Category: Professional issues

Keep talking: Sounds like a good idea to me

John Corvino’s latest post could be read with profit by some leaders in the American Psychiatric Association. We did not even have a debate planned; we had an academic program planned for over 7 months. Then, group four as identified in this essay became vocal and as the APA wrote, “misinformation and rhetoric” became the story.
Here is the punchline, but please read the whole piece.

Then there are those who wonder whether the silence I’m lamenting really is a problem at all. My Aquinas cancellation suggests that it is: intentionally or not, the cancellation sent students the message that this topic is literally unspeakable. But the problem is by no means limited to one side. Last year I did a same-sex marriage debate (with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family) at another Catholic college. A week before the event, my host told me that a student was trying to organize a protest. “Because he doesn’t want a gay-rights speaker on a Catholic campus?” I asked.
“No, because he doesn’t want your opponent here,” she answered. The student thought that opposition to same-sex marriage should not be dignified with a hearing. On a Catholic campus!
That student, like the rest of us, would do well to recall the words of John Stuart Mill. In his 1859 classic On Liberty Mill argued that those who silence opinions — even false ones — rob the world of great gifts:
“If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
The moral of the story? Let’s keep talking.

I just noticed that this may not be John’s latest post as it was first posted on 365Gay on April 28. However, it is timely…

Two families, two approaches to gender preferences

This National Public Radio broadcast provides a look at the controversies surrounding how to treat gender identity concerns in childhood. Essentially dividing the field into two camps, the program follows the treatment choices of two families. One approach, represented by Kenneth Zucker, advocates making “the child comfortable with the sex he or she was born with.” The reporter elaborates further:

So, to treat Bradley, Zucker explained to Carol that she and her husband would have to radically change their parenting. Bradley would no longer be allowed to spend time with girls. He would no longer be allowed to play with girlish toys or pretend that he was a female character. Zucker said that all of these activities were dangerous to a kid with gender identity disorder. He explained that unless Carol and her husband helped the child to change his behavior, as Bradley grew older, he likely would be rejected by both peer groups. Boys would find his feminine interests unappealing. Girls would want more boyish boys. Bradley would be an outcast.

Zucker’s approach is contrasted with Oakland, CA therapist, Diane Ehrensaft’s approach. She advocates:

She describes children like Bradley and Jonah as transgender. And, unlike Zucker, she does not think parents should try to modify their child’s behavior. In fact, when Pam and Joel came to see her, she discouraged them from putting Jonah into any kind of therapy at all. Pam says because Ehrensaft does not see transgenderism itself as a dysfunction, the therapist didn’t think Pam and Joel should try to cure Jonah.
Ehrensaft did eventually encourage Joel and Pam to allow Jonah to live as a little girl. By the time he was 5, Jonah had made it very clear to his parents that he wanted to wear girl clothes full time — that he wanted to be known as a girl. He wanted them to call him their daughter. And though Ehrensaft does not always encourage children who express gender flexibility to “transition” to living as a member of the opposite sex, in the case of Jonah, she thought it was appropriate.

The whole program is intriguing, controversial and worth a review.
UPDATE – The second part of this story is out today here and a school district in Southeastern PA is confronting this issue.

The APA symposium on homosexuality, therapy and religion has been cancelled

What a difference a day makes.

The American Psychiatric Association program Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension has been pulled by chair David Scasta. My understanding is that he was asked (by whom, I am still not clear) to pull the program because of increasing concerns about it. I am still hearing more about the reasons and hope to know something more clearly soon.

Dr. Scasta did tell me that the APA’s position is that the program was not pulled because gay activists were unhappy with it. At this moment, I am skeptical.

More to come…

American Psychiatric Association to host symposium on religion, therapy and homosexuality

The American Psychiatric Association will host a symposium called “Homosexuality and Therapy: The Religious Dimension” at their annual meeting in Washington DC on May 5, 2008. I will be on the panel along with David Scasta, MD, Rev. Albert Mohler, Bishop Gene Robinson and moderator, John Peteet, MD. Dr. Scasta is past-president of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists (AGLP); Dr. Mohler is president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and a candidate for the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bishop Robinson is the first openly gay Bishop in the Episcopal Church and Dr. Peteet is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard, Medical Director (Psychiatry), Adult Psychosocial Oncology Program, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Chair of the APA Committee on Religion, Spirituality & Psychiatry.

An extensive background article by David Scasta about the symposium can be found on page 10 in this month’s newsletter of the AGLP. An excerpt:

Could we ever get a group of scientists and clinicians on both sides of the religious divide to seek common ground while committed to honesty in the scientific research about homosexuality – no matter what the outcome? While I can plead that most gays are not dead by their mid 40s and that those conclusions come from a distorted, blatant attempt to discredit gays, Christian conservative groups will dismiss my ranting out-of-hand. However, when someone like Dr. Throckmorton makes the same conclusions, these groups reluctantly listen. By the same token, when Dr. Throckmorton states that an assertion in our film [Abomination] is not supported by the data, AGLP ignores him. But if someone from AGLP makes that assertion…I decided to talk with Dr. Throckmorton.

The symposium will be held between 2:00-5:00 pm in lecture halls 159 A & B in the Washington DC Convention Center and include the following components:

Practice Framework for Managing Sexual Identity Conflicts

Warren Throckmorton, PhD

The Psycho-Social Bases of Theologies that Compel Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation: The Psychiatric Ethical Response

David Scasta, MD

A Pastoral Approach for Gay & Lesbian People Troubled by Homosexuality

Bishop Gene Robinson

A Pastoral Approach for Gay & Lesbian People Troubled by Homosexuality

Rev. Richard Albert Mohler, Jr., PhD

Discussant, Dr. Peteet, Chair of the APA Committee on Religion, Spirituality & Psychiatry.

I want to thank David Scasta and John Peteet for taking the initiative in making this symposium a reality. I look forward to the meeting, the give and take and opportunity to bring the discussion of sexual identity issues to this forum.

I think ACA violated its policies so I complained

On Wednesday, I sent a letter of complaint to the American Counseling Association along with over 400 of my closest colleagues (getting close to 500 by now, in part thanks to the American Association of Christian Counselors). In brief, I believe the ACA violated Policy 301.7 when the ACA Ethics Committee said

There are treatments endorsed by the Association for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues in Counseling (see http://www.aglbic.org/resources/competencies.html), a division of the American Counseling Association and the American Psychological Association (see http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/guidelines.html) that have been successful in helping clients with their sexual orientation. These treatments are gay affirmative and help a client reconcile his/her same-sex attractions with religious beliefs.

Policy 301.7 states:

Policy 301.7

Policy and Role on Non-Consensus Social Issues of Conscience

Having respect for the individual’s values and integrity in no way restricts us as individuals from finding legitimate avenues to express and support our views to others, who decide and make policy around these issues.  To this end, it will be ACA Governing Council policy to encourage its members to find and use every legitimate means to examine, discuss, and share their views on such matters within the Association.  We also endorse the member’s right to support social, political, religious, and professional actions groups whose values and positions on such issues are congruent with their own.  Through such affiliations, every member has an opportunity to participate in shaping of government policies which guide public action.

To truly celebrate our diversity, we must be united in our respect for the differences in our membership.  To this end, the role of the Association in such matters is to support the rights of members to hold contrary points of views, to provide forums for developing understanding and consensus building, and to maintain equal status and respect for all members and groups within the organization. Following this philosophy, the Governing Council considers it inappropriate for this body to officially take sides on issues which transcend professional identity and membership affiliation, and which substantially divide our membership, at least until such time that there can be a visible consensus produced among the membership.

Approved: 7/15/90

Now read this full Ethics Committee opinion and see if you think 301.7 is violated. I suspect my readers will break along ideological lines but, in my mind, this is just one of several issues where ACA has taken positions in absence of consensus.

The Alliance Defense Fund is also supporting my view of the situation with this letter. President Brian Canfield contacted me to say that the issue will be brought before the ACA Governing Council at the March meeting. Just to be clear, I am not taking issue with the responsibility of the ACA to identify questionable treatments but I am disturbed by their assertion that one religious view should be preferred over another by counselors.

The ADF just put out a press release on this matter.

NOTE TO READERS REFERRED FROM OTHER BLOGS: The insinuation that this complaint has any relevance to the Winnepeg “counselor” who used “holding therapy” to initiate sexual assault is false. In fact, I wish the ACA would explicitly prohibit holding therapy and have written frequently on that subject here. However, the ACA should not favor one religious resolution over another on matters where research consensus does not exist. We asked the ACA back in July for some discussion and clarification on this and we had no official response. I will have more to say about that in a future post. However, to suggest that what my complaint asks for is freedom to do “holding therapy” is absolutely false and misleading and should be corrected.