Comments on: NARTH Report: Suicide attempts increase during sexual orientation change therapy

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 01:48:35 +0000

Didn’t know where to add this comment, I suppose this is as good of topic as any.

Bryan Egnew grew up in an observant LDS family in Arizona, the fourth of ten children. After graduating high school, he attended Brigham Young University, served a proselytizing mission in France, and then married in an LDS temple. He became the father of five children. He served in his local LDS congregation. He did everything that was asked of him.
…
And over the course of more than twenty years, Bryan slowly came to terms with the fact that he was attracted to men….
The reaction, Jahn says, was much the same when Bryan sat down with his own wife to confide in her. She also became very upset. And she packed the five kids (ages 6 to 16), moved them across state lines from the family’s home in North Carolina to Tennessee, and initiated legal proceedings to prevent Bryan from seeing them. She also contacted the bishop in her local Mormon congregation and “confessed Bryan’s sins for him.”
Within two weeks, Bryan was excommunicated from the LDS Church. From the perspective of Mormon doctrine, his excommunication severed Bryan’s relationship to his children not only in this life, but also in the hereafter.
Alone in his home in North Carolina, Bryan was devastated. His parents flew out to be with him, then brought him back to Arizona for intensive treatment for depression…
After a few weeks of therapy, Bryan convinced his parents and his therapist that he was stable enough to return home to North Carolina, so he could look after the family home. Back in North Carolina, on Saturday, September 10, Bryan bought a gun at Wal-Mart. He fed the family’s animals, cleaned the house, handed the keys to a neighbor, sent a message to a family member that they needed to come to the house, and then went on the front lawn and shot himself.

http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/5204/suicide_leads_to_calls_for_improved_treatment_of_lgbt_mormons__/
Is this not one of the saddest stories you have ever read? Father of five, faithful follower of his faith, and literally thrown out of his home and his church/Temple. For what? I know I am not supposed to get all emotional on this blog, and I regret when I hve crossed that line, but I just can’t help it, these true life real life situations break my heart. They break my heart. It is because of religion that sexual minorities are persecuted. Maybe not every religion but most of them. I am sure that it did not help Bryan Egnew’s state of mind to be living in North Carolina a State that has recently voted to put a Constituitional Amendment referendum barring same sex in the 2012 elections.
These stories really really trouble me, they break my heart.

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:48:35 +0000

Didn’t know where to add this comment, I suppose this is as good of topic as any.

Bryan Egnew grew up in an observant LDS family in Arizona, the fourth of ten children. After graduating high school, he attended Brigham Young University, served a proselytizing mission in France, and then married in an LDS temple. He became the father of five children. He served in his local LDS congregation. He did everything that was asked of him.
…
And over the course of more than twenty years, Bryan slowly came to terms with the fact that he was attracted to men….
The reaction, Jahn says, was much the same when Bryan sat down with his own wife to confide in her. She also became very upset. And she packed the five kids (ages 6 to 16), moved them across state lines from the family’s home in North Carolina to Tennessee, and initiated legal proceedings to prevent Bryan from seeing them. She also contacted the bishop in her local Mormon congregation and “confessed Bryan’s sins for him.”
Within two weeks, Bryan was excommunicated from the LDS Church. From the perspective of Mormon doctrine, his excommunication severed Bryan’s relationship to his children not only in this life, but also in the hereafter.
Alone in his home in North Carolina, Bryan was devastated. His parents flew out to be with him, then brought him back to Arizona for intensive treatment for depression…
After a few weeks of therapy, Bryan convinced his parents and his therapist that he was stable enough to return home to North Carolina, so he could look after the family home. Back in North Carolina, on Saturday, September 10, Bryan bought a gun at Wal-Mart. He fed the family’s animals, cleaned the house, handed the keys to a neighbor, sent a message to a family member that they needed to come to the house, and then went on the front lawn and shot himself.

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:27:57 +0000

Patrocles=

patients may prefer a risky treatment to the state of untreated misery they are living in.

Well yes especially if they are misinformed by the therapist on the likelyhood of being able to change

By: Patrocles

Patrocles — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 03:42:01 +0000

First, about suicides in therapy.
In Germany, we are used to make a distinction between “covering” and “un-covering” therapies – the archetype of “un-covering” therapies is psychoanalysis. It’s generally assumed that un-covering is risky (for some persons even too risky).
You can hardly compare all kinds of therapies – of course a therapy with anti-depressiva or tranquillizers will produce less suicides. But it would be interesting to compare “reparative therapy” for example with traditional psychoanalysis.
Personally, I see “change” more as a kind of adventure (with scientifical observations) than as a therapy. But even if we speak about therapies: patients may prefer a risky treatment to the state of untreated misery they are living in.

By: StraightGrandmother

StraightGrandmother — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 01:27:57 +0000

Patrocles=

patients may prefer a risky treatment to the state of untreated misery they are living in.

Well yes especially if they are misinformed by the therapist on the likelyhood of being able to change

By: Patrocles

Patrocles — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:42:01 +0000

By: Michael Bussee

Michael Bussee — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 18:52:43 +0000

Looks like Exodus may be trying to distance themselves from NARTH:
NARTH Absent from Relaunched Exodus Bookstore | Ex-Gay Watch

?”In particular, there appear to be no books by the notorious Dr Joseph Nicolosi, the father of ex-gay reparative therapy and former president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.”

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exgaywatch.com%2Fwp%2F2011%2F09%2Fnarth-absent-from-relaunched-exodus-bookstore%2F&h=PAQCROcFgAQB6Frp7nzJ65xf_7hALTrTpNBIuA0sI1OIpUg

By: Michael Bussee

Michael Bussee — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 14:52:43 +0000

Looks like Exodus may be trying to distance themselves from NARTH:
NARTH Absent from Relaunched Exodus Bookstore | Ex-Gay Watch

?”In particular, there appear to be no books by the notorious Dr Joseph Nicolosi, the father of ex-gay reparative therapy and former president of the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality.”

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.exgaywatch.com%2Fwp%2F2011%2F09%2Fnarth-absent-from-relaunched-exodus-bookstore%2F&h=PAQCROcFgAQB6Frp7nzJ65xf_7hALTrTpNBIuA0sI1OIpUg

By: ken

ken — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:16:07 +0000

This “article” is hardly surprising. NARTH has a long history of taking others’ research and twisting it to say what NARTH wants rather than what the original researchers (who had direct access to the original data) actually concluded. Or manipulating the data (in ways that would never get past a legitimate peer-review) to come to whatever conclusion they wanted.

By: Michael Bussee

Michael Bussee — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 22:56:26 +0000

Leaving aside the fact that there is no statistically significant result, NARTH and Whitehead fail to consider another possible explanation for the concocted results. Perhaps, the reason why suicide attempts fell after change therapy is that the clients involved got out of the therapy. Maybe these people found peace with their sexuality in some other way that did not involve trying to change. From this point of view, perhaps people are alive today despite the therapy not because of it.

That would be my best guess. And the Ex-gay Survivors I correspond with on a daily basis (more and more of them each week) would certainly agree.