Andrew Marin’s of the Marin Foundation promotes his new book Love is an Orientation in this video.
I have not seen the book but I am very hopeful to get a copy soon. I feel very positive about what Andrew describes about his work and look forward to reading more.
Category: sexual orientation
Can we infer the past from the present?
(This post has been moved up and republished)
For the foreseeable future, posts about topics related to my book-in-progress will come up frequently, punctuated with articles regarding my new medical interest – PANDAS. The book relates to same-sex attracted people who are in heterosexual marriage. There will be a significant section on theories regarding sexual orientation.
In that section, I will take up the problems of reparative drive theory and as such critique the primary means of gathering data for the theory – clinical experience. Reparative therapists base their formulations, not on several lines of empirical research, but on reconstructions from clients. This post will be a series of quotes from a 1984 book by psychotherapist Morris Eagle, titled, Recent Developments in Psychoanalysis: A Critical Evaluation and published by McGraw-Hill. In the section, I am referencing (131-140), Eagle begins:
I have noted above that according to most current writers, the essential factor in the etiology of developmental defects and arrests is early trauma of some kind…I have already noted (and will discuss again later in this chapter) that there is little or no evidence for these etiological claims.
Eagle believes that then current (in the mid-1980s and represented now by reparative therapists such as Joseph Nicolosi and Richard Cohen) psychoanalytic theorists miss the move Freud made from seeing the patients problems steming from actual trauma to intrapsychic conflict. Freud confronted the question regarding the veracity of his patients stories and concluded with varying degrees of conviction that the stories did not of necessity represent real events but rather patients’ mental constructions.
Eagle criticizes this view of etiology, saying:
In other words, what is invoked in the etiology of pathology is not intrapsychic conflict, personal meanings and fantasied interpretations of ostensible events, but the direct effects of supposed actual events (usually maternal failure – e.g., lack of empathic mirroring – of some kind) upon psychological development, relatively unmediated by personal fantasies and meanings. This kind of etiological explanation is similar in form to early Freud’s seduction theory and to pre-psychoanalytic accounts. It is a straightforward A causes B account, much as one would say that lack of vitamin D (A) causes rickets (B). (author’s emphasis)
To explain same-sex attraction, reparative drive theorists assert a set of developmental failures primarily involving the same-sex parent. These events are considered to be directly causative. What else can make of statements like this?
The child was not supported by his parents in his early masculine strivings, and as an adult, he is now in conflict with his normal desire to connect with other males.
A significant number of our clients report a family background which could be defined as narcissistic. In the narcissistic family, the child is placed in the communications structure of the Double Bind, or the “no-win predicament.” If he assumes responsibility for the fact that he does not feel loved for who he really is, the child is rewarded with parental love and attention (but of a narcissistic and malattuned sort). That is the nature of shame-assuming responsibility for “not having been lovable.” However, if he maintains his assertive stance, holding onto the integrity of his own perception and his own his internal state, he is punished with parental inattention and withdrawal.
To comprehend the profound gravity of this choice, we need to understand what we mean by a parent’s well-intentioned but malattuned love. When one is a very small child, parental malattunement feels like a profoundly painful expulsion, a “shunning” that is experienced as nothing less than hopeless abandonment. The price of choosing to maintain his own perception means, to the small child, having to confront the primal fear of abandonment-annihilation.
In the case of reparative drive theory, the parental failure comes from both parents – father gets a role in this psychoanalytic story. Eagle does not use the term confirmation bias but he notes the peculiar tendency of psychoanalytic theorists to ascribe meaning to historical events according to the analyst’s theories.
…so-called defects and arrests are not necessarily transparent rather involve the theoretical interpretation and judgment that certain behaviors are expressions, often indirect and subtle ones, of underlying developmental defects and arrests. What follows is that if one’s theoretical predilections are in a particular direction, one can view a particular set of behaviors as indications of a self-defects and developmental arrests, while someone with a different theoretical inclination will give a different diagnostic meaning to these behaviors…as Rangell (1980) has noted, the kinds of patients described as narcissistic personality disorders and as suffering from self-defects by Kohut and his followers have long been observed by many analysts who viewed them as neurotic rather than as warranting a distincy diagnostic category.
Searching for critical relational wounds (“bad enough parents”) has treatment consequences which Eagle believes leads to impossible expectations. Some people come in with clear knowledge of their history and desires to resolve their relationship to that history. Therapists should work with clients in this manner. However, some therapists press clients to adopt an explanatory framework which does not fit, or only fits with significant distortions or reconstructions.
Eagle questions the utility of suggesting to clients that their symptoms are tied in some direct manner to events, especially those before awareness. Can therapy really allow a person to go back and repair developmental arrests in any meaningful, real world way?
Many recent conceptualization of therapy suggest that treatment compensates for early traumas and the deficiencies they bring about. I have referred to this elsewhere as a “deficiency-compensation” model of therapy. However, it is likely that the salutary effects of therapy have mainly to do, not with eliminating developmental failures and structural defects, but with ameliorating the effects of the unrealistic anxieties and unresolved conflicts typically accompanying whatever failure or defects are one’s lot (author’s emphasis).
I share Gedo’s (1980) skepticism toward talk about resumption of developmental growth and the claim that psychotherapy somehow directly repairs developmental impairments and structural defects…As adults, we are not simply frozen at “arrested” points in childhood. Hence it is not at all clear as to what is meant by permitting arrested configurations to unfold as they would have when we were 1,2, or 3 years of age. What can such talk mean or refer to?
Eagle doubts that the benefit of therapy derives from the analyst and patient repairing the past via the present relationship. In this context, I am reminded of Richard Cohen’s justification for holding therapy on CNN – “It establishes a parent-child relationship. He didn’t get this from his own dad.” Being emotionally present for a client is important to serve present day functions but there is little evidence that therapeutic attunement in itself repairs historical deficits. He continues with this money quote…
The emphasis on early periods of development has led to unbridled speculations regarding supposed events and processes in infancy and childhood. Such speculations are often of an etiological nature or may simply refer to what presumably goes on in early development. What they all have in common is that, remarkably enough, they are entirely based on clinical work with adult patients and make no reference to empirical studies with infants and children, let alone long-term longitudinal evidence.
I probably should have led this post with this point. If you have read this far, this is a reward for doing so. Any theory that relies on the reconstructive memory of clients to open the door to the past should be doubted and pressed for confirming evidence. Critical events in reparative drive theory are proposed to occur prior to the age when most people can hope to recall (18 months to 3.5 years). The belief in their occurance comes from client reconstructions – a very selective sampling and subject to the therapist’s confirmation bias.
Eagle quotes Rubenfine (1981) with this caution:
under no circumstances are we ever justified in using our creative fictional ‘constructions’ about origins of pathology in the first year of life to serve as data for theorizing about early childhood development.
In short, given the reconstructive nature of memory, we cannot infer the past from the present with the kind of precision needed to craft dogma. Eagle has provided a solid critique of reparative type therapies which compel clients to emotionally relive the past and seek repair with an empathic therapist. Clearly, some good comes from these efforts, but, with Eagle, I suspect the empathy establishes the relationship and any good comes from present day strategies clients learn to navigate present life as adults.
Frisch & Hviid and reparative drive theory revisited
Commenter Evan recently posted a link to a informative powerpoint produced by colleague Morten Frisch regarding his study of social and family factors associated with homosexual and heterosexual marriage in Denmark. Morten is no stranger to this blog as he commented at length regarding the Cameron’s biased attempt to estimate homosexual lifespans. I reviewed this study for a Washington Times article (the WT link is disabled but it is here)and believe it is a significant contribution to the literature regarding causal factors associated with sexual orientation.
I would like to look at the significant findings in Frisch’s study in relationship to predictions made by reparative drive theory. According to the powerpoint, the purpose for the study was
To use a unique national set of demographic data free of selection bias to
-identify possible childhood family correlates of adult sexual orientation and partner choices
-evaluate the fraternal birth order (FBO) hypothesis (Blanchard) for male homosexuality
Regarding the latter purpose, the study found no evidence to support the FBO. What I want to do now is reproduce a few of the slides in light of predictions from reparative theory. Reparative theory proposes that disruption in the same-sex parent relationship in the crucial years of gender identity formation is responsible for homosexuality as a “gender identity problem” (Joe Nicolosi used to call homosexuality a gender identity disorder). His newer iteration of the theory refers to male homosexual “enactment” as deriving from feeling cut off from authentic masculinity. This deficit is located in a failure of the boy to successfully disidentify with mother and identify and bond with father between 18 and 36 months of age. Rejection from male peers builds on the bonding failure resulting in an eventual experience of same-sex attractions in a false and futile effort to return to masculinity. He has less to say about female homosexuality and most reparative therapists say that just about anything can lead to lesbianism as long as it is traumatic in some way or a deficit of upbringing.
Based on these premises, we would expect research on large groups of homosexuals to show an increase in problems during those crucial periods of early childhood. Further, we would expect the differences between groups to be large since reparative therapists say that the environmental experiences are necessary causes of same-sex attraction. With this in mind, let’s look at the Frisch results.
Birth place and marriage
On all of these tables, one (1) is the baseline and deviation from one is considered to be an increase or decrease in likelihood of homosexual partnership. In this case, the likelihood of same-sex partner choice goes up with the urbanicity of birth place. It is hard to know what this means. One might suppose that attitudes toward same-sex marriage are more liberal in the urban area if one assumes people are married where they are born. In a smaller country like Denmark, it seems that gay people in the rural areas might just move to the city where attitudes are more accepting. Perhaps, the social attitudes in the area where one grows up plays a role as well.
Parental characteristics
First note that none of the variables here are significant for women and only one is for men – mother’s age. There is a slight increase in odds of homosexual marriage for men if one’s mother was over 35 at birth. I do not see any clear theoretical connection for this finding. However, apropos to this post, note that awareness of the identity of one’s father has no significant impact on marital direction. A reparative paradigm would expect disruptions or ambiguity of paternal identification to lead to an increase in homosexual partnering.
Parental vital status and marriage characteristics
Reparative theory would predict disruptions in the same-sex parent bond in early childhood. As indicated by parental death, Frisch does not find the predicted disruptions. First of all, such circumstances for men or women are infrequent (only 22 cases each of paternal death before age 11) and second, there is no relationship to partnering in males. In females, the relationship to partnering is not in the early childhood years but during adolescence. As with all of these differences, the effect size is quite small so the variable does not account for much variation between gay and straight partnering.
Regarding parental marriages, I am a bit unclear how this finding relates to reparative drive theory. I initially wrote that there is a very small effect of short parental marriages for both men and women. However, I asked Morten to read this summary prior to publication and he took some exception to this point. He wrote,
Actually, there is a 36% higher likelihood of same-sex marriage among boys whose parents’ marriage lasted less than 6 years compared with boys whose parents’ marriage remained intact until age 18 years, and the corresponding estimate was 26% higher same-sex marriage rates among girls whose parents’ marriage lasted less than 6 years compared with girls whose parents’ marriage remained intact until age 18 years. Our data on duration of parental marriage duration and, for boys, duration of father-absent cohabitation with mother obviously don’t prove anything in relation to the reparative theory, but they are not in conflict with it.
On the other hand, effect sizes calculated in the way I am used to seeing finds a trivial amount of variance.
The only marriage duration that related to homosexual marriage was the “less than 6 years” category.” It would be tempting to see this as meaning that the children were all under 6. However, in Denmark, it is not uncommon for couples to cohabitate, have a child and then get married. In other words, we cannot assume the ages of the children involved based on duration of marriage.
In any event, this finding, even if of some substance, would neither confirm nor disconfirm the specifics of reparative drive theory – especially in light of the data which do not find a push toward homosexual partnering among males who experienced father absence due to death or unknown identity.
Parental cohabitation
This slide depicts data which seems more promising for a reparative theorist in that father absent cohabitation shows a slight relationship to partnering for males. However, if I was a reparative drive theorist, I would be disappointed. First, the number of gay males who experienced this factor is relatively small (80 of father absent cohabitation of between 6-17.5 years). Most partnered gays did not experience this event. Second, the effect is very small. If same-sex parent disruption was a necessary condition, might expect more dramatic results with application to both sexes.
I find myself in the unusual position of qualifying Morten’s conclusions. I think there is a need to qualify the factors by the non-significant results found. For instance, Morten lists father absence as a factor related to gay marriage. However, I would note that paternal absence via death was unrelated to outcome as was lack of knowledge of father’s identity.
On balance, I do not think Frisch and Hviid’s massive study of marriage choice provides significant support for reparative drive theory. If anything, the predicted findings are mixed.
If parental bonding and was massively and necessarily related to homosexual outcomes, it seems that some large study would find greater differences on the relevant dimensions. However, neither the recent Francis study nor the Wilson and Widom study of abuse and neglect demonstrate the expected results. While Frisch and Hviid report some impact of marital disruption, it is unclear what is the potent element of those events.
If not ex-gay, then what?
Former Q-Syndicate owner, David Benkof writes a provocative column in today’s Jerusalem Post – If not ex-gay, then what?
He writes:
For years, I have been a critic of the ‘ex-gay’ movement, particularly its Jewish manifestation. Many advocates of ‘reorientation therapy’ appear to exaggerate ex-gay transformation rates, and so far the non-gay leaders of the Jewish ex-gay movement have been utterly unable to produce success stories who are willing to be interviewed. Alarmingly, Jewish ex-gay organizers sometimes lead Jewish strugglers perilously close to Christian ideas at odds with Judaism.
Well, I have a suggestion. Instead of gay or ex-gay, those of us who have stopped thinking of ourselves primarily as same-sexers can emphasize the fact that, whether we’re celibate or in opposite-sex relationships, we’re ‘Deliberately Living Traditionally.’ The handy acronym Delta corresponds to a Greek letter representing change; it can be a rival to the use of the letter Lambda to represent all things gay. Delta can serve as a new identity and community for people who are making or have made that tough transition. (Perhaps the Hebrew version will be known as ‘Dalets.’)
He does not promote change but a different perspective and set of choices. How does this sound?
Research note: Gay and straight men assess parental qualities
I am re-examining (in some cases examining for the first time) older studies of parenting and adult sexual orientation. This post will look at a paper from 1983 – Sipova, I., & Brzek, A. (1983). Parental and Interpersonal Relationships of Transexual and Masculine and Feminine Homosexual Men. Journal of Homosexuality, 9, 75-85.
This Czechoslovakian study claims to find differences between assessments of parents by gay, straight and MtF transsexuals. However, the actual data do not support the discussion from the authors who clearly wanted to find the traditional triad. A look at the data reveals few statistical differences. The authors reported absolute values in the direction they expected but analysis finds only a few differences and those were not supportive of their discussion.
This study is interesting in that the authors divided the homosexual group (from a clinical population) into effeminate and non-effeminate males. Self-assessments of dominance differed with gay males viewing themselves as less dominant than straight males. However, assessments of paternal dominance were not different by sexual orientation of respondent. In other words, these men did not differ in how assertive and strong they perceived their fathers to be. Relevant to the reparative drive model, the non-effeminate group of gay males did not differ from the straight group on how loving they perceived their fathers as being. However, the effeminate gay male group did differ from the straight males and non-effeminate gay males on perception of paternal love. This finding supports the idea that gender nonconformity may evoke paternal rejection rather than paternal rejection being causally related in a comprehensive way to homosexual attraction.
Now here is an interesting finding: Non-effeminate gay males differed from both the effeminate gay males and the straight males on assessments of maternal love. Straight and effeminate gay males were no different on this dimension — both saw their mothers as quite loving while the non-effeminate gay males saw them as loving but significantly less so than the other two groups. All groups saw mothers as equally dominant and all saw their mothers as less dominant than the fathers. While some differences associated with the groups, the study does not support the “classic triadic model” of a distant/hostile father and overbearing/protective mother associated with male homosexuality. It is striking how similar the assessments were.