I have posted before about Genesis Associates and am now posting more of the documentary about their controversial techniques. This time detachment is the focus of the clip. I believe this documentary is so important as a cautionary tale regarding expressive therapies – such as recommended by Richard Cohen and the Mankind Project.
It is a long (over 8 minutes) but an important clip demonstrating that unfounded ideas can lead to harmful effects.
Category: reparative therapy
More on the Dr. Phil Show Little Boy Lost – Sparks fly among guests
This clip features some give and take between panelists on the Dr. Phil Show episode on gender identity issues. In this segment, Dr. Siegel defends moms by saying there is no evidence that being too close to a boy will make him want to be a girl. Dr. Nicolosi says Siegel is oversimplifying his reparative theory. What do you think?
Lights, camera, action!
Chasing the Devil and International Healing Foundation
John Sterback seems like a really nice man. Mr. Sterback is featured prominently in Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-gay Movement. He is affiliated with Richard Cohen’s International Healing Foundation in ways that are somewhat vague. He apparently is training to be a certified sexual reorientation coach via IHF. At the end of this clip Mr. Sterback say he does not believe Mr. Cohen or anyone to be “completely healed.”
Along with commentary from Mr. Sterback, this documentary features interviews with IHF Director, Richard Cohen. Cohen begins the video with a cooperative spirit but ends with him walking off camera.
Chasing the Devil: Inside the Ex-gay Movement… by Psychvideos
More information about the documentary can be found at the Coquizen Entertainment. While some of this will be quite uncomfortable for some viewers, the interviews are very informative for anyone interested in the ex-gay movement. Although the video is not done as an ex-gay apologetic piece, it does reveal the frequently heard conflict between homosexuality and religion. Particularly, in the cases of Jonah (Arthur Goldberg is interviewed extensively as well), and David Matheson (Journey into Manhood), religious conflict is a major driver of the desire and even the reality to move away from a gay identification. The video does not make light of this struggle and allows the people involved to speak.
In the case of the interview above, Mr. Cohen was asked about his expulsion from the American Counseling Association, bioenergetics and various IHF practices. These topics were clearly uncomfortable for Mr. Cohen.
Sexual abuse and sexual orientation: A prospective study
Online now ahead of publication is a report from H. Wilson and C. Widom of a prospective study of the relationship between sexual abuse, physical abuse and neglect and sexual orientation in men and women. Published to subscribers January 7, 2009 on the Archives of Sexual Behavior website, the abstract provides a glimpse into the many findings reported here.
Existing cross-sectional research suggests associations between physical and sexual abuse in childhood and same-sex sexual orientation in adulthood. This study prospectively examined whether abuse and/or neglect in childhood were associated with increased likelihood of same-sex partnerships in adulthood. The sample included physically abused (N = 85), sexually abused (N = 72), and neglected (N = 429) children (ages 0-11) with documented cases during 1967-1971 who were matched with non-maltreated children (N = 415) and followed into adulthood. At approximately age 40, participants (483 women and 461 men) were asked about romantic cohabitation and sexual partners, in the context of in-person interviews covering a range of topics. Group (abuse/neglect versus control) differences were assessed with cross-tabulations and logistic regression. A total of 8% of the overall sample reported any same-sex relationship (cohabitation or sexual partners). Childhood physical abuse and neglect were not significantly associated with same-sex cohabitation or sexual partners. Individuals with documented histories of childhood sexual abuse were significantly more likely than controls to report ever having had same-sex sexual partners (OR = 2.81, 95% CI = 1.16-6.80, p = .05); however, only men with histories of childhood sexual abuse were significantly more likely than controls to report same-sex sexual partners (OR = 6.75, 95% CI = 1.53-29.86, p = .01). These prospective findings provide tentative evidence of a link between childhood sexual abuse and same-sex sexual partnerships among men, although further research is needed to explore this relationship and to examine potential underlying mechanisms.
Beyond the result reported above there is much of interest here. I want to describe some how sexuality was measured and then make some general observations. This study will get more than one post.
One of the weaknesses of research on sexual orientation and social factors has been the lack of long term prospective studies. Most research into abuse and sexual orientation is based on retrospective self-report. This study is a significant improvement in that the authors had documentation of childhood sexual and physical abuse and neglect regarding 908 children from juvenile and family courts in a midwestern metropolitan area. The cases were reported and processed between 1967 and 1971. The authors then interviewed as many of these individuals as possible and included interviews with a matched set of control participants. The control group was matched with the abuse group on age, sex, race/ethnicity, and approximate social class at the time of the abuse. The average age of participant reports for all cases was 6.3 years.
At follow up, when the participants were in their late 30s and early 40s, they were asked if they lived (at the time of the interview) with a person of the same sex in a sexual relationship, whether the person had ever cohabited in a same-sex relationship, had ever had a same-sex sexual partner and whether the person had such a partner with the past year. Attraction was not directly assessed which is an unfortunate aspect of the study. Primarily the authors were interested in sames-sex sexual behavior, which may or may not indicate enduring attractions.
Among males, 2.9% reported a same-sex partner within the last year and 6.4% saying they had such a partner at some time in the past. Percentages were similar for women (2.1% and 6.8% respectively). Similar differences were reported for cohabitation and any prior same-sex relationships. Nearly all participants reported sexual partners of both sexes. Only five men (1.3%) and one woman (.24%) reported exclusively same-sex relations. It is highly likely that some of these individuals would identify as straight but had engaged in same-sex relations at some point in their past.
The main significant finding was reported in the abstract: “men with histories of childhood sexual abuse were significantly more likely than controls to report same-sex sexual partners.” There was no relationship between child sexual abuse and sexual behavior for women. Also, “child physical abuse and neglect were not significantly associated with increased likelihood of same-sex cohabitation or sexual partnerships” (from paper, pg 7). While sexual abuse is associated with an increased likelihood of same-sex behavior, this is not a study that shows homosexuality is caused by sexual abuse. Also, the study does not indicate that sexual abuse leads to homosexuality. In the control group, 5.3% said they had engaged in same-sex relationships, whereas in the sexual abuse group, 27.3% did. More on this in the next post.
This study is a significant challenge to reparative drive theory. Reparative theory, on display recently on the Dr. Phil Show, proposes that gender disturbances are caused by a poor relationship with the same-sex parent. Although this study does not directly test a specific set of family dynamics, it is plausible based on reparative concepts to predict that abuse and neglect might be more frequent in homes where dad is uninvolved or hostile to the children. Dr. Nicolosi frequently says he has never met a gay man who had a good relationship with his father. One would expect a significant elevation in these circumstances but none shows up here. Regarding parenting and sexual orientation, Wilson and Widom write:
These results were consistent for men and women and support the conclusions of Bell et al (1981) that early parenting experiences, positive or negative, play little direct role in the development of sexual orientation. Among women, we also found no associations between childhood sexual abuse and same-sex relationships.
This study, along with the recent work from Andrew Francis casts more doubt on reparative drive theory as a general theory of same-sex attraction. In a future post, I want to address additional implications of this study, especially regarding the complex question of how sexual orientation may be related to sexual abuse. The pattern of findings in the Wilson and Widom study can be interpreted in several ways. More about that soon.
The Dr. Phil Show on gender identity, Part 3 – Should puberty be delayed?
Near the end of the Dr. Phil Show on gender identity, two guests who were not on stage provided a mini-introduction to the controversy of using hormones to delay puberty. Dr. Jo Olson and Dr. Eva Cwynar are two prominent doctors who work in the field of gender disorders and endocrinology. And action!
From the Dr. Phil website, here is a rough transcript of their comments.
Dr. Phil turns to two more medical professionals in the audience. Endocrinologist Dr. Eva Cwynar says parents need to wait and see what happens with puberty and not give in to their child’s fantasy of wanting to become the opposite sex. Dr. Jo Olson, pediatrician with the Transgender Clinic of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, says children are born this way, and she helps kids make the transition through hormone therapy.
“Dr. Olson, at what point do you begin that?” Dr. Phil asks.
“It’s a different process for each child. It’s really important to recognize that young people and their families come in at very different stages of this process. Many of the people we see have actually already gone through puberty, but we do have some patients who are young, in the 12- to 16-year-old age range as well,” Dr. Olson says. “However, I want to say that we don’t just provide hormone therapy for young people, and not all young people who want to transition get hormones. We have a multi-disciplinary approach in our clinic, where they are assessed by a psychologist who is extremely familiar with gender-questioning youth, gender identity disorder and the issues that these young people face, as well as the case manager who understands what these young people go through. And hormones are not the end of the story for every young person.”
“And you work with the family members as well. It’s not just something you do to the child in isolation,” Dr. Phil says.
“Absolutely, and we have many parents who experience this same kind of mourning,” she says, referring to Toni.
“Dr. Cwynar, do you think there’s ever a point when hormone-blocking therapy is appropriate?” Dr. Phil asks.
“I do,” Dr. Cwynar says. “I think that, as everybody mentioned before, there’s a spectrum of this transgender, and I do believe as well that gender is a definition between the eyes and not between the legs, and that there are certain chemical phenomena, chromosomal phenomena, that occur both in utero and as we develop that make us appear as one sex, but is actually a different sex. I prefer waiting through puberty to see what actually happens when the hormones kick in. There are situations where you have distress and suicidal ideations and because of that, hopefully the family will be there for the child to help them get through that process. So, I like to see the whole adolescence be complete, essentially, before I do anything permanent.”
This is among the most controversial of issues and one with which I have had some professional involvement. I will give one example and then some links from past blog posts which address similar gender identity concerns.
Among several similar cases, I recall a family in conflict where the mother wanted to delay puberty for a GID child but the father did not. In short, the child now post-puberty is strongly identified with the biological gender. Delaying puberty would have been a mistake and the earlier wish to consider it vanished. Other cases are not so clear cut and hence the controversy.
Here are some relevant links to past posts:
–Two families, two approaches to gender preferences
–Gender identity disorder research: Q & A with Kenneth Zucker
–Ken Zucker compares ethnic identity conflict and gender identity conflict
–APA issues statement regarding GID and the DSM-V
–The Man Who Would Be Queen – Chapters 1 & 2
–American Psychological Association comments on DSM gender identity issue
–60 Minutes Science of Sexual Orientation: An update from the mother of twins
–60 Minutes Science of Sexual Orientation mother of twins, part 2 (this 2 part series is highly recommended)