Famous Psychiatrist Apologizes For "Gay Cure" Stance

[PamperDivison]

Everyone should read this article. This absolutely restored my faith in humanity.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.

He pushed himself up and staggered into the dark. His desk seemed impossibly far away; Dr. Spitzer, who turns 80 next week, suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking, sitting, even holding his head upright.

The word he sometimes uses to describe these limitations — pathetic — is the same one that for decades he wielded like an ax to strike down dumb ideas, empty theorizing and junk studies.

Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure

[rosalie.bent]

In many ways the true character of any person is expressed by their ability to apologise for mistakes and errors. "I'm truly sorry" are some of the most powerful words possible. It is not about making mistakes - for we all do that, often with terrible results. And while saying sorry wont usually undo the damage, it shows that we have a strength of character and a desire to ensure that this mistake is not repeated.

It is a disturbingly rare quality.

[Bettypooh]

Honesty and the ability to change what one one strongly believes in when it's wrong are strengths of character too- and even rarer. I cannot support this person, even though they have come to learn of their errors The reason for that is that instead of entering into their research with an open mind seeking the truth, they thought they already knew what was right and went into this only to find justification to support their pre-set beliefs. Hundreds or thousands of people were deeply hurt by this person, and can forgive that but I won't. Why? Because what this person seeks in asking forgiveness is permission to continue approaching things in the same wrongful manner. If they resign their positions and get out of this field, then I will forgive them. If not, they they are going to do something similar again which will prove the lesson was not learned

Yes, it is good that they repudiated their previous statements, but that isn't enough to merit forgiveness on it's own. Their future path will show us if they have now learned the real lesson here or not, and of whether their future work is going to fail for the same reason this work did. Until I see for myself, I am always skeptical. Life has proven this to be the best approach for me

Bettypooh

[rosalie.bent]

Honesty and the ability to change what one one strongly believes in when it's wrong are strengths of character too- and even rarer. I cannot support this person, even though they have come to learn of their errors The reason for that is that instead of entering into their research with an open mind seeking the truth, they thought they already knew what was right and went into this only to find justification to support their pre-set beliefs. Hundreds or thousands of people were deeply hurt by this person, and can forgive that but I won't. Why? Because what this person seeks in asking forgiveness is permission to continue approaching things in the same wrongful manner. If they resign their positions and get out of this field, then I will forgive them. If not, they they are going to do something similar again which will prove the lesson was not learned

Yes, it is good that they repudiated their previous statements, but that isn't enough to merit forgiveness on it's own. Their future path will show us if they have now learned the real lesson here or not, and of whether their future work is going to fail for the same reason this work did. Until I see for myself, I am always skeptical. Life has proven this to be the best approach for me

Bettypooh

Your judgement is rather harsh and your refusal to forgive even worse. The progress of society and science is peppered by mistake, as that is actually where we learn far more than through success. What we think today as being perfectly appropriate and accepted as truth is tomorrow's embarrassing footnote on history. That doesnt mean we stop trying to improve ourselves. IN your fantasy world of 'its only acceptable if you are right' based of course on the benefit of hindsight, no one will do anything at all. For ever mistake like this there are hundreds of successes all dependant on accepting risk as part of the equation of progress. IN every aspect of societal improvement it is two steps forward, falter and one step backward. If you want the successes then you are going to have to suck up the failures. He was trying to help. Being wrong doesnt change that motivation and a little understanding of that might be very beneficial.

[Guest Baby Rina]

After sitting through some of those attempts of curing LGBT issues ... i'm with Betty pooh on this. The amount of harm and danger that it's done is irreparable. How many people wound up taking their own lives because of that sort of thing? personally i attempted to thrice so far because of issues stemming from these attempts of curing.

[Bettypooh]

Rosalie, you so totally don't understand what I've said. Yes, my judgement is harsh when applied to people who are entrusted to take care of other people. Would you want me to forgive an airline pilot whose complacency just killed 100 people? Sorry, but I can't. No more than I can forgive a person claiming to be professional when they break many of the rules which professionals define themselves by. There is no room for error when you're taking care of others, and only limited room for forgiveness with smaller mistakes. I am a realist and that is why I have strong beliefs and attitudes in proven things, and am derisive of dis-proven concepts that are clearly wrong. In your fantasy world you perceive that this person was "trying to help". In reality he was doing nothing of the sort. I have done my research and found that from the start of this effort at so-called 'reparitive therapy' every proponent of it had a history of not believing that being gay was built into a person, even when the evidence was already heavily against them. All those 'researchers' failed in their work from the outset because they didn't give equal creditability to the evidence they themselves found. They enhanced case histories that they thought proved their point and discounted equally proven evidence that they did not want to believe, even to the point of making claims that they did not treat some people who could prove that they had because they could not 'cure' those people. In short, they were not acting as a trained professional should. They touted cases that achieved the results they wanted to see when the evidence was shaky and outright rejected results of many cases that did not achieve what they wanted to see when the evidence was solid. This is not the way to do research and it fails any professional group's criteria for research. This failure may not have been intentional, but it was grossly outside of acceptable bounds and totally incompetent. That is why they do not deserve to be forgiven at this time. Their flaw is at so basic a level that to allow them to continue having any credibility in this field would be ludicrous.

What did this "research" produce? At least three deaths have been directly attributed and perhaps a dozen more are likely attributable based on those persons recorded histories with this 'therapy'. This does not even go into the numbers of persons who suffered creat mental distress because these "professionals" were not acting professionally. Therein lies my rub- if you were trained to know better and passed the course proving that you do know better, then to do otherwise thereafter should disqualify you from continuing in that field- at least until you prove that you have corrected those errors. In a layman without knowledge, there is room for forgiveness- but they are also generally not allo0wed to be responsible for others. In all parts of medicine, the cardinal rule is "First do no harm". They clearly did harm, knew they were doing it as evidenced by their own writings, and continued to follow that course when they had alternatives because they did not want to find that their ideas were wrong. Totally non-professional in every manner except title.

Yes, we can learn from our mistakes and progress is peppered with failures before success is found, but here the difference is that this person and their affiliates were not seeking answers or to do good- they were seeking to prove a belief they continued to hold (and that some of them still do hold) when all the evidence pointed and still points in the opposite direction. They were biased from the start which tainted their results. They have been scourged by some of their peers over the reasons I have stated, and have been called for to resign by some of their peers for that same reason. While strong disagreement is the norm in these areas, having your peers go to such extremes is not. This person clearly lacks the requisite competence to be allowed the chance to harm anyone else. .And if these people who are more knowledgeable in this area than I am say this person is wrong, I will not disagree, even if you do.

One last thing before I close. It would behoove you to better understand the things you comment on more fully before you make your comments. The evidence is on my side in overwhelming quality and quantity here and you lack of knowledge on this matter apparent. You do not understand how deeply things like this can affect those of us who do not fit gender or sexual orientation "norms", and until you do that I would caution you to tread lightly in this forum because it is for us, not you, and we keep a tighter rein on what happens here than in the other forums regarding this topic.

Bettypooh

[AbriForm]

I for one, have regrets about Dr. Spitzer's regrets.

Dr. Spitzer should be applauded for asking the psychological community to better understand homosexuality, and the way(s) that it can forumlate in someone.

It's sad he considers standing up for that position to be a black mark on his career, because extremists exploited his interest in asking the psychological community to keep an open mind on an important topic.

Were the conclusions of the 2001 study great? No, but that wasn't the point. And Dr. Spitzer, AFAIK, never intended for people to interpert them as definitive. Understanding how sexual orientation develops, and how it can fluxuate, is key to understanding the human condition.

I think the psychological community has been set back decades on understanding homosexuality. Calling it an illness was the first setback. This I think is just as powerful of a setback. Any researcher will now be afraid to touch the topic with a 20 foot pole.

[ForbiddenFruit]

I'd take a shadow of Bettypooh's thoughts. I think that asking him to retire outright is a step too far, however, if we want to put this into 'steps' (one step forward, two steps back, et al, I don't like this 'net gain' business) I don't think this counts as a step forward. He's talking the talk, but not walking the walk.

It surely isn't enough to say 'I was wrong'. He needs to say 'I was wrong, we were wrong, that was wrong, now we and I are going to do something right'. I understand that morality isn't a + / - scale and doing one good deed doesn't cancel out others, but he'd do well to do it for its own sake.

Acknowledging and apologising for the damage done isn't a step forward - it's more like lifting the knee. It's what happens in the future that may be the step forward, or if it's just going to stamp down to where we were again if he doesn't follow up on his word.