) 23. Reparative Science and Social Responsibility: The Concept of a Malleable Core As Theoretical Challenge and Psychological Comfort (Paula C. Rodríguez Rust) 24. A Candle in the Wind: Spitzer's Study of Reparative Therapy (Donald S. Strassberg) 25. Spitzer's Oversight: Ethical-Philosophical Underpinnings of Reparative Therapy (Marcus C. Tye) 26. Sexual Diversity and Change Along a Continuum of Bisexual Desire (Paul L. Vasey and Drew Rendall) 27. Science and the Nuremberg Code: A Question of Ethics and Harm (Milton L. Wainberg, Donald Bux, Alex Carballo-Dieguez, Gary W. Dowsett, Terry Dugan, Marshall Forstein, Karl Goodkin, Joyce Hunter, Thomas Irwin, Paulo Mattos, Karen McKinnon, Ann O'Leary, Jeffrey Parsons, and Edward Stein) 28. Sexual Reorientation Therapy: Is It Ever Ethical? Can It Ever Change Sexual Orientation? (Jerome C. Wakefield) 29. Heterosexual Identities, Sexual Reorientation Therapies, and Science (Roger L. Worthington) 30. How Spitzer's Study Gives a Voice to the Disenfranchised Within a Minority Group (Mark A. Yarhouse) 31. Study Results Should Not Be Dismissed and Justify Further Research on the Efficacy of Sexual Reorientation Therapy (Robert L