Ex-gays picket the APA to show that men and women do not have to live with same-sex attractions.
Posted on 09/06/2006 7:58:03 AM PDT by scripter
Surrounded by President-Elect Sharon Stephens Brehm, CEO Norman Anderson and other prominent members of the American Psychological Association (APA), President Gerald P. Koocher voiced support for the treatment of those distressed by unwanted homosexual attractions.
In a Town Hall Meeting dedicated to open exchange between members and APA leaders, Dr. Koocher fielded a question from NARTH President Joseph Nicolosi about APA's position on the treatment of unwanted homosexuality.
Highlighting the importance of client autonomy and self-determination, Dr. Koocher stated, "APA has no conflict with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction."
Ex-gays picket the APA to show that men and women do not have to live with same-sex attractions. |
He emphasized that --
1. The choice to enter therapy to diminish homosexual attractions and to strengthen heterosexual potential must be respected.
2. The choice to enter therapy must be voluntary and not coerced in any way.
3. Treatment options must be discussed by the therapist.
4. Treatment goals must be mutually agreed upon.
5. The "iterative process" must be a part of therapy. That is, client choice regarding treatment goals must be reiterated throughout the treatment process.
In response to a follow-up question by Dr. Nicolosi about the lack of clarity in APA's statements and positions, Dr. Koocher clearly emphasized that providing psychological care to those distressed by unwanted homosexual attractions was well within APA's Code of Ethics, and he invited Dr. Nicolosi to submit his recommendations for further clarifications to APA.
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 Protesters Greet APA Conference attendees as they arrive in buses. |
A significant number of NARTH members were in attendance at the APA conference, including Scientific Advisory Board and Governing Board members, and several of those NARTH leaders posed questions to Dr. Koocher at the public meeting.
Dr. Ned Stringham, also a member of NARTH's SAC, followed with a question about the lack of socio-political diversity in the APA. He cited the evidence from an article published in the American Psychologist by Dr. Richard E. Redding. Koocher indicated that he was preparing an article for publication in the APA Monitor that would address the issue.
Dr. A. Dean Byrd, Chair of NARTH's Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC), raised his hand to question Dr. Koocher about the serious charges leveled at the APA in the recent book Destructive Trends in Mental Health, edited by Drs. Wright and Cummings, longtime prominent members of APA.
Dr. Byrd noted that in a symposium earlier that day, Dr. Nicholas Cummings, Dr. Bonnie Strickland and Dr. Frank Farley (all former APA presidents) had raised serious concerns about APA's misrepresentation of science to the American public. They had specifically focused on the "corrosive effects of the socio-political ideologies" in the APA, the "liberal biases" in the APA, and had characterized the organization "a politically correct profession, with crowd control by the thought police."
 Protestors at the APA Convention voice support for NARTH's petition and tell psychologists that they have successfully changed. |
Dr. Koocher elected not to respond to the issues raised in the Wright and Cummings book, but rather chose to focus on the publisher--dismissing the book as having been produced by a "vanity press." Koocher indicated that he had contacted the publisher (Routledge) to inquire about who paid for the publishing of the book. He also wanted to know how the book was being distributed, but he received no response.
Another NARTH SAC member, Dr. David Blakeslee, raised his hand to thank APA leaders for holding the open meeting, and emphasized the importance of psychologists' respecting client's values that are associated with their faith traditions. Koocher was supportive of Dr. Blakeslee's comments and noted that religion was a legitimate part of diversity.
The Town Meeting exchange occurred the day after over 50 ex-gays had protested outside the APA convention. The protesters respectfully greeted convention-goers as they exited the buses at the conference hall with signs such as "Change is Possible," "APA, we need your support," "It's Okay Not To Be Gay," and "Diversity Includes Us." More than 500 copies of NARTH's petition to APA were individually distributed to the psychologists entering the convention.
"Overall, the response to the protestors and the petition was overwhelmingly positive," said NARTH's Dr. A. Dean Byrd. A psychologist attending the convention from New York City, Dr. Norma J. Hart, talked with the protestors and read the petition, with which she said she was in full agreement. She was interviewed by WDSU-TV Channel 6 in New Orleans, and in her on-air TV appearance, she spoke very favorably of the petition and the protestors, and emphasized the importance of the right to choose.
"Almost all of the psychologists to whom we showed the petition," said NARTH President Joseph Nicolosi, "were surprised and disturbed to hear that the APA would in any way restrict therapy aimed at decreasing unwanted homosexuality and developing heterosexual potential."
"I personally spoke to at least twenty students and thirty psychologists," said Dr. Dean Byrd, "and all were in disbelief that there could any problem with APA protecting the rights of clients who want to diminish their unwanted homosexuality." Other NARTH Board members reported a similar experience as they fanned out throughout the conference to speak to dozens of individual attendees.
Throughout the conference, attendees could be seen talking to NARTH members and reading the petition. Many were referred to the NARTH web site for further information.
"This is a historic step for client autonomy and self-determination," noted Dr. Byrd. "Dr. Koocher's statements were clear and unambiguous in support of the rights of those who are distressed by their unwanted homosexual attraction. In fact, the message conveyed by Dr. Koocher today is identical to NARTH's mission statement. I hope that APA and NARTH can now begin a fruitful dialogue about this very important issue."
And we can hope he first takes off the blinders!
Those mental blinders are often kind of "stuck on".
"First you have to WANT to take them off..."
One step at a time...
Agreed. It's good that we have them on record saying so. However, I still want their feet held to the fire. They've caused a lot of damage over the years with their radical political agenda. Ditto for the other APA.
1. APA is dominated by liberal politics. the view of many APA leaders was that it was coercive to try to change people's sexual orientation.
2. for a long time there was very little scientific evidence that sexual orientation of adults could be changed (from homosexual to heterosexual).
i don't know what the scientific status of this type of therapy is at this point.
LOL! I'm so dense, I thought you were referring to not only people of opposite sexual orientation but people of the opposite sex! LOL!
1) I have to echo the sentiments of the poster who called for a reinstatement of homosexuality as a flawed mental condition (or whatever the term of art may be). If there was no science to back up the decision to 'normalize' homosexuality, then the decision was tantamount to letting the inmates run the Asylum.
2) With regard to gay sheep studies in recent news showing that the orientation can be corrected -- this brings SouthParks's ("Bigger, Longer and Uncut") sequence of Saddam singing 'I can change' into a whole new perspective!
In a secular sense, homosexuality is an idolatry of perversion. It is in no way an anatomical function of the human organism, but a phantasmagoric creation from within the mentally disturbed human mind, a social psychosis, naked and on full exhibitionist display.
This is the whole crux (pun intended) of their attack on creationism - - they are really frustrated by Genesis, but cannot destroy the axiomatic state of procreant human biology, it does not fit their religious agenda.
Homosexual monogamy advocates seek ceremonious sanctification of their anatomical perversions and esoteric absolution for their guilt-ridden, impoverished egos.
Neither of those will satisfy their universal dissatisfaction with mortality or connect them to something eternal. With pantheons of fantasies as their medium of infinitization, they still have nothing in them of reality, any more than there is in the things that seem to stand before us in a dream.
Homosexual deviancy is really a pagan practice (and a self-induced social psychosis) at war with the Judaic culture over what is written in the book of Genesis (1:27, 2:18).
Many will seek ceremonious sanctification and esoteric absolution in some type of marriage rite, but that still fails to give them a connection to the eternal in both a religious and temporal, procreant sense - - the union does not produce offspring.
Dissatisfaction with inevitable mortality only feeds the impoverishment of the ego further. Homosexuals really hate human life; their whole desire is rooted in the destruction of it...
Was Freudian psychoanalytic theory of sexual stages in psychological development more accurate than accredited?
The Michael Jackson Complex is fixation on mutilation of and deviance with human anatomy in the media. It is a social psychosis catering to the lowest common denominator and generated with Pavlovian behavioral conditioning in popular culture.
Should we really be canonizing special societal privileges in the law based on idolatrous fetishes? (Disability, welfare, Social Security, etc., etc., ad nausea...)
The social psychosis generated by behavioral conditioning (Pavlov's salivating dogs) in the popular culture and the conditioned response to accept the false premises of mental illness or birth defect will be used as a political tool to systematically rob the public purse.
Then, we could have other self-inflicted mental illness and disease (aside from those we already do) subsidized by the government consolidating an ever increasing portion of the economy in the hands of the cultural Marxists.
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