Month: February 2007

Sexual identity therapy: An interview with Dr. Nicholas Cummings

This is a draft of an article that is looking for a home. Dr. Cummings related his experience in private practice working personally with an estimated 2,000 plus gay clients. The HMO (Kaiser-Permanente) where he was Chief of Mental Health used their experience with between 15,000 and 16,000 gay and lesbian people to form policies that were implemented while he was there. He discloses this information here in print for the first time. Having interviewed Dr. Cummings, I understand better why he is an enthusiastic supporter of our sexual identity therapy framework.

An excerpt:

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 developed 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 adaptation.

NOTE: 3/8/07 – Inexplicably, a NARTH writer has plagiarized my interview with Dr. Cummings. It is here on the NARTH site and contains quotes that are verbatim from my article.

3/9/07 – Dave Pruden has written to say that the article has been removed. No explanation was given. Dave apologized for this but he said he does not know who is responsible.

NARTH adopts Leona Tyler Principle

February 8, 2007 – The Leona Tyler Principle, adopted by the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1973, has just been unanimously adopted by NARTH’s Governing Board on the advice of its Scientific Advisory Committee.

In essence, the principle states that when psychologists are speaking as members of their profession, any advocacy in which they engage should be based on scientific data and demonstrable professional experience. Perhaps Dr. Tyler, then APA’s president, was able to foresee the day when organized psychology would be influenced by activism, and she wanted to ensure that psychology as a profession would not be eroded.

Read the rest on the NARTH website…

Church coalition files FCC complaint over suicide of Brent Dugan

David Blakeslee posted in January about Reverend Brent Dugan’s tragic death in Mercer, PA hotel room. Now, a coalition of Pittsburgh area church denominations have filed a complaint with the FCC surrounding the reporting of KDKA – Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette posted a complete copy of the letter filed by the “Christian Associates, a regional ecumenical association representing 15 Christian denominations.”

I will be adding background and information on this matter as I find it. Local paper, the Sharon Herald filed this report. In November of 2006, the Post-Gazette provided some depth on the KDKA report. The Post-Gazette posted a report of Reverend Dugan’s death on November 4, the same day Ted Haggard was dismissed from New Life Church.

Scent of a man

Another smell study, this time examining hormone and mood responses among straight women to male sweat.

This passage from an article in the London Daily Mail is provocative:

Dr Claire Wyart, of the University of California, said: “This is the first time anyone has demonstrated that a change in women’s hormonal levels is induced by sniffing an identified compound of male sweat.

“This male chemical signal, androstadienone, does cause hormonal as well as physiological and psychological changes in women.”

The study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience is, however, not the first to show that male sweat holds a certain appeal for the opposite sex.

A study carried out at the University of Northumbria showed that a whiff of sweat has the ability to turn a frog into a prince.

Researchers asked a group of female students to judge the attractiveness of men shown in photos. A second group of women were set the same task, but this time, unknown to them, a cloth soaked in male sweat was hidden nearby.

The women under the influence of the pheromones – released by glands including those under our arms – rated all the men as being more attractive.

Those judged as being the least attractive by the first group of women showed the biggest jump in sex appeal, with the women rating them as being almost as appealing as the best-looking men.

The only women to resist the effect of sweat were those taking the contraceptive pill.

It is thought the hormones in the Pill stop women from responding as strongly to natural signals of attraction.

Sweat also plays another important role in the mating game, with scientists believing we seek out partners whose body odour is different to our own.