Motivational, Ethical, and Epistemological Foundations in the Treatment of Unwanted Homoerotic Attraction

Abstract

A recent special section of the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy (October, 2000) focusing on the mental health needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals neglected to address the clinical needs of homosexual persons who desire to increase their heterosexual potential. This article attempts to correct this omission by outlining common motivations for pursuing change, updating the current state of knowledge regarding the effectiveness of change efforts, and providing some ethical guidelines when therapists encounter clients who present with unwanted homoerotic attraction. Finally, to assist marriage and family therapists (MFTs) in more deeply understanding divergent perspectives about reorientation treatments, an examination of the role of moral epistemology is presented and some examples of its potential influence are described. MFTs are encouraged to recognize and accept, rather than ignore or deny the valid needs of clients who seek to modify their same-sex attraction.

Can We Change Sexual Orientation?

“…Yarhouse (2003) further noted that Shidlo and Schroeder's (2002) study on harms suffered from similar limitations as Spitzer's (2003) study:''To reject one study on methodological grounds means rejecting the other'' (p. 462). Moreover, SOCE proponents declared it unethical to ban such treatments because doing so would violate clients' right for self-determination (e.g., Byrd, 2010;Rosik, 2003).…”

“…Specifically, this article will present how mental health providers have attempted to help those who experience ''unwanted''attractions (cf. Green, 2003;Rosik, 2003), how researchers have tried to verify or critique such efforts, and how the practice and promise of sexual reorientation affect the public and could inform our understanding of human sexuality. 1 Contrasting reports of success and harm have spurred debates for many years regarding the possibility of changing sexual orientation (Brooke, 2005).…”

Sexual Orientation Change Efforts, Conservative Christianity and Resistance to Sexual Justice

“…His new preferred terminology is 'SAFE-T' (Sexual Attraction Fluidity Exploration in Therapy) (Rosik 2016a).…”

Identity in Crisis: Spirituality and Homosexuality in Adolescence

“…Primary mental health and social service professional groups advocate a positive regard for samesex orientations, including the American Association of Marriage and Family (2005), to name only these primary bodies within the United States. Such positions do not minimize the continued debate-empirical, theoretical and moral (Rosik 2003)-over the need to change homosexual orientation. Throckmorton (1998) offers an excellent review of the ethical issues surrounding conversion therapy.…”

“…The study is remarkable because of the author's history, as a psychiatrist who advocated for the removal of homosexuality as a disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Waller and Nicolosi 2005). Throckmorton (2002) found religiously motivated change a primary incentive for at least some ''ex-gays,'' as these individuals refer to themselves, a contention frequently supported in the literature (Rosik 2003;Yarhouse and Burkett 2002). Indeed, one study of 206 gay men and lesbians identified negativity toward internalized homosexual attraction as the single mediating variable on the relationship between intrinsic religiosity and propensity to seek conversion therapy (Tozer and Hayes 2004).…”