Reparative Therapy’s 13% Success Rate at Kaiser
Friday, April 20th, 2007Article excerpt. See information below…
Therapists at Kaiser developed means to help clients pursue their values
and desires in an informed manner. “Over time, we were able to identify
within 4 or 5 sessions which clients were likely to pursue change and
which ones were not.” Cummings learned that clients most likely to
change attractions either had a strong, internalized value system which
contradicted homosexual behavior or they had come to a homosexual
adaptation through a childhood of abusive life experiences. Those with
no prior heterosexual inclination and those with a longer history of
same-sex attraction were not as likely to develop heterosexual functioning.Success was not measured by whether a client changed sexual orientation.
In fact, the percentage of clients who changed was relatively low. He
explains: “Of the universe of gays we saw in Kaiser, 67% had good
outcomes. Of those, 20% were successful in reorientation, with the
remaining 80% pursuing sane, sexually responsible gay lives. The other
third of our clients were not helped much at all. These people seemed to
be sexually compulsive, frequently with obsessive compulsive disorder
and substance addictions. They could not seem to go a day without sex.
We tried many things and nothing seemed to work.”
Using the numbers above, roughly 13% of those in conflict over their
homosexuality demonstrated a change to a heterosexual life. Cummings
recalls, “I still get notes and Christmas cards from clients who are
married and very appreciative of their work in therapy. I am also
contacted by even more clients who thank me for helping them achieve
happy, long-term gay relationships.”
Read the whole story at…
Source: BNN’s article: “Homosexuality and Psychotherapy: An
Interview with Nicholas Cummings” by Warren Throckmorton, PhD.
There has been much discussion on this article within the Sexology community. A 13% “success” rate seems incredibly high and one wonders what other variables are coming into play here. There are several researchers that are pursuing a formal study of this reported data.
