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In 2001, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, psychiatrist and professor emeritus of Columbia University, presented a paper at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association about something called “reparative therapy” for gay men and women. By undergoing reparative therapy, the paper claimed, gay men and women could change their sexual orientation. Spitzer had interviewed 200 allegedly former-homosexual men and women that he claimed had shown varying degrees of such change; all of the participants provided Spitzer with self reports of their experience with the therapy.
When I was in my first year of graduate school I saw a lecture from a guy who had spent the last 10 or 15 years of his career working on new therapies for a rare type of childhood neurologic disease (but the exact one escapes me atm). Anyway a point he made in the lecture was that his research, which has been verified and is well accepted now, was counter to a large study that was published in the New England Journal. For this reason, it was difficult to get published at first. He said something that stuck with me, which is that just because something was written by someone famous doesn't make it true. (Often in science or medicine, everyone is deferential to the guy with the best title.) Same seems to be true here. This jag would never have had a pulpit if he didn't have a Columbia title. Fortunately, the truth usually wins with enough persistence.
thenewgreen · 4561 days ago · link ·
There are several peoe that I will be forwarding this to. Thanks for posting it, as for Spitzer...better late than never.