The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself – the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us – that’s where it’s at.
-Olympic Gold Medalist Jessie Owens
If you see something within yourself as a problem, then you struggle with it. The struggle, in turn, may become an ongoing battle. And when you fight a battle like that, you deserve support from someone who understands, and who can offer you tools and insights. That, to me, seems pretty self-evident.
Some people struggle with homosexuality, a struggle which often becomes an ongoing battle. Reparative Therapy (RT) is designed for them. It is not the only option, but it’s an option many have chosen and continue to choose.
Of course, plenty of homosexuals don’t struggle with their sexuality at all, since they consider it to be a normal part of themselves. So this approach would make no more sense to them than therapy designed to change their race or eye color. But for those who see homosexuality as something unnatural, something to be resisted rather than indulged, seeking help from a professional who shares their views and supports their goals makes perfect sense.
This is why I support the right of practitioners to offer reparative therapy, and I support the right of informed adult clients to seek it. And I think any reasonable person, of any sexual or religious persuasion, would do the same.
Committed Practitioners —
Numerous people refer to themselves as Reparative Therapists, and many can be found in the Directory of the website NARTH. (National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) Additionally, people who offer any kind of pastoral, counseling, or ministerial assistance to someone in conflict over their homosexuality are often mistakenly called reparative therapists, even if they don’t refer to themselves as such. (The Los Angeles Times described me as one, though I don’t call myself a reparative therapist, I never refer to my work as reparative therapy and, in that same LA Times article, I explained why.)
But if anyone should be considered the practice’s foremost figure, it would have to be Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, founder of NARTH, eminent author, and easily the most visible public figure associated with RT over the past two decades, having been featured on Dr. Phil, Oprah, Dr. Drew, and 20/20.
Forerunners to Dr. Nicolosi would include Dr. Elizabeth Moberly , Dr. Charles Socarades , and Dr. Irvine Bieber , all of whom contributed hugely, through their literature and lectures, to the Reparative Therapy approach. Contemporaries would include Janelle Hallman Elaine Siegel and David Pickup along with numerous professionals belonging to groups such as NARTH and the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity.
— and Controversial Practices
For sure, RT has its detractors. Official statements from the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association include criticisms of Reparative Therapy , some states have passed laws prohibiting it from being offered to minors , and the term itself is morphing into a slur. So in Part IV of this series, we’ll review the controversies associated with it, and there are plenty.
Today, though, I’d like to look at what it teaches about the origins of homosexuality, then offer both my commendations and concerns about each. (Next week we’ll look what it teaches about treatment approaches and outcomes.)
The Origins of Homosexuality
While the belief that homosexuality is inborn is growing among both professionals and the general population, Reparative Therapy takes into consideration both biological and environmental factors as possible contributors, with an emphasis on the environmental. It views homosexual desire as something primarily – not exclusively- caused by normal longings for same-sex intimacy that have been thwarted. This desire, referred to as the “reparative drive”
may be sexual in nature, but actually stems from emotional needs that have gone unsatisfied.
So if a boy has felt unloved or unnoticed by his father, his normal longings for a father’s love will be unmet, causing emotional pain and what Moberly calls a “defensive detachment” from males in general. After all, if a man is the source of a boy’s pain, then men in general will be viewed as either unsafe or unapproachable, leaving the boy more inclined to emotionally bond with girls, yet yearning for male intimacy as well. That yearning may become “sexualized” – a process happening when emotional needs take on a sexual tone – and homosexuality results.
A similar process in girls is reported by Hallman, who cites unsatisfactory relations between mother and daughter or early trauma, such as molestation or abuse from men, as common roots of adult lesbianism.
In short, homosexuality is seen as a legitimate need for bonding with the same sex which has first been blocked early in life, and then has taken on, later in life, a sexual nature.
Damaged Heart, Reparative Drive
This is not unlike Freud’s take on homosexuality, which he considered to be “a variation of the sexual function produced by certain arrest of sexual development.” and it harmonizes with research indicating that “adult male homosexuals remember their fathers as being less loving, more rejecting, and less attentive than their heterosexual peers” ; with secular studies on the backgrounds of homosexual men indicating early father/son problems in the subject’s backgrounds; and with a long-ago observation made by W.D. Fairbain:
Where relationships with outer objects (i.e. parents) are unsatisfactory we also encounter such phenomena as homosexuality, and these phenomena should be viewed as attempts to salvage natural emotional relationships which have broken down.
Nicolosi refers to this as the “reparative drive” by which the homosexual is, through sexual contact with someone of the same sex, attempting to repair the emotional damage, or satisfy the unmet emotional needs, experienced early in life.
Commendations and Concerns
All of which may be true. In my first book Desires in Conflict , I argued that no one theory fits every case, and that the causes of homosexuality may vary from person to person. In fact, I’m convinced a number of influences, including inborn nature and predispositions, early relationships, and other unknown factors, all combine to create sexual orientation.
I also noted, though, that most of my clients fit the reparative therapy profile, and that a number of studies do validate the RT theory of causation. It certainly deserves attention, and many people will report it as being an accurate profile of their own lives.
But not everyone. In fact, no one can say for certain, in each case, why a person has become attracted to the same sex, and no one theory fits all cases. To their credit, reparative therapy organizations like the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and NARTH have recognized that many factors, known and unknown, can play into the formation of homosexuality. So while reparative therapists generally support the “unmet needs” viewpoint, they also seem loathe to insist that all homosexual people fit into it.
And I strongly agree. While the majority of my clients fit the RT model, some sure haven’t. I’ve worked with same-sex attracted men and women who had excellent relations with both parents, no notable early trauma, and who felt quite secure in their masculinity or femininity from early in life. So what are we to make of them? And what, for that matter, are we to make of the fact that we can’t say with certainty why people become same-sex attracted?
Back to Basics
Scripture teaches that we are a fallen race, tracing our very-imperfect nature back to the Fall as described in Genesis chapter 3. It likewise teaches that all forms of lust (among a multitude of other sinful tendencies) spring from fallen nature or the flesh (Galatians 5:19) without explaining all the family, subconscious, or developmental dynamics that may be involved. This tells me that the flesh is, among other, mysterious. We cannot always account for its impulses, nor are we required to. After all, some human tendencies are baffling and defy analysis, so there’s still a lot we don’t know about what motivates human behavior.
Certainly there are sinful tendencies that are universal – the tendency to lust, to selfishness, to dishonesty – and we can all relate to them. Then there are other tendencies experienced by only a minority of the population.
Read through Leviticus chapters 18 and 20, for example, and notice the prohibitions against incest and bestiality, behaviors most of us have no interest in. But some do, and therein lies the mystery of the flesh. Some of its impulses are universally experienced; some are experienced only by a few. But all them remain unequivocally wrong, no matter how many or how few are touched by them.
That being the case, we can appreciate the insights Reparative Therapy offers. Because while those insights are not found in the Bible, they also don’t contradict the Bible, so they may be true in many cases.
We’d be wrong, though, to assume they are the final authority when it comes to the causes of homosexuality. And that’s why I find myself more comfortable than ever saying this to my clients:
A theory may explain your same-sex attractions, but we can’t know for sure. What we can know if that your desires, if followed, will take you outside God’s will, a place you never want to be. So whatever caused them, let’s focus our attention and efforts on dealing with them in ways befitting a true follower of Jesus.
Why I feel the way I do is one question, important but not critical. How I deal with those feelings is another matter. And as always, the How is more important than the Why.
To order a copy of my book on male homosexuality “Desires in Conflict” click here
Next Friday: Part Three: Reparative Therapy Treatment Approaches and Outcomes
