Shame and attachment loss: Going from bad to worse

Trying to keep up on the new developments in reparative therapy, I purchased NARTH’s co-founder Joseph Nicolosi’s new book, Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy. This post is not a review but more of a prep for a review. I am going to provide some excerpts and comments which may form the basis for a more formal review at a later date.

You have to get past a couple of features of Nicolosi’s writing in order to proceed. He has an annoying (to me) habit of speaking of himself in the plural (“When a man finds masculinity mysterious and exotic, and seeks it outside himself, we believe he is living in a false self…). This form reappears throughout the book. You also have to grasp the jargon being used in order to understand what he proposes (“grey zone,” “double bind,” “double loop”). In some respects, reading this book is like reading material from object relations theorists such as Masterson and Volkan. It is inside baseball to most folks who are not conversant with attachment and object relations theory.

However, this book is published by Christian publisher Intervarsity Press and makes an effort to make some of the concepts accessible to a lay and non-psychodynamic audience. To be sure, Nicolosi doesn’t leave the reader unclear about his views. Regarding homosexuality, he begins by dismissing Daryl Bem’s empirically derived theory of same-sex attraction because it does not stigmatize same-sex attraction. He then, indicates what has remained the same since his earlier books and what has changed. First, what has remained the same:

The essential principle of reparative therapy remains the same – simply stated by one client as “When a real man sees me as a real man, then I become a real man.” (p. 31)

The real man is the therapist or some other model of masculinity and then to become a real man is apparently to become straight. Simple, right?

What has changed?

Recently, reparative therapy has expanded to conceptualize homosexual attraction as more than a striving to repair gender deficits. We now see it more broadly, as a striving to repair deep self-deficits. (p.31)

Translation: If you have SSA, you are worse off than Nicolosi first believed. You are not just deficient in your sense of gender identity, but your core sense of self is a wreck too. He continues:

My longtime clinical observation suggests one repeated trend in early childhood: specifically, an accumulation of early, core emotional hurts that have led to an attachment injury. I believe that homosexuality is not only a defense against gender inferiority, but a defense against a trauma to the core self.

Beyond the previously recognized needs of same-sex identification and affirmation, we now better understand the condition as an attempt to heal an abandonment-annihilation trauma. We see homosexuality as typically an attempt to “repair” shame-afflicted longing for gender-based individuation. As such, homosexuality can be seen as a pathologic form of grieving. Adopting concepts from bereavement and grief literature, we thus turn new attention to the contributions of attachment theory and the role of shame.(p. 31-32; all italics in the original)

I suspect those adopted concepts of bereavement and grief will want to return to their original family. According to Nicolosi, men (women, what women?) are drawn to sex with men because it somehow helps them grieve the loss of attachment to important figures in their childhood, most notably the father. However, these losses are not restricted to gender concerns.

This understanding that homosexuality is a symptom of a larger issue of self-identity is supported by the almost universal complaint of clients that they feel “insecure,” “inadequate,” “a little boy in an adult world,” “out of control” and lacking relational authority. For years I have heard clients express this interpersonal powerlessness: “She upsets me, they annoy me, he doesn’t take me seriously. (p. 33)

The trauma is broader than lack of attachment to the same sex parent. He notes:

Attachment is the foundation of our self-identity. It is through the mother-child attachment that we develop our sense of self and discover who we are. Shame felt during this process of attachment and individuation subverts development of both self-identity and gender identity.

Since our clients report a core experience of not having felt “seen” by their parents for who they are, they inevitably also felt that they were not loved – at least in the deepest and most genuine sense. There is a deep perception that the parents, even though they may have been truly well-meaning, have failed to fully see, know and accept them.

Because parents are not perceived as loving them for who they are, gay men develop a “false self” to defend against the abandonment of not being truly known. Kids start doing things they think will get their parents and other people to like them but those things are not really them. When they actually move toward what they want to do, they get depressed because they fear attachment loss. This is very nearly the same concept as the “false self” and “abandonment depression” of James Masterson. Masterson is nowhere referenced in the book which is a curious oversight. I wonder if it is because Masterson writes about the same dynamics with straight people being the primary clientele.

According to Nicolosi, reparative therapy helps clients give up the false self, a feature of which is same-sex attraction, in order to experience real attachment and affirmation from “real men.” As this occurs, the homosexuality will diminish and heterosexuality will emerge.

This should be reasonably easy to test. If all of this is true, homosexuals should be unable to hold jobs, or advance in careers, or do other things which require secure object relations and attachments. And of course, this is the practical problem for the practical work of reparative therapy. Many gay, ex-gay, post-gay, and SSA people do not have lives which correspond to the predictions in this book. Nor do their lives indicate the kind of deep self-deficits which are predicted here.

This is first in a series of occasional posts on this book. Stay tuned…

18 thoughts on “Shame and attachment loss: Going from bad to worse”

  1. Of course there are straights who feel the same way. Only, straights and gays who feel that way may likewise be able to hold jobs or advance in careers – so I wouldn’t infer that a homosexual who holds a job or advances in a career couldn’t be suffering from “Nicolosi’s trauma”.

  2. Rainer – Straights feel and act the same way. The kinds of experiences you describe are true of straights too.

    Read the most recent post; the fellow who had shame with his father should have been gay according to the “shame-trauma-makes-you-gay” theory.

  3. Warren,

    “If all of this is true, homosexuals should be unable to hold jobs, or advance in careers, or do other things which require secure object relations and attachments”.

    That doesn’t follow for me. I hold a moderately well-paid job. Notwithstanding I’ve always had the feeling to be “a child in an adult’s world” – a child which couldn’t grow up but has learned to fake a grown-up, doesn’t allow strangers to come too near (and see through the fake) and has found a professional niche where more grown-up abilities (like exerting authority) aren’t necessary.

  4. Warren–

    I do agree with you that one of Nicolosi’s biggest weaknesses is how he tends to globalize things. Trying to fit everything into one neat package…one solution fits all…this always leads to that. My biggest concern is that there are some good and valid ideas that are being compromised because he does this.

  5. I suspect those adopted concepts of bereavement and grief will want to return to their original family.

    Warren,

    masterful snark. kudos

  6. I haven’t read far enough into the book to see if he now believes that heteros are ok in the self category. I do know that he believes without gender trauma one will be straight.

    In other words, that fact remains that if you traumatize a child in a particular way you will create a homosexual condition. If you do not traumatize a child, he will be heterosexual. If you do not traumatize a child in a particular way, he will be heterosexual. The nature of that trauma is an early attachment break during the bonding phase with the father.

    If you are straight, you did not have problems with your same-sex parent. It is not such a leap to if you are straight, you have a real self unsullied by the nasty false self.

  7. Anticipating an objection, let me add that there are people of accomplishment who would say in their private moments that they don’t know who they are and they feel directionless. However, they are also straight in their sexuality.

    I don’t think anyone, including Nicolosi, is suggesting that homosexuality is the only expression of a person who doesn’t know who they are or who feels directionless. Many career-driven individuals, who come to realize that they are alone or that they’ve lost touch with their families, find that they used their career (their accomplishments) to mask a greater personal void…the sense of a whole self. Others might seek solace in some form of escapism. The tragedy is that as long as the ‘substitute’ is there to medicate the need, many remain unaware of the problem. For those motivated to seek help with their homosexual attractions/behaviors, it could be their main substitute.

  8. David Blakeslee wrote:

    Many of Dr. Nicolosi’s assertions better fit Personality Disorders in general rather than Same Sex Attraction in particular.

    Yes, that is true. One can read through his book and see many suggestions which are common to the psychodynamic literature on personality disorders. See especially James Masterson’s work as I noted. The true and false selves distinction is a hallmark of Masterson’s work and it seems odd that Nicolosi did not attribute these concepts to him.

  9. Anticipating an objection, let me add that there are people of accomplishment who would say in their private moments that they don’t know who they are and they feel directionless. However, they are also straight in their sexuality.

  10. Eddy said:

    Translation: Suppose it is a case of feeling not fully accepted by the parent…and suppose that the child did begin to engage in parental pleasing behaviors that weren’t true to their own sense of self.

    One does not need to suppose. This happens every day in America. The fallacy of much of the literature extrapolating from adult recollections to childhood trauma is that most people have just these kinds of interactions with parents. Who has not felt misunderstood?

    Let’s take it further. If the traditional Christian view of human nature is correct, children are endowed with a sin nature. They will naturally not want to do what they ought to do (and indeed parents want them to do). This sets up the very situation Nicolosi decries. I went through “parental pleasing behaviors,” my kids went through them at peril of losing privileges, hopefully parents socialize children in ways that communicate disapproval of aspects of childishness which are likely viewed by children as necessary for “self-definition.”

    Nicolosi says his theory is build on a Christian anthropology. If parents are castigated for directing children and moving them in ways that are against “who they are” but are much more rational and productive, then he is not operating within a traditional Christian anthropology, imo.

  11. I’m not sure to what extent this applies but there’s something about ‘You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free’ that may be at work here. Nicolosi’s clients could be quite ‘ill’ but highly functioning…once they come face to face with the truth, recovery could happen speedily.

    Translation: Suppose it is a case of feeling not fully accepted by the parent…and suppose that the child did begin to engage in parental pleasing behaviors that weren’t true to their own sense of self. In this situation, any acceptance they gained would be seen as ill-gotten and false. (“If they really knew ME…if they knew what I REALLY wanted to say or do…they wouldn’t accept/love me.”) So, any acceptance received is sorely lacking. When a high-functioning adult comes face to face with this reality, it could bring them to the realization that they must actually test the waters…let their parents (or other models) see the REAL them and see whether they accept them AS THEY REALLY ARE. Another possibility is for the adult to reckon with the notion that the only acceptance that really counts is their acceptance of their own self…whether anyone else seems to agree or not. In both scenarios, the core self is fortified–and it can happen rather quickly.

  12. I am not a psychologist, but isn’t basing his views on the personalities of SSA men on the experiences of his clients circular logic? It seems to me that a well-adjusted, content, and secure SSA man (whether he acts on his sexual feelings or not) is not going to look to change his orientation, and since Nicolosi’s sample seems to only be the men who have come to him, then that’s a little askew.

  13. Is Joe arguing for a “multiple times per week” therapeutic intervention consistent with his Object Relations theory?

    The damage he ascribes to the disorder, would necessitate such an intervention, perhaps over years.

    I have known some of Joe’s clients who profited from only months of weekly therapy, having developed a secure sense of self, modest increases in opposite sex attractions and lowering of obsessional same sex attractions.

    Such clients can’t be as “ill” as Joe’s book implies, to profit so quickly and lastingly from his work.

  14. Good idea Warren,

    I recently attended an advanced workshop in Borderline Personality Disorder where both Object Relations and Dialectical Behavior Therapy were thoroughly discussed.

    Many of Dr. Nicolosi’s assertions better fit Personality Disorders in general rather than Same Sex Attraction in particular.

    You rightly observe that those with SSA in a non-clinical setting are likely to have a more stable sense of self, a more stable sense of the other and a sense of identity that is broader than their erotic attraction to the Same Sex…

    That’s where things break down for Dr. Nicolosi. His theory needs at least a chapter on the Adaptive Homosexual (as he implies homosexuality is universally maladaptive).

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