George – I have compared the repressed memory scandal to reparative therapy. There are several parallels. Reparative therapy has very little empirical backing but is based on psychoanalysis as was repressed memory therapy. Psychoanalysis is resistant to testing because the concepts change with the client and the therapist. Some behaviors can mean two things at once to analysts. Analysts believe they can inferred past events from present behavior which is exactly what repressed memory therapists and reparative therapists do. Both therapists tend to use their experience versus research. They also rely on several cases to divine a general trend.
Therapists can do good things and treatment may fail. I understand the concept, however, I would say that the therapist did not successfully help his/her client. The point is to do the right kind of good things at the right time. Society demands a better answer than ‘I followed my protocols correctly and did good things.’
Nick Cummings is a mentor to me and a good friend. I have his book and have interviewed him several times and written about him in the national press. One of my great puzzles is that Nick has not written against reparative therapy. I know he believes that therapy can assist a small number to alter sexuality (about 13% from the numbers he gave me) but he does not think that reparative drive theory explains homosexuality in general. Like Nick I think a small percentage of men and women who engage in homosexual behavior are basically straight or bisexual and therapy may help them realize a more heterosexual adjustment.

StraightGrandmother# ~ Jul 27, 2011 at 3:31 pm
George Ribble –
(1) homosexuality is a developmental issue where psycho-social growth has gone off the track from its normal progression;
What does that mean George? Is it a disorder that is part of a disease? What is the medical terminology for an “issue?”
Please state if homosexuality is a disease or not.
What you do is use a lot of words in order to avoid answering a simple question.
I simply wish for you to answer the question, and no you are not clear. To be clear the 2 choices are
Homosexuality IS a disease
Homosexuality IS NOT a disease.
Thank you George Ribble I await a short answer from you.

StraightGrandmother–I understand homosexuality to be a developmental disorder where psycho-social growth has gone off the track from its normal progression. The terms “developmental issue” and “developmental disorder” are used interchangeably in the mental health field. They are considered to be Axis II diagnoses. Sorry for the confusion.

If you’re going to remove a diagnosis from the DSM do it correctly, not fraudulently

I’m not sure what you would have had them do. It took nearly a year of debate and discussion for homosexuality to be removed. The science was reviewed and it could not support maintaining same sex orientation as a disorder. Your attempts at distracting from the facts by using words like “politics” and “fraudulent” to describe the entire process, are just that, distractions

The process followed back then that removed homosexuality from the DSM established forever that psychiatric diagnoses could be negotiated by political fiat.

Did you ever ask yourself why homosexuality was included in the first place? Your extreme bias is showing in almost everything you post on this subject.
From wikipedia:

Psychology was one of the first disciplines to study homosexuality as a discrete phenomenon. Prior to and throughout most of the 20th century, common standard psychology viewed homosexuality in terms of pathological models as a mental illness. That classification began to be subjected to critical scrutiny in the research, which consistently failed to produce any empirical or scientific basis for regarding homosexuality as a disorder or abnormality. As a result of such accumulated research, professionals in medicine, mental health, and the behavioral and social sciences, opposing the classification of homosexuality as a mental disorder, claimed the conclusion that it was inaccurate, and that the DSM classification reflected untested assumptions that were based on once-prevalent social norms and clinical impressions from unrepresentative samples which consisted of patients seeking therapy and individuals whose conduct brought them into the criminal justice system.[1]

There was more at work in the removal of homosexuality from the DSM than simply politics, but focusing on the politics, as most fringe religious conservatives like to do, helps them to ignore the science and the more legitimate academic arguments for its removal.