New Hope For Treating Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction !!!!!!

[Daanyeer]

Source: www.unitedfamilies.org
August 30, 2006 Author: By Sharon Slater

................"Homosexual activists and their allies try to argue that homosexuality is genetic or otherwise innate and immutable because it furthers their policy objectives. Recent polls show that an increasing number of people in the U.S. are buying into that myth, with clear implications for the policy debate on marriage and other issues. This is no doubt happening in other countries as well. "

There is new hope for those afflicted with unwanted same-sex attraction following a significant development at the American Psychological Association's annual convention last week. In an amazing turnaround from the association's previous direction, APA President Gerald Koocher declared that "APA has no conflict with psychologists who help those distressed by unwanted homosexual attraction."

A little background puts the significance of his statement into perspective. Over the past three decades or so, the APA had increasingly been taking a "politically correct" position on homosexuality, including an aggressive position opposing treatment of unwanted attraction. This trend began in 1972 when the association removed homosexuality from its list of psychological disorders. It took this action not because of new research but under pressure from homosexual activists who were threatening to be increasingly disruptive of the association's meetings until they got their way.

Just last year, the association nearly declared that the treatment of unwanted same-sex attraction was an unethical practice. Had this happened it could have effectively shut off this option for thousands of individuals seeking treatment.

However, several recent developments apparently have been a reality check for the APA. One of the most significant was the finding published several years ago by Dr. Robert Spitzer that some individuals really have responded to therapy and successfully changed their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual. Dr. Spitzer's research was particularly significant because he is the one who led the effort in 1972 to remove homosexuality from the APA's list of psychological disorders.

Another important factor has been the growing criticism by former APA officers and others of the direction the association was taking on a whole range of issues. (See, for example, "The APA and Psychology Need Reform" by a past APA president.) How, they asked, could the APA ethically discourage therapists from helping people who wanted help and could be helped? The implication was that the APA was more concerned with social engineering than with its true mission.

But the efforts of the National Association for Research and Treatment of Homosexuality (NARTH) were the precipitating factor. NARTH is the association formed by therapists and researchers treating unwanted same-sex attraction and related issues. Prior to the APA meeting, NARTH sent a letter signed by 75 of its most prominent members urging the association to rethink its position.

At the convention itself, NARTH and a number of related groups which also help those with unwanted same-sex attraction, such as Exodus International, Evergreen International, and others leafleted APA members outside the convention advocating a change in direction. (It is significant that their requests to have a booth inside the convention hall or to run paid advertisements in the APA publication had been rejected, so the APA still has a long way to go.)

While this shift is hugely important for the benefit that it offers to individuals, it also has major public policy implications. Whether people believe that homosexuality is innate and unchangeable or that it is a behavioral disorder that can be successfully treated in many instances or that it is simply a chosen sexual lifestyle understandably colors their perception of issues such as same-sex marriage.

Homosexual activists and their allies try to argue that homosexuality is genetic or otherwise innate and immutable because it furthers their policy objectives. Recent polls show that an increasing number of people in the U.S. are buying into that myth, with clear implications for the policy debate on marriage and other issues. This is no doubt happening in other countries as well.

It is a truism that good public policy can only be made on the basis of the most correct possible assumptions and the best available facts. This shift in position by the APA should have direct and positive benefits in the debate over marriage and other family related issues by anchoring them more solidly in fact.

This emerging recognition of the true nature of homosexuality by the association will no doubt be life changing for many individuals, and for some it literally will be lifesaving.

[Basra-]

Please .... I did not read the whole article just the excerpt--but i can tell u this-- looool Homosexuality does exist-- & its a Biological error!


I have said this before , Homosexuality was created to regulate human population.Imagine if gays & lesbians reproduced?? I would commit suicide right away for i cannot stand too much population. ( ok i am being dramatic & copying lionhearts suicide tendancies lol ) Also the ONLY way to cure homosexuality is to refrain from sex & be a good muslim. That clean chaste of existence. Fear Allah & refrain from abomination!!

[Grant]

Basra,

The issue with populations is not so much how many are born, as how many survive in what condition to produce another generation. The genome that produces homosexuality would not be there if it did not increase the survival rates of the population as a whole.

These "gay cure" people are at their best when they are ignoring evidence.

[gedo_gurl]

Grant is a gay.