Dr. Robert Spitzer |
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Dr. Robert Spitzer is a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City. In 1973, he was one of the key figures behind the American Psychiatric Association's (APA) decision to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, beginning the move toward acceptance of homosexuality as normal rather than pathological. Over the years, some vocal members of the APA have let it be known that they do not approve of "reparative" or "transformational" therapy on the grounds that such therapy is unrealistic and potentially dangerous because it encourages homosexual people to deny their "inborn nature."
Recently, Dr. Spitzer has come to believe that at least some homosexual people can indeed come out of that lifestyle and lead normal heterosexual married lives. At the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association on May 9, 2001, Dr. Spitzer reported the findings of his study that shows that "some people can and do change. Like most psychiatrists, I thought that homosexual behavior could only be resisted, and that no one could really change their sexual orientation. I now believe this to be false."
His new study attracted a huge amount of media attention. It was featured on the front page of may city newspapers, and was reported in USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. The Associated Press released the story to thousands of newspapers worldwide. Virtually all the on-line news sites (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and others) posted reports.
Dr. Spitzer interviewed 143 men and 57 women who reported a significant shift
in their sexual orientation from predominantly gay to predominantly
heterosexual. During 45-minute telephone interviews with each subject, they were
asked 60 questions about their feelings and behavior before and after their
efforts to change orientation. They discussed their motives for change; their
strategies, which included counseling, support groups, prayer and mentoring; and
their current relationships with the opposite sex.
Dr. Spitzer reported:
 | 11% of the men and 37% of the women report that they now have a heterosexual orientation. |
| 66% of the males and 44% of the females reported they had arrived at "good heterosexual functioning." (According to cnn.com, that term is defined as having been "in a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship within the past year, getting enough satisfaction from the emotional relationship with their partner to rate at least seven on a 10-point scale, having satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thinking of somebody of the same sex during heterosexual sex.") |
| The vast majority of the study participants reported that they were bothered only slightly, or not at all, by unwanted homosexual feelings. |
| 42% of men and 46% of women were clinically depressed before they entered therapy and afterwards, only 1%of men and 4% of women reported depression to that degree. |
Although this study is not representative of the entire gay and lesbian community, it does show that some motivated people have made significant changes in their sexuality. Dr. Spitzer reported "our sample was self-selected from people who already claimed they had made some change. We don't know how common that kind of change is. . . . I'm not saying that this can be easily done, or that most homosexuals who want to change can make this kind of change. I suspect it's quite unusual."
What Spitzer actually found was that “contrary to conventional wisdom, some
highly motivated individuals, using a variety of change efforts, can make
substantial change in multiple indicators of sexual orientation” along a
100-point scale. But complete reversal of sexual orientation, he said, “is
generally considered an unrealistic goal in psychotherapy [and] is uncommon,
particularly in male subjects.”