I was interviewed Thursday night (before flying to Phoenix) for American Public Media’s “Weekend America” which was broadcast on many NPR stations across the nation today. Full audio of the segment here.
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I was interviewed Thursday night (before flying to Phoenix) for American Public Media’s “Weekend America” which was broadcast on many NPR stations across the nation today. Full audio of the segment here.
I chuckled when I saw the “web resources” items for Richard Cohen on the Weekend America interview page. The clip of him on Paula Zahn’s CNN show, beating the crap out of the pillow; and making George Foreman squirm on Jimmy Kimmel’s show. Precious moments.
Great interview! (Unfortunately my local affiliate pre-empted Weekend America for the winter pledge drive.)
I liked that after Cohen’s interview full of psychobabble terminology the radio hosts discussed that although Cohen calls himself a therapists he is not licensed.
I wondering if anyone has done a poll on people that have gone through ex-gay therapy and it hasn’t worked? I for one went through it and it didn’t work.
Silas,
As far as we know, there has not been any reliable effort to quatify the number or percentage of participants in Exodus, ex-gay ministries, or ex-gay therapy – either religious or secular.
The closest I know of would be Cummings and his work at Kaiser for conseling unhappy same-sex attracted people. Of the 15,000 or so folks his department counseled, about 17% reoriented (this isn’t well defined), about 50% became happier healthier gay people and about a third remained messed up with sexually addictive or other destructive behaviors.
In looking at the Cumming work, it’s important to remember that these are people who sought out counseling and this is not representative of the population at whole. Obviously it excludes otherwise content gay people.
Spitzer in his famous (or infamous) 200 person study said that some had reoriented – based on telephone conversations with successful ex-gays (including political and religious employees or other ex-gay activists). He also guessed that of the total gay population, those who were capable of reorientation were probably in the single digits.
I hadn’t really heard the extent of Richard’s beliefs for therapy until this broadcast. I’ve seen him beating the pillow with the tennis racket..but when I listened to his theories on the skin being a repository for negative emotions and how physical activity (ie the pillow beatings) allowed those emotions to emerge in order to be experienced and processed…it reminded me of something. Basically, Richard is spouting Primal Scream Therapy by Aurthor Janov.
Here’s some of the basics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primal_therapy
There’s also Janov’s book: Why You Get Sick, How you Get Well.
Essentially, Primal Scream therapy says similar things. We must get past the higher reasoning of consciousness and access the “primal” part of our brains to help deal with anger issues and so forth. If we don’t do this, the energies associated with those repressed memories are stored in the body and cause lots of health issues for us. He has some interesting studies to try and support those claims and Janov is quite certain primal therapy can cure homosexuality.
Bingo Brian, I’ve been telling people that for the past year. Janov goes way back and I have some involvement with his therapy, if one could call it that. It has a cult like element to it and I would not recommend it to anyone. But the birth trauma and cellular memory stuff from Cohen are very similar.
I don’t think Cohen goes so far as to blame the neurotic “break” which is at the core of Janov’s stuff, but then one must leave some room for customization 😉
Good grief, this stuff is actually in Wikipedia? I didn’t think it warranted even that status.
The absence of peer-reviewed outcome studies to substantiate these claims led to the therapy falling out of favor in academic and psychotherapeutic circles. However, Dr. Janov and his associates have continued developing the therapy and providing it at his Center in Venice, California.
All he has to do is repackage it as a cure for homosexuality and he will see new vigor for his old theories.
Well basically there are two variants for Primal Therapy. There’s Janov’s and Janov’s ex-wife’s practice. At a lower time in my self exteem, I considered checking into one of these practices. Janov’s practice, in the questionaire, asks you if you experience homosexual temptations while the ex-wife’s does not. I also believe she made a statement in her literature that in her practice, primal therapy wasn’t to be used to cure homosexuality. Author Janov doesn’t hold that position as far as I remember.
After reading Why You Get Sick.. I was amazed by some of his facts and research. There certainly IS a mechanism that alters a persons body chemistry and physiology when tapping into the more core regions of the brain and its repressed memories. But more frightening than that is the states of consciousness some of his patients would go into during therapy. Mental breakdowns on the highest degree and some indivduals experiencing their core body temperatures rising to dangerous levels. Whenever I read about his practices, all I could think of was something out of THX1138 or the Star Trek Episode where Kirk and Spock were at that penal colony with all the mental patients and they used the “Chair” to make them experience all these frightening images and pain. lol. (I watch too much science fiction).
But seriously, biogenics and primal therapy is truly and unorthodox method of “counseling” and if anything, I would think its more dangerous than any other form of counseling available.
Regardless of where Richard Cohen gets his theories, he is just isn’t credible. In the segment, they mention that he isn’t licensed but do not mention that he was banned from his counseling association for ?6 ethical breaches.
Also, in the segment, Richard Cohen mentions that he was in a gay relationship for years in NYC, but is now happily married. What wasn’t mentioned was that the marriage occurred long before his trip to NYC. He had deserted his wife to run around with someone for years, and then came back to her.
Also, I think that Richard Cohen comes off as far more disturbed and disturbing on TV, than he does on the radio. It really bothered me while listening to the radio segment that he didn’t seem anywhere near as weird in that interview than in anything else that I have seen him in.
I don’t want to make this a thread about Primal Therapy, but my knowledge of it comes from Janov’s side. The problem with all that amazing stuff is that it was never confirmed by peers, and he sells it literally as a cure-all. I don’t think anyone has taken it too seriously since the late 70’s to early 80’s, at least no one in professional circles.
I remember in one of his books pictures of people with bruises who said these came up as “memories” stored in the cells. As I remember those turned out to be fresh from writhing around on the floor during one the fits he encourages. It’s been around for 40+ years now and has no significant following.
One has to remember the time during which this therapy was born. It was very contrarian, and anything which involved feelings or nature was in. Janov was the anti-analysis guy. It might be interesting to know if Cohen ever studied Janov’s stuff, but in the end he’s pretty much a nut and however he got there isn’t all that important to me 🙂
John said:
It really bothered me while listening to the radio segment that he didn’t seem anywhere near as weird in that interview than in anything else that I have seen him in.
I’m not sure why exactly but that statement doesn’t sound right 😉 He’s discredited because he uses junk science, not because he acts weird (though he does I think). A lot of therapists act weird from my perspective.