In 1999, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be “the father of modern psychiatry,” interviewed 200 men and women who had undergone “conversion” therapy.
His conclusion: gays could become straight.
Now, 11 years later, he’s recanted and apologized. His study was flawed, he says. Anecdotal. Not scientifically rigorous.
Yeah, but that’s the least of it: How about the total absence of common sense?
Surely Spitzer had some idea that being gay in much of America means discrimination, derision, victimhood. If homosexuals could be “cured,” why weren’t millions of gay men and women flocking to conversion therapy? And why weren’t those centers reporting eye-popping results?
I think his apology, though welcome, is an evasion: a cover-up for some problem or agenda of his own.
If ever a shrink needed a shrink, it’s Spitzer.
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Originally published on Huffington Post. Jesse Kornbluth is editor of HeadButler.com
photo: Paul in London / flickr
About Jesse Kornbluth
“I think his apology, though welcome, is an evasion: a cover-up for some problem or agenda of his own.”
Well, except, Sptizer lead the charge, so to speak, to remove homosexuality from the big book of mental disorders back in the 1970s.
I’m more apt to believe he just didn’t think about the practical consequences his paper would have. Or that he wasn’t aware of the problems with the data he was using. If he was just trying to be objective, and if he didn’t consider how skewed his data was…then he could draw the wrong conclusions without having an agenda to push.
He apologized and recanted it. There’s not much else he can do.
Since someone seems to have deleted my earlier comment, despite no foul language or personal attacks, I’ll go ahead and rephrase:
It is a questionably large leap of logic to get from an earnestly worded apology to the assumption that Dr. Spitzer’s actions are, in the author’s words: “a cover-up for some problem or agenda of his own.”
It seems likely that someone who invests in such a questionable leap of logic is listening more to their own anger than to the apology actually issued by Dr. Spitzer. This may be understandable given how infuriating his earlier conclusion could sound, but that does not make it a reasonable reaction.
Your earlier comment was not deleted. It was put into moderation. Also, as the commenting policy explains, “Please note that by commenting on The Good Men Project, you agree to abide by our policy and you also understand that the decision to allow your comment to be published is done at the discretion of our moderators and editorial staff.”
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According to my browser it was “posted” and the comment count was “2″ for about 15 minutes, after which it dropped to 1, and the comment was then missing. That’s when I reposted.
Maybe your software lets things through and then reconsiders? I don’t know. I do know what I saw, and that’s why I reacted how I did.