Change Is Possible
The Historic Spitzer Study
In May 2001, what the Associated Press’s science writer called “an explosive new study” was announced in New Orleans at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference. This study drew worldwide media attention. Dr. Robert Spitzer — the prominent psychiatrist who led the team that removed homosexuality from the psychiatric manual of disorders in 1973 — concluded that a homosexual orientation (not just homosexual behavior) appears to be changeable for some people. “Like most psychiatrists,” he said, “I thought that homosexual behavior could be resisted — but that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe that’s untrue — some people can and do change.”
The change of viewpoint for Dr. Spitzer began on the opening day of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual conference in 1999 when Spitzer was drawn to a group of ex-gays staging a demonstration at the entrance to the conference building. The picketers were objecting to the APA’s recent resolution discouraging therapy to change homosexuality to heterosexuality. They carried placards saying, “Homosexuals Can Change — We Did — Ask Us!” Others said, “Don’t Affirm Me into a Lifestyle that was Killing Me Physically and Spiritually” and “The APA Has Betrayed America with Politically Correct Science.” Some of the psychiatrists tore up the literature handed out to them by the protestors, but others stopped to offer the protestors a few quiet words of encouragement.
Dr. Spitzer was skeptical, but he decided to find out for himself if sexual orientation was changeable. So he looked for subjects who claimed to have experienced a significant shift from homosexual to heterosexual attraction, and the shift had to have lasted for at least five years. He used subjects located by the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, ex-gay ministries, and various clinicians working in private practice.
Spitzer interviewed 200 subjects (143 men and 57 women) who were willing to describe their sexual and emotional histories, including their self-reported shift from gay to straight. Most of the interview subjects said their religious faith was very important in their lives, and about three-quarters of the men and half of the women had become married by the time of the study. Most had sought change because a gay lifestyle had been emotionally unsatisfying. Many had been disturbed by promiscuous, stormy gay relationships, a conflict with their religious values, and the desire to be (or to stay married).
Typically, the change effort had not produced significant results for the subjects during the first two years. They said they were helped by examining their family and childhood relationships and understanding how problems in those relationships had contributed to their gender-identity difficulties and their sexual orientation. Same-sex mentoring relationships, behavior-therapy techniques, and group therapy were also mentioned by them as particularly helpful.
To Spitzer’s surprise, good heterosexual functioning was reportedly achieved by 67 percent of the men who had rarely or never felt any opposite-sex attraction before the change process. Nearly all the subjects said they now feel more masculine (in the case of men) or more feminine (women).
“Contrary to conventional wisdom,” Spitzer concluded, “some highly motivated individuals, using a variety of change efforts, can make substantial change in multiple indicators of sexual orientation, and achieve good heterosexual functioning.”
Orientation Change Is Gradual and Takes Place on a Continuum
Spitzer added an important qualifier: that change from homosexual to heterosexual is not usually a matter of “either/or” but exists on a continuum — that is, a slow, progressive diminishing of homosexuality and an expansion of heterosexual potential that is exhibited to widely varying degrees. Dr. Spitzer emphasized that complete sexual-orientation change — cessation of all homosexual fantasies and attractions (which is generally considered an unrealistic goal in most therapies) is probably quite uncommon. Still, when subjects did not actually change sexual orientation — for example, their change had been one of behavioral control and self-identity, but no significant shift in attraction — they themselves nevertheless reported an improvement in overall emotional health and functioning.
The Spitzer study is believed to be the most detailed investigation of sexual orientation change to date. “Patients should have the right,” he concluded, “to explore their heterosexual potential.”
Significantly, if Spitzer’s own son were gay and interested in changing, he said, he would support his son in seeking therapy and attempting to change his orientation from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
Nicolosi, J., Nicolosi, L. (2002). A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press
