Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, Noted Psychiatrist, Apologizes for Study on Gay 'Cure'

NY TIMES ^ | 5/19/12 | Benedict Carey

[SoFloFreeper]

The simple fact was that he had done something wrong, and at the end of a long and revolutionary career it didn't matter how often he'd been right, how powerful he once was, or what it would mean for his legacy.

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...

Dr. Spitzer's fingers jerked over the keys, unreliably, as if choking on the words. And then it was done: a short letter to be published this month, in the same journal where the original study appeared.

"I believe," it concludes, "I owe the gay community an apology."

[SoFloFreeper]

Perversion is now "normal". Objections to perversion will be persecuted.

[onedoug]

Silence from gay progeny.

[Travis McGee]

His community of left-wing shrinks obviously “got his mind right.”

Very few high-profile professionals can stand up to the left’s full-court press.

[Sooth2222]

He's 80 years old and Sigmund Freud died when he was 7 years old, so "considered by some to be the father of modern psychiatry" is an interesting statement. No doubt he's been quite influential (not, apparently, on the psychopathology of homosexuality), but "modern psychiatry" seems to have about as many fathers as a colony of bonobos.

[originalbuckeye]

To Dr. Spitzer, the scientific question was at least worth asking: What was the effect of the therapy, if any? Previous studies had been biased and inconclusive. “People at the time did say to me, ‘Bob, you're messing with your career, don't do it,’ “ Dr. Spitzer said. “But I just didn't feel vulnerable”

So he wasn't worried about jeopardizing his career with what he believed to be the truth? Now he see things differently? Medicine has gone the PC way for decades. Never mind the truth. We must protect all the PC groups. Medicine has two black eyes.

[PBRSTREETGANG]

"I owe the gay community an apology."

Homo you don't.

[6SJ7]

Objections to perversion will be persecuted.

Indeed. The PC purists attitude has squeezed out any public dissension. Anyone harboring non-PC thoughts knows to keep silent or risk destruction of their career, family, their very life. This supposedly free country has become as perverted as any communist country where one must guard their inner thoughts for fear of betrayal.

[ilovesarah2012]

Same goes for scientists who question or express doubts about evolution or global warming (or “climate change”, as they call it these days). Follow lock-step or look for another career.

[jimfree]

Bah!

[43north]

One of the pharmaceutical manufacturers need to come out with a medication and name it “HoMoNoMo”. That’ll solve the issue.

[heartwood]

Of course the question was worth asking.

Can homosexuals who want to change their sexual orientation, who are unhappy with their sexual orientation, do so?

He never claimed that all homosexuals could change, or that they should be urged to change. The study was on those who wanted to do so. It was flawed of course, relying on recall rather than measurement before therapy started, and on subjects who had completed the therapy rather than dropping out. But it was a start.

The tyranny of the left-wing psychiatric establishment: no, you’re not allowed to change even if you want to, even if you have other values that are higher than your sexuality on your own personal hierarchy. Those values are disordered! Accept your cure.

[NRA1995]

Can homosexuals who want to change their sexual orientation, who are unhappy with their sexual orientation, do so?

Seems to me that if a person can discover that he/she is the "wrong gender" and go through surgery and psychological treatment to change sexes (just read a case like this involving a 4 year old girl who's SURE she should be a boy), why can't a homosexual change his orientation if he/she wants to?

[wideminded]

Your analogy doesn’t make the point you were hoping for. The reason some people want to have surgery when they feel like they are the wrong gender is that there is currently no psychological treatment to change the inner feeling of being the wrong sex that some people have.

[Crucial]

The Left probably threatened to destroy his life unless he recanted. I don't know if being gay is natural or not. I do believe that some of it is due to hatred and fear of the opposite sex, particularly among women, who I believe have a sexual identity that isn't quite as rigid as a man's.

Even if it is, I don't believe in gay marriage. If anything it's entirely too unreliable, unpredictable and short-lived as a medium for raising children.