Recent News and Articles on the Keywords: gay + therapy + heterosexual  Related to the article below (Last Update: 8/5/2008)

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Therapy 'can make gays heterosexual'

A controversial study claims that gay men and women can be transformed into heterosexuals through psychotherapy.

Of 200 homosexuals and lesbians given the treatment, 78 per cent of males and 95 per cent of females reported a change in their sexuality.

The findings will reignite the debate over what determines sexuality, as they contradict the widespread view that it is 'hardwired' at birth.

Gay rights groups were outraged by the study, claiming it was flawed and treated homosexuality as an illness.

However, it is given more credence by the pedigree of the man who led it. Psychiatrist Robert Spitzer is the man who helped have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental illnesses in 1973.

He insisted his study was valid and said some gays 'bothered' by their homosexuality wanted to be heterosexual and had a right to such treatment.

'The current, politically correct view is that

'In some of the subjects, the reports of change in sexual orientation were substantial, credible and believable.'

Professor Spitzer's study involved 143 gay men and 57 lesbians who volunteered to have 'reparative therapy' with religious organisations.

This involved 'self-control' psychological techniques such as making greater efforts to mix socially with straight men and women in non- sexual settings, and avoiding 'temptation'.

Researchers asked the volunteers to describe their attraction to people of the same sex, their sexual desires and behaviour in the year before beginning therapy and then at the end of it.

Professor Spitzer and his team at Columbia University, in New York, found most participants had become either wholly or predominantly heterosexual, with women more likely to have changed than men.

The findings, published in the U.S. journal the Archives of Sexual Behaviour, were dismissed by the gay rights group Stonewall.

'This is dangerous, sinister nonsense - there's no evidence gay people can be "cured" as if it's some kind of illness,' declared a spokesman.

It would be interesting to see research on whether straight people can be made to be gay.'

Peter Tatchell, of gay activists Outrage!, said: 'Everyone I have spoken to who has been through this so-called treatment says it has not only failed to convert them to heterosexuality but has caused them immense psychological and emotional harm.'

Critics of Professor Spitzer said the study involved only individuals known to view sexuality change as 'both possible and desirable'.