New York -- Charles Socarides, the psychiatrist famous for insisting that homosexuality was a treatable illness and who claimed to have "cured" hundreds, has died. He was 83. Socarides, died Dec. 25 of heart failure at a hospital near his Manhattan home, his family announced. A funeral Mass was held Friday. He waged an unsuccessful battle to reverse the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders, and brushed off frequent condemnations by colleagues who considered his views hurtful.