WHYY interview with Judith Glassgold about APA task force report

Yesterday, I was on WHYY out of Philadelphia for an interview with Judith Glassgold, chair of the recently released APA Task Force report. Marty Moss-Coane is the host of Radio Times, a show broadcast over NPR as well as locally on WHYY.

You can listen to the interview here. It is long (about an hour) but the long format allowed us to unpack the report and some of the clinical issues involved.

Among other points, Dr. Glassgold affirmed my understanding and analysis of the APA task force report and the value it has for people working within a sexual identity therapy framework. There is much more of interest so if you groove on this topic, this is a good interview without pressure to create sound bites.

New Scientific Research revisited

In the category of “Old Business.”

On July 23, I asked blog readers what the phrase “new scientific research” meant.

Here is what some of you said:

New: Recently reported (not in media for more than 3 months)

Scientific: Can document measuring criteria, tested, revealing a need to do further research

Research: Primary Data

If it’s new, it’s not a review of past literature.

Data that hasn’t been reported before.

Not –

A literature review

A meta-analysis

A re-analysis of data that has been previously been reported with a different analysis.

Study with new data…Not a literature review. Not a review to undermine the own viewpoints with no diversity view.

That’s what I think too. Therefore I was surprised to see NARTH headline their recent press release for the summary paper, “What Research Shows…” as

New Scientific Research Refutes Unsubstantiated Claims Regarding Homosexuality

The problem is that there is no new scientific research in the paper. The paper itself is not new scientific research but rather a collection of prior studies.

I asked NARTH leaders about the decision to call their paper “new scientific research.” I did learn in the process that the NARTH Governing Board had reviewed the press release and title and approved it. When I pressed about why the paper was called “new scientific research,” NARTH past-president Dean Byrd then wrote to me twice say that he did not have time to answer the question.

Not-for-profit co-ops may replace public option in health care reform

The Associated Press has a good summary of the political landscape on healthcare reform today.

During the 1993 Clinton Health Care debates, co-ops were floated as an option. While this may seem like a compromise, such co-ops are not a panacea. I might support them if the amount of administrative costs were capped and they were not allowed to lobby legislators (think about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

Such an option could get us closer to public health clinics where health care would be free or dramatically low in cost. Co-ops should be open to such an arrangement since such care can be coordinated well and the incentive is good care and not profit margin.

However, I maintain that unless tort reform is on the table, it matters little whether we have non-profits or insurance companies or the government. Physicians will still practice defensively and run up costs. Don’t hear me say tort reform will fix the system but without it, I doubt the current fixes will help as much.

Health care reform controversy comes to Grove City

Yesterday, Grove City got involved.

Americans for Prosperity rolled through town collecting signatures on a petition opposing more government control of health care.

I wrote about the visit at World Magazine, just up today. Actually, I wrote the article sitting in the Four Star Pizza. They’re all wireless and tasty in there.

gc

Unpaid protester

GC crowd

People waiting to sign the petition

AFP Bus

Americans for Prosperity bus

World Magazine on the APA sexual orientation task force report

Alisa Harris at World Magazine has a web only article out today discussing the APA task force report. I am quoted along with David Pruden at NARTH. There are a couple of points in the NARTH information that are incorrect.

Psychologist Warren Throckmorton once met a woman who was in a lifelong lesbian relationship and suddenly, with no prefaced desire to leave her lesbian lifestyle, fell in love with a guy at work. She left her lesbian partner and married the man.

The American Psychological Association just published a report on whether therapists can make this change happen. In examining change therapy, which claims that people with homosexual desires can switch to heterosexual desires, the report says there is insufficient evidence that the therapies work.

This kind of story is a good argument for control groups if you really want to rule out spontaneous change from the claims that therapy produced it. If this woman and others I know like her were in therapy, perhaps they would have attributed the change to the therapy.

NARTH of course is skeptical:

The panel surveyed 83 peer-reviewed studies, most of which occurred before 1978 and had methodological flaws, according to the panel. But the 138-page report left out certain key studies by Jones and Yarhouse, Karten, and Spitzer, said Pruden, adding that there was no minority report and a lack of ideological diversity on the task force. In a response to the APA report, NARTH argued that “homosexuality is more fluid than fixed” and that there’s substantial evidence someone can change his sexual orientation.

This comes from the NARTH press release in response to the APA report:

NARTH appreciates that the APA stressed the importance of faith and religious diversity. Unfortunately, however, the report reflects a very strong confirmation bias; that is, the task force reflected virtually no ideological diversity. No APA member who offers reorientation therapy was allowed to join the task force. In fact, one can make the case that every member of the task force can be classified as an activist. They selected and interpreted studies that fit within their innate and immutable view. For example, they omitted the Jones and Yarhouse study, the Karten study, and only gave cursory attention to the Spitzer study. Had the task force been more neutral in their approach, they could have arrived at only one conclusion: homosexuality is not invariable fixed in all people, and some people can and do change, not just in terms of behavior and identity but in core features of sexual orientation such as fantasy and attractions.

At least one problem here is that the task force report did consider Jones and Yarhouse, Karten and Spitzer. I would have preferred that the criticisms of the Jones and Yarhouse study would have been considered in a different manner (not in a footnote) but I do not think the outcome would have been much different given the APA distinction between orientation and identity.

On the claims of omission, a quick search of the APA report demonstrates how misleading the NARTH press release is. The Jones & Yarhouse study is referenced 17 times, Karten’s dissertation is mentioned three times, and Spitzer’s study is referenced 19 times.

I was glad Ms. Harris included the following:

The idea that people develop homosexual tendencies because of sexual abuse or distant parents is “one of the easiest theories to falsify,” he argues. “There are many gay people who have perfectly fine relationships with their parents and are not sexually abused.” Instead of telling his gay clients that they can become straight, Throckmorton helps them figure out how they want to live and then helps them get there.