Mel Seesholtz assesses the weaknesses of the recent ex-gay study by Stanton Jones of Wheaton College and Mark Yarhouse of Regent University.
The Thomas Project: A study designed for specific results
A well-known, peer-reviewed research study of ex-gays that was conducted by Robert Spitzer in 2001 made fundamental mistakes of methodology, according to those peer reviewers: telephone interviews, no physical monitoring, slanted definitions of “success” and “change,” biased pool of subjects — in a single round of 45-minute telephone interviews. Was it really worth Jones and Yarhouse’s effort, and Exodus’ money, to spend five years repeating the same mistakes — this time conveniently skipping the peer review?
It is puzzling that Exodus and Focus on the Family claim to be pleased by study findings that — at best — only 11 percent of ex-gay program participants report a modest degree of bisexuality after 5 years. Who do they believe they’re fooling with talk of “change” in sexual orientation when — according to Christianity Today — nearly all the “successes” are bisexuals* who acknowledge they are constantly fighting off same-sex urges?
Seesholtz sums up the selectivity of the study, which appears to have utilized ex-gay activists ex-gays recruited by Exodus as subjects of the study:
A weak methodology that included only participants likely to yield the desired results: junk science encouraging potentially harmful “therapeutic” practices.
The study failed to provide objective scientific evidence of true change in sexual orientation. Seesholtz concludes:
That being said, should individuals have the right to seek “ex-gay” therapy? Yes: caveat emptor. Before entering into such programs, however, those offering such “treatments” should be required — ethically and legally — to tell prospective clients the scientific, medical facts.
I would caution against some of the language used above.
For example, “nearly all the “successes” are bisexuals who acknowledge they are constantly fighting off same-sex urges” does not equate to what Christianity actually said:
Nor do I believe it is accurate to claim that they “utilized ex-gay activists as the subject of the study” when more than half of these were people were new in their participation at Exodus.
If we define anyone who attends an Exodus ministry as an “ex-gay activist”, can we complain that they call every gay person “militant”?
I would prefer that we take the high road and put accuracy ahead of agenda. There are certainly sufficient flaws in this study without reverting to those that take artistic liberties.
ya think?
I agree in hindsight that I misunderstood and exaggerated the bias of the subjects — I am sorry about that.
My point about Christianity Today was this: The magazine wrote this outlandishly complicated and elliptical paragraph to evade the simple reality of bisexuality:
Hi Mike,
Regardless, I am encouraged that you actually used the term “bisexuality” in the equation which is greatly vacated in the ExGay movement and rarely ever spoken of, yet it is the midpoint between homo and hetero. I think it will be unsuccessful to rid ourselves of extremists for there is good reason for their existance.
Extremists at both ends of the duality spectrum experience conflict. Maybe that is why we don’t here too much about bisexauls, they are in the middle.
One way to justify and explain the existance of all three sexual orientations, is to go back to creation of planet Earth itself. It’s primary axiom is one of duality, of extremes: hot cold night day visable invisible short tall black white front back up down fundamentalist atheist, and all the measurements in between. We can’t have just one polarity on this Earth. There is not just a North pole with no South pole or Equator, and it is as clear as sun and rain, if one cares to look. Simply put, that’s the way Earth got created, plain fact. Hence heterosexuality cannot exist without it’s opposite and all that falls between. If we are going to live on this planet in tolerance, a good study of the axioms within which we live, would greatly reduce fear and advance the human race.
The next time one feels an unwanted sexual feeling, it could help to remember this main fear-free condition called duality. Duality will never change on this planet, that is gaurenteed. The way out of it’s alarming effects is to stop playing the ping pong game and relax. Live in the world yet not of the world of duality. Be oursleves knowing all is ok and that duality in and of itself is not our true nature, but one in which we live.
Peace,
Lex
If there was a “rigging” it occurred in the way the “classes” were constructed such that the “celibate” and “continuing” categories came to be counted as “successes” by the antigay media and organizations.
Furthermore, the very association of the numbers with any real-world situation for success is meaningless. Jones & Yarhouse even pointed that out, “We do not, however, have such a scientifically representative sample in this study.” And, “We believe that our sample is a fair representation of religiously motivated individuals seeking sexual orientation change, but of completely unknown representativeness of all homosexually oriented persons.” Thus the numbers are meaningless except to show the existance of the class constructs, if those constructs have any real meaning.
It is important to note that the slim likelihood of change is already considered to be factual, and the American Psychological Association ethical guidelines for work with LGB patients states that those patients desiring change should have the limitations of any such therapy provided in advance of treatment. There are numerous examples within the published literature, however, of change-oriented therapists admitting to dishonesty about this with their patients.
The closest to a methologically sound piece we have on this at the moment is Shidlo & Schroeder’s 2001 article.
A note on the use of the term “bisexual” – typically, in sexual orientation research, it is used to refer to an actual orientation, and not a “complicated” heterosexuality. Many classic studies touting success in reorientation did include participants that were fully functioning bisexuals and claimed “change” when same-sex contact was lessened. This was misleading then and now, however, and for the truth claims of Exodus to be empirically validated they would have to demonstrate a shift of “gay” identified men that are more like a 5 or a 6 on the Kinsey scale toward heterosexual functioning. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that, in light of other work in the field, a “complicated” sexuality actually refers to functionally and emotionally gay men and lesbians self-labeling as heterosexual, with no change… a harmful and essentially meaningless change.
Sorry Matthew — could you provide a link to that article (was it an opinion piece, or did you mean a paper?)
(S&S didn’t seek out anything to do with the likelihood of change — they (basically) set out to record a list of those who’d had a bad/rough/awful/harmful experience with attempting to change from gay to straight.)
Points well made, though, about the basically misleading claims coming from anti-gay and pro-change therapists.
Just had a thought… would Jones and Yarhouse describe the victim of ongoing prison rape or a (otherwise straight) street hustler as having “complicated homosexuality”???
(Somehow, I doubt it!)
Hi Grant,
I apologize, I tossed around a lot of terms loosely – by article I was referring to it as an article in a research journal, not an opinion piece. First, I’d like to include a link for the APA Guidelines for Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Clients . An interesting read for many here, I’d imagine. The full citation of the Shidlo & Schroeder journal article is:
Shidlo, Ariel; Schroeder, Michael. “Changing sexual orientation: A consumers’ report.” Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, v. 33 issue 3, 2002, p. 249-259.
I apologize that I could not find this in a free e-format, though this is a widely distributed peer-reviewed journal published by the APA and easily found in most university libraries. While it is true that they set out to study the impact and motivation for change therapies and not to study rates of change, per se, their methodology in recruitment and data collection were still quite a bit more sound than the current Exodus study or Spitzer’s research. Luckily for us, they also assessed change as a part of their study. For these reasons, I think it’s safe to refer to their estimates of change (a questionable 3%) as closer to the norm than these other studies. While it is not ideal as a gold standard, comparatively there’s nothing else in the empirical literature that we can use as a guide. I think there’s a bit of a catch 22 in the works here – the methods used by proponents of change therapies are often poor, often unethical, their promoters poorly versed in the general research on human sexuality, and the majority of us in the field unmotivated and disinterested in putting together possibly harmful randomized trials to tell us something that past data has already indicated – sexual orientation is largely stable, likely set at or shortly after birth, and (particularly in men) a fixed trait over the lifespan.
My dad called me the other day to report a mailing he received from a right-wing, antii-gay caucus in his mainline denomination. The headline said “New Study Shows Sexual Orientation Can Change.” It really doesn’t matter what the results of the study are – anti-gay groups are going to use it to promote their message. Those receiving that message are not going to read the actual report or question what they already want to believe. It’s a shameless misuse of the research, much like what they did with the Spitzer study.
Matthew Skinta wrote:
I take strong exception to these statements. Shidlo and Schroeder recruited people by going to gay organizations with this call to participants: “Homophobic Therapies: Documenting the Damage.” Click the link to read the entire call. This part is especially telling:
To their credit, they were careful to anticipate misuse of their study when they wrote in their 2002 article:
It is not safe or appropriate to refer to their estimates of change as a norm.
After reading the articles linked, it seems to me that this latest study is hardly propaganda, or motivated by propaganda. A “rigged” study would trumpet more glossy gains, rather than settle for modest ones as this does.
On the contrary, I believe this study, and I’m guessing others will follow, confirms what past studies have pointed to: that sexual orientation is a spectrum, and that people on the “true homosexual” end of the spectrum can change their orientation to “true heterosexual.” But that this is difficult, not a majority, and fraught with the possibility of slides along that spectrum.
And why wouldn’t that be true? Take any other undesired facet of personality, such as propensity for anger, heterosexual cheating on your spouse, drug and alcohol abuse, habitual lying, etc. Any human being could fill in the blank (or many blanks!). Does that mean people are rigidly trapped the way they are? To do so dehumanizes them. Does that mean they will never backslide or be tempted regarding their personal areas of weakness? Not at all.
That’s why it is a bit sad to see that there is an “anti-ex gay” gestapo that seems so utterly committed to the proposition that it is not just difficult, not just uncommon, but impossible to change sexual orientation. And that “proof” of such change must mean never any backsliding or evidence of temptation. That is simply intellectually dishonest.
As a heterosexual who knows people who are gay and some who have given up the gay lifestyle — and as a person who lives in a world where people struggle with, and often make progress against, many strong negative tendencies — this new study seems to fit the common sense reality I observe.
And when the hardcore naysayers begin beating their drums, I’ll just shake my head at their intolerance.
I agree with Chris that “rigged” is a bit harsh.
But clearly this study, like previous ones, started out with some selectivity in sampling, then used a research technique (a questionnaire) that was slanted toward subjective rather than objective measurements, and finally proceeded to remove failures from the subject pool and the resulting data due to an inability to monitor people who discontinued participation in the study. It would be useful to see whether subjects who withdrew were trending toward success or failure before they quit.
I also agree with Chris in opposing the notion that it is impossible for anyone to change orientation or that there is no fluidity to sexual orientation.
However, I disagree that there is any scientific evidence that someone at either extreme of the orientation spectrum is remotely likely to experience any significant change in orientation. And it is wrong for Exodus to promise change of orientation and boast of such change in the study, when in fact there is little or no evidence of actual orientation change. The evidence that I have seen thus far is a large percentage of the subjects who were able to practice abstinence and a very small percentage who were able to pressure themselves to think bisexually rather than homosexually.
Anyone, of course, can change their behavior. But that has little to do with orientation or “lifestyle.”
Mike – You are not describing the study accurately.
The study was to learn whether Exodus as an independent variable was associated with changes in reported sexual orientation and/or decreases in wellbeing (the dependent variables). And so the participants were selected from the pool of Exodus participants at the time. Any results cannot be generalized to conditions outside of those, e.g., therapy, reparative or otherwise. Since the study was prospective, the authors did not know what the results were going to be. This is very different than in past studies. Those were retrospective studies where the participants recalled their experiences. Furthermore, the researchers in those studies deliberately sought people who were either happy (Spitzer) or unhappy (Shidlo & Schroeder) with their experiences. So yes, in the past studies, the researchers knew about what they would find. In Jones and Yarhouse, they did not know and would have reported the results if no one had changed or if widespread harm was reported.
They used multiple questionnaires of sexual orientation (Kinsey, Shively & DeCecco, Klein, etc.) and well being (SCL-90) reported the various results from each. The interviews and testing were extensive. The measures were validated measures in contrast to Spitzer’s and Shidlo and Schroeder’s. All self-report measures are subjective. There are significant moral concerns for Christians of being exposed to porn in order to assess physical responses. Also, the measures have significant reliability and validity problems. The newest approach is brain scans which are promising but still being validated. They were not available when this began.
The way this is worded is misleading. The authors did not remove anyone from the study. The participants in the cases of drop outs refused to provide data. You cannot make people talk to you. However, “failures” (in the Exodus sense) were assessed and some of them did provide data. Those who quit Exodus and provided data or solidified a gay identification and did so were included in the Time 3 calculations. It would useful for drop outs to contact Jones and/or Yarhouse so they could be assessed.
Yes, rigged is harsh; and it is flat wrong.
While I agree the results were modest, there was a small group that reported large changes across measures. Saying that they pressured themselves into thinking bisexually presumes that you know what their experiences were. While a change from homosexuality to bisexuality is a change, saying it is the result of pressure is an assumption on your part.
“On the contrary, I believe this study, and I’m guessing others will follow, confirms what past studies have pointed to: that sexual orientation is a spectrum, and that people on the “true homosexual” end of the spectrum can change their orientation to “true heterosexual.” But that this is difficult, not a majority, and fraught with the possibility of slides along that spectrum.”
Did you read the results, that’s not at all what they said. They said the 11% considered to be “totally converted” still had same sex thoughts and desires and that their heterosexuality was not “uncomplicated”. I know tons of straight people, none of whom have homosexual desires or not “uncomplicated” heterosexuality. It’s pretty intellectually dishonest for you take results that create “success” stories by lowering the bar for success. None of the “successes” from this study changed from true homosexual to true heterosexual. The results themselves say otherwise. All of them, repeat, ALL OF THEM still have homosexual desires and thoughts. The only way they have become “true heterosexuals” is if you completely redefine the term so that barely resembles commonly held definitions.
“And why wouldn’t that be true? Take any other undesired facet of personality, such as propensity for anger, heterosexual cheating on your spouse, drug and alcohol abuse, habitual lying, etc. Any human being could fill in the blank (or many blanks!). Does that mean people are rigidly trapped the way they are? To do so dehumanizes them. Does that mean they will never backslide or be tempted regarding their personal areas of weakness? Not at all.”
You cannot compare sex, a biological imperative, a deep seated set of desires, and compare them to drinking and drug abuse. There is no biological need for either of them. Furthermroe it’s quite insulting to suggest that we’re all addicts. Would you, as a straight person, feel insulted if someone told your relationship was nothing more than a bad habit, an addiction, that you were not experiencing love, but just overindulgence?
But let’s say for a moment that being gay is just like getting really angry, or being a drugg or alcohol addict. Everyone gets angry. The majority of the population can enjoy recreational alcohol or drugs without becoming addicts. If gays are in the same boat, then it would stand to reason that one can be gay, actively gay, and not be an addict. If you can get angry on occassion without needing anger management, then it follows that one can be gay without the need for reorientation therapy.
Furthermore I quit drinking and smoking 3 years ago. Haven’t had anything resembling a craving in over a year. I go out to bars, I’m even happily partnered to a smoker, and have no problems, no cravings, no secret desires. Vices aren’t biolgical, they are psychological. The study results show that homosexuality cannot be compared to an addiction because addictions don’t just lessen with time and distance, they stop.
“That’s why it is a bit sad to see that there is an “anti-ex gay” gestapo that seems so utterly committed to the proposition that it is not just difficult, not just uncommon, but impossible to change sexual orientation.”
We’ve yet to see results that support any other conclusion. None of the people in that study left homosexuality, they just learned to avoid and manage their feelings, that’s not the same thing. It’s like someone who hasn’t left home, but has convinced themselves that they are in the woods, and has managed to avoid or manage things that remind them they are still in doors being considered no longer a shut-in.
“And that “proof” of such change must mean never any backsliding or evidence of temptation. That is simply intellectually dishonest.”
“true” heterosexuals are not plagued with homosexual desires. They might have one or two in their entire lifetime, but not periodic “temptation”.
Another facet that is completely ignored is that homosexuals have desires long before they ever have sex. I had fantasies involving men at a very young age, and didn’t have sex until almost 15 years later. There are gay people who are virgins, but have absolutely no question in their minds that they are 100% gay. How many cocaine addicts have you met that have never had cocaine, but somehow know they’re addicted to it already?
“As a heterosexual who knows people who are gay and some who have given up the gay lifestyle”
It’s not a lifestyle. That’s why our symbol is a rainbow. We come from all walks of life, all political parties, all faiths, all races, we have more differences than similarities. It is not a lifestyle. Drug addicts have a drug addict lifestyle, a way of living that revolves around drugs. My life doesn’t revolve around being gay, it’s a part of who I am, but it is not the most important part, or the only part. The only reason it has any significance is because intolerant people made it significant.
” — and as a person who lives in a world where people struggle with, and often make progress against, many strong negative tendencies — this new study seems to fit the common sense reality I observe.”
Your common sense reality states that after several years people still have constant cravings for things they haven’t had in years? I doubt that. I don’t know anyone who quit smoking that still has cravings years later.
“And when the hardcore naysayers begin beating their drums, I’ll just shake my head at their intolerance.”
It’s not intolerance, it’s clarity. This study proves that change doesn’t happen. Not even after years. It proves that 11% consider themselves no longer gay. It proves they have taken steps to appear and feel more straight but despite everything else, no matter what they do, the gay thoughts will not go away.
That is not success, that is failure.
There’s so little point in me asking Dr. Throckmorton any questions.
However, several remain.
Without making comparisons to heterosexual being condition to hating their orientation-what’s to compare these efforts to?
Without the correlation of conditions that homosexuals are subject to over their lives-how can these results be considered informative in any important way?
There recently was an article printed regarding the psychological consequences of subtler discrimination.
Mostly it was test of people of color and racism. It was linked at Andrew Sullivan’s site.
The gist of the article was that when a person is treated wrongly in such a way as to be not out in the open, the normal human response is to try to find out WHY. And a great deal of emotional and mental exertion is spent on finding out. Leaving not as much time to spend on other intellectual issues.
Hence why those who have never experienced prejudice or discrimination do not understand the motives or expressions of anxiety over it from those on the receiving end.
To many only the most overt and vicious acts of prejudice will go on their radar and they may or may not have empathy for such treatment.
This is why such language as ‘whining’ is attributed to legitimate complaint, but about something that the other hasn’t witnessed.
This is very serious and rare research regarding perception of one’s treatment over something you have no control over: subtle prejudice that is no less devastating to your life than prejudice that is more overt.
The Clark doll study that I’ve brought up was such an example, but what of similar damage done to gay youth?
“Unwanted sexual attraction” is a loaded phrase as is ‘struggling with homosexuality’. These often used phrases come from a source which assumes a great deal but is dishonest about the correlation of coercion that comes from the larger society. ‘Unwanted’ or ‘struggles with’ are most often very damaging psychological struggles with prejudice and unwanted societal discrimination.
I’ve gone through such struggles and unwanted myself. With my color…I knew I couldn’t change it. But it wasn’t the color of my skin or gender that was the problem.
It was being told I was worthless or without talent and merit to offer and had no positive role models before me
to contradict such treatment.
If I were told my only hope was in affecting as much as possible white beauty standards and affectation, and still was confronted with all kinds of other rules of conformity, I’d be more messed up now than I already have been.
A gay child being told their only hope is to affect straight behavior or live in denial of their own desires I KNEW didn’t make me a bad person or worthless otherwise, THAT is where the damage comes from.
There are tangible results of this psychological damage to gay youth, but no justifiable reason that such treatment continue or that the ex gay industry should exploit it.
The point is: I want, no DEMAND to know…..to what benefit is there REALLY that all gay people become straight or celibate? What could possibly change for the better in ways that aren’t being accomplished if gay people were left alone to NOT struggle or consider their orientation unwanted at all?
What TANGIBLE reason whatsoever?
and that people on the “true homosexual” end of the spectrum can change their orientation to “true heterosexual.”
Chris, you appear to have read some study other than that of Jones and Yarhouse. I did not read of any examples of “true heterosexuals”. What I read about was complicated quasi-heterosexuality.
You seem to be confusing “true heterosexuality” with “giving up the gay lifestyle”. But “true heterosexuals” do not struggle with temptations or attractions to the same sex.
Do you? Does your spouse?
I’m sorry if you think that insisting on honesty and accuracy is intolerant. But I do.
Wait a minute — it’s intellectually dishonest to expect people who profess to have changed into heterosexuals not to have gay sex? I’m gay, but I know a lot of heterosexuals, and none of them have gay sex. They don’t even have to stop themselves. The question of whether or not to engage in a bit of gay sex, or gay sexual fantasy for that matter, just doesn’t occur to them. In fact, that’s kind of what separates them from the gay people I know.
If you want to claim it’s possible to change from a “true homosexual” into a “true heterosexual,” then I think it’s fair to expect you show us people resemble heterosexuals in precisely that respect.
If you don’t want backsliding to count, then why say you’re changing people from gay to straight? Why not say you’re teaching homosexuals how to cope in heterosexual relationships? Or, to take an example from your anger analogy, why not say you’re helping people to manage their homosexuality?
Warren,
And so the participants were selected from the pool of Exodus participants at the time.
Well, no. Not exactly.
This was not a study of all Exodus participants that began seeking reorientation over some given period of time. This was referrals from some specific Exodus ministries.
Frankly, we don’t know if the ministries preselected their participants based on liklihood of success or their predetermination of commitment to Exodus. Perhaps the book (if it ever gets to me, Amazon) will explain this further. But at present all I know is that SOME Exodus participants were selected for the study.
Since the study was prospective, the authors did not know what the results were going to be.
Again, no, not exactly.
Of the 98 participants, nearly half had been participants in Exodus programs for one to three years. It is a bit unreasonable to claim that after three years those ministries that made the referrals for this half of the study had no idea whether these people were reporting any success at all.
I am waiting to see if the book clears up any of my concerns with the study.
Ok, I must be reading another book. I haven’t found a straight or gay person in the bunch, only bisexuals. That’s not snark, it’s what I’m seeing. If someone is a Kinsey 4 and this is a success, we definitely need to define terms once and for all. I would easily be a Kinsey 6.5 if there was such a thing, and I guarantee all the Exodus time in the world would not make that move. If, on the other hand, I started with some heterosexual desire to begin with, as all of these study participants did, I can certainly see how one could emphasize one over the other in some cases. If this is what one considers a success, then that’s fine.
Would someone just please tell Exodus, et al to talk to their own researchers? If they have half the integrity they are given credit for, they will certainly explain the difference between what Exodus is selling, and what this study demonstrates. Perhaps if they and the others touting this research as Nobel Prize material would come back to Earth and deal with the actual results, we wouldn’t have some of the extreme and total dismissal of what the research may actually inform us of on the other side.
The most important thing out of all of his is the obvious need for more thorough, hopefully more decisive, research. I hope brain scan technology will enable that.
I’ve considered this an extremely weak excuse every time I’ve read it. If the participants are aware of the gravity of the work that is being done, perhaps they could agree to waive their sensibilities in this area for the duration. It would hardly be a sin considering the motivation, or would masturbating for a sperm donation also be a sin?
Timothy: You are correct that there were some participants who already had some Exodus experience. However, once enrolled in the study, they could just have easily have failed as continued. I recognize that some bias is introduced when you do not have a completely representative sample. However, to say that sampling in Shidlo and Schroeder was more sound than in the Exodus study as Matthew claimed is wrong.
David – My book is at home so I will need to check the degree of change in the “conversion” group (15%) but I think there was more change in Kinsey points in that group than on average. But you are correct that on average the change is modest and this is not consistent with a rigged study (as is the theme of this post).
I think of this study as an effort on the part of Exodus to find out what impact their ministries are having. They have been faulted for not doing this in the past and I do not think it is productive to dismiss this effort but to learn what it has to teach us and to continue researching.
Regan – You appear to be arguing that the only reason a same-sex attracted person would choose to be celibate or desire heterosexual desire is due to social oppression. I have no doubt that some are impacted in that way. However, no matter what society says or doesn’t say, some are going to believe their God norms their sexuality. Those people pursue celibacy or ex-gay ministries in order to live in alignment with their beliefs. You may not like it or agree with it but that is their right to pursue.
Research that seeks to avoid bias will, among other things, be designed as follows:
1. The researchers will refrain from lumping broad-ranging data points into a couple of severely muddied and dubious “success” categories.
2. The researchers will welcome peer review, rather than prevent access to the methodology and results until after a timed political launch event at which the underwriter immediately lies about the study’s design and distorts the results.
3. The research leaders will make a good-faith effort to prevent the study underwriters and the media from distorting or politicizing the results, and will take public action to restore accountability when distortions occur.
4. The researchers will refrain from redefining common language and well-established measures in ways that have the unavoidable effect of misleading the public.
If there was no intent to slant the research and its impact on the public, then why haven’t Jones and Yarhouse spoken out about flagrant distortions of their work by the AFA, CWFA, FRC, and even Exodus itself?
I allow that the study offers a genuinely useful subjective look at the self-perceptions of a very small number of ex-gays. Given the biases and such a small sample, though, that subjective glance is about all this study seems to accomplish.
Until researchers conduct themselves in a more transparent and independent fashion, we will continue to see culture-war factions releasing pop-psych studies on various topics that deliberately obscure, misinform, and divide.
Like Warren, I hope for better research in the future. And I welcome the participation of people like Jones and Yarhouse in such research — I trust they had the best of intentions.
However, in this particular study, Jones and Yarhouse had numerous opportunities during the course of their research to act accountably and with a minimum of bias. Instead, as I have noted, they acted in ways to limit accountability, to introduce bias, and to permit or encourage distortion of their findings.
That is not to say that I found the results to be false — I didn’t. When read carefully, the results were realistically discouraging for ex-gays seeking a reasonable hope for “change.” The problem is, Jones and Yarhouse have permitted Exodus and the religious-right media to lie about the results and turn small hope into false hope.
This study has obvious problems that have already benn raised: very small group, serious questions about selection bias with half the sample having already served 1 to 3 years in an Exodus program, only a few Exodus programs participating, about 25% lost to follow up, no reliable means to verify claims of heterosexual attraction, and great stretches to describe 11% of the original sample as heterosexual, despite ongoing struggles with homosexuality.
Warren is right that Exodus has been criticized for not conducting outcome research on its participants. They will now point to this study and distort its findings in order to deflect criticism. It will be useful in any setting where the audience is unfamiliar with the study.
It still leaves us all where we were to begin with: there is no convincing evidence that people can change their sexual orientation. But this was never really about science or truth from the Exodus point of view. This is all about politics. For that purpose, the study will serve its purpose.
More thoughts, further to my last comment:
1. A research study is not well-designed if the choice of subjects to leave it, significantly slants the measurement of likely outcomes.
2. Nudity is not, by definition, pornographic or sinful. There are NO valid moral concerns in showing subjects pictures of tastefully nude or lightly-clad individuals and measuring various forms of response.
Warren says “You may not like it or agree with it but that is their right to pursue.”
Look I may be totally naive here, but I have never met any gay person who would wish to deny other gay people the right to pursue change in their orientation.
On the other hand, “ex-gays” constantly work to deny me the rights that heterosexuals have – marriage, job, etc. Why is that? If you want me to celebrate the process of change that an “ex-gay” goes through to realign his orientation with his religious beliefs, why won’t you give me the same courtesy, by working for my rights?
How were these 98 people selected? (A: not at random.)
J&Y restricted themselves to particular geographic areas, something that shouldn’t have any influence on the outcome. However, some Exodus groups declined to participate: completely. Some sent all their people. Some sent only a select few.
We also know that for 41 of the 98 we’ve got at least a de-facto measure that they were “satisfied” with their experience (thus far) with Exodus; for whatever reasons.
It’s not a sample such as Spitzer’s or S&S, but… directionally, all these factors should have skewed the sample in a positive direction for Exodus. How much that influenced the Time 3 outcomes is open to question.
(note our deliberate use of “Time 3 outcomes” rather than “final outcomes”. Given that the same rough proportion of people kept dropping out of Exodus for each 1-3 year period… I doubt very much that Time 3 indicates what these people will say, or be doing, in 3/6/9/etc years time. Probably on Montel with Peterson… )
——————————————
The participants in the cases of drop outs refused to provide data.
Warren, you keep saying this but Jones and Yarhouse have stated “we lost subjects mostly for unknown reasons”.
Unknown reasons.
That doesn’t sound like someone simply “refusing to provide data”. Phrasing it your way implies Jones and Yarhouse — or someone — were at least in some contact with the person throughout the study.
Now: given that Jones and Yarhouse had access to the Exodus groups/leaders to ask after these “missing” people… could ask around with their church groups… etc etc … and given they have said they made great (if unsuccessful) efforts to find them… this actually points to these people doing more than simply “refusing to provide data”.
Rather, it suggests these people left Exodus completely. They didn’t just stop cooperating with the study — instead, they now want nothing more to do with Exodus.
And it is within that sort of cohort that one would expect to find those people who had “failed” — or been harmed.
——————————————
The authors did not remove anyone from the study.
This is incorrect, at least so far as their reporting of outcomes is concerned.
By stating % figures and by grossing up the K-ratings etc for the group at the time we potentially get a very misleading picture of what’s going on.
Doing this assumes that those participants lost to the study had the same averaged outcomes as those who continued.
And that is an absurd proposition given we can expect the failed, the damaged and the unsatisfied to drop out of both Exodus and the study.
I’m sorry, but selectively reporting only on those who survived to this point in time is not a satisfactory study into outcomes.
And being unable to report on those who did not survive is not a satisfactory study into harm.
(further reading: use Merck’s voluntary withdrawal of Vioxx as a case study)
——————————————
their beliefs
yeah, right — and those were independently created by a hermit in a cave. Nothing to do with “what society says or doesn’t say”. These people all grew up in gay-neutral families, religious groups and societies. In fact they’d never even heard of anti-gay — they only came to that conclusion after an independent assessment of 1) God and 2) What God Likes.
I don’t doubt it might be possible that some of the participants did indeed adopt their religious attitudes in the absence of outside suggestion or social habit or group ritual, but please — don’t be ridiculous: that is not the case for the vast majority of exgays.
People are free to basically do what they want with their own lives, but please stop this sort of nonsense about where their attitudes came from: it was taught to them.
(At times like this we do need to gently remind ourselves that Warren Throckmorton is a clinical psychologist with an axe to grind — and not an apolitical sociologist.)
you are correct that on average the change is modest and this is not consistent with a rigged study
(flippantly) … but they’d always planned someone like you would want to be able to say that, didn’t they? So they thought “better not make our claims too outrageous”. Too easy.
Warren, I appreciate you saying something, but that’s not an answer and it’s not about me.
It is a rare home with parents or grandparents that don’t commit their children to their religious beliefs. It is an inescapable issue for many gay youth and their siblings, parents and peers and other adults with great influence on their lives.
They have little room or choice about what religion to follow. It’s set up from birth. This is and has become a more tribal issue, not simply a matter of what one WANTS to believe. And it is true, that socio/politically gays and lesbians are NOT accorded full equality and at the expense of their identity.
From the beginning this is hardly a situation that isn’t influenced greatly first by religion and then later by the very real harassment and isolation and other forms of pressure that a gay person is subjected to over a long lifetime.
It is a reality that youth are threatened with abandonment by the family or loss of support if they don’t adhere to the familiy’s religious belief about homosexuality. And just simply being honest about it, carries great, even lethal consequences.
By YOUR logic, a choice between a rock and a hard place is still a choice.
And with so many political figures making their belief system plain and why they reject gay people at large, pretending as if this is all up to the gay person is dishonest.
There really isn’t the same choice, if there are any at all. And the standards are MUCH harsher and unrealistic and the expectations much higher for gay people than they are for their heterosexual counterparts.
Certainly in society at large, not just in religious communities.
The strongest correlation being too, with the role of women and the expectations and rules made for women according to their gender, rather than who they are as individuals.
Most religious communities at their strictest levels have a lot to answer for, and will use religion to do just about anything.
Monitoring the trials and history of Warren Jeffs is a case in point and how gender figures into HIS activity and that of his sect.
Or that of Islamist sects and Shari’a law.
I don’t reject anyone who uses their religion for spiritual growth, ilumination and an expansion of consciousness as our world progresses.
I DON’T support people of faith you use it to politically maintain a caste system or keeps honesty and truth through social integration and legal equality from happening.
And I’ll believe a person of faith is true to it, when they believe fevently also that treating another as they’d want to be treated expands to their political beliefs too, and not before.
It’s that simple Warren.
Human beings never were so binary along gender lines. And as such, this cannot be dictated without offending someone who has a narrower Biblical view about what men and women are ‘supposed’ to act like.
This isn’t my personal belief, this is how things are. And I don’t especially see any social good coming from forcing people who aren’t hetero, to be made to act like it.
Besides, celibacy for people who don’t procreate throught the sex they are having makes less sense than making heteros be that way.
After all, they have the broken families, abused, neglected and poverty stricken kids to show that selling celibacy to gay people is like selling ice to Eskimos.
Regarding the drop outs, from time 1 to time 2, 5 subjects refused participation; 8 subjects were lost, meaning they did not answer letters and phone calls from the researchers. From time 2 to time 3, 5 subjects refused participation, 4 subjects were unresponsive to contacts, 2 agreed to participate but then didn’t answer the phone for the interview and did not answer further attempts at contact and 1 subject wanted to continue but life circumstances prevented it.
Let’s just be clear that the researchers did their best to contact them without cooperation. And you cannot go to others to locate them without violating confidence. The identities of research subjects must be guarded as with therapy clients.
I wouldn’t say they didn’t make an effort to contact them, but given the obvious stories of real harm after people have gone through these types of ministries, we can’t rule out the possibility that at least some of those who dropped out did so because they felt harm and wanted no part of it.
Somehow, future research will have to find a way to determine this. But I would not be comfortable assuming that this study clears the way to say that no harm will come to those who go through ex-gay ministry at exodus, and that such harm is not a result of that ministry’s bent on insisting that living an honest, open gay life is the antithesis of living as a believer.
And from what we have seen, four years is a drop in the bucket. These people are barely out of the honeymoon period, at least for the percentage who make it that far. If Peterson Toscano had been in such a study, he would have been married and happy as a clam at that point, but it turned out not to be genuine or lasting. In fact, it was quite devastating.
Thank you Regan, you’re the only one here who seems to truly get it — or at least who’s expressed it as well.
_____________
The study is not the point, the results of the study is not the point, nothing about the study is the point. The only thing we should be “debating” about is the very fact that we are even talking about this.
That’s the point of the study. Not to prove anything one way or the other, but to “teach the controversy,” and continue the “debate” over the worthiness of our very humanity.
At this point, whether they are delusional or consciously malicious is irrelevant. The damage is the same. And as long as we continue to deny this, the damage will continue.
Yes, we need to continue to debate and refute all these things, but WITHIN the context that the anti-gay political INTENT is to continue the debate itself – because it’s all they have left, and they know it.
It’s perfectly parallel to the Intelligent Design / Creationism “debates.” It’s all about poking holes.
How do we know that we can’t trust carbon dating to prove that the Earth is millions of years old (And is only a few thousand years old)? Because you can’t prove that carbon molecules behaved the same before carbon dating was invented.
Jones and Yarhouse (p100):
To claim there is an absolute claim, IS an absolute claim, which can never humanly be proven. They spend a GREAT deal of time establishing this strawman.
By setting the bar for success, LITERALLY as low as possible, success is virtually is guaranteed. Their admitted hypothesis was to disprove THEIR OWN unprovable claim, that there are claims of some 100% accuracy rate, of something somewhere, that supposedly exists 100% of the time.
Could you imagine if they had said that they were out to “scientifically prove” that some known to be fatal illness was not fatal 100% of the time. And that their sole criteria for success was to find one person with that fatal illness who experienced remission of any kind?
They go out of their way to appear to be objective, but it becomes clear, again and again and again – at least to me, that it’s all about convincing themselves of the fact. I’m convinced they’re idiots, because I could have done a better job at pretending to be objective. This is just one example (p94,95): (And for the record, I do my best to keep quotes in context)
Golly, that sounds objective, how could anyone “resist” that? But wait, there’s more:
If any sexual orientation is not stable to begin with, how is the concept even possible to deny anyone else “the opportunity to live according to their desires for sexual intimacy?”
Try it like this:
We’re all sinners (but some of us are more sinful than others).
Or the ever popular:
We’re all equal (but some of us are more equal than others).
And who can forget:
All Sexual orientations are inherently unstable (but some orientations are more unstable than others).
And the clincher:
Or:
“Thus claims that human-orientation can change threaten the very core of human-affirming understanding of morality and of personhood. It comes as no surprise then that such claims are fiercely disputed.”
Message received loud and clear: We’re only talking about you gays who are less than human. Blame me for bias on my part, I accept. The point is that by talking about us like that, they’re treating us like lab rats who aren’t even part of the equation — in the name of “objectivity.” So I guess in that sense they’re being VERY scientific.
I had more to say, but that’s really the entire point. They look at our lives, who we are, everything that makes us, as some ideal opportunity to experiment on. Knowing full well that we feel pain and know fear, just as they do. This is the value they place on our lives. As human beings AND as eternal beings. Whether or not you believe in eternal life, THEY DO.
They’re not just playing games with our humanity, they’re playing with our eternity.
Complete bs Warren.
You know as well as we do how the Exodus ministries were involved from the get go. “Client confidence”doesn’t even come into it: these were members of Exodus.
Unremarkable: you also avoided the real questions about these “lost” people:
– are these people gay?
– renouncing Exodus?
– seeking help from a real therapist?
– now unable to enter any pair bonded relationship?
… dead?
Don’t know, don’t care — right? Your indifference is overwhelming.
Your avoidance, your attitude, is precisely why the APA should place warning signs all over you and your cohorts. People like you cannot be trusted in this matter.
Except for our cast iron stomaches… I think I would almost puke over your, and Jones’, and Yarhouse’s, promoting of a finding of “no harm on average to health” — as if that even pretended to say that nobody was harmed. What a hideous attitude.
Have you actually even bothered to contact an ex-ex-gay yet?
grantdale – Your response is why I infrequently post here. For all your gifts, you have your mind made up or you really don’t know as much about this stuff as I thought you did.
Ethics prevent researchers from revealing the identities of research subjects. Surely, you know this. Real researchers must go through Review Boards to have research procedures vetted prior to starting a project. And part of that review is how you are going to protect the privacy of the participant. Participants have the right to drop out at any time. At some point, it becomes harassment to keep contacting someone who does not answer or says I want to quit.
Taking inability to find out as indifference is hyperbole of Besenian proportions. But it appears there is no point in actually discussing this. No offense to David and Mike (since you do listen and often can see alternative perspectives even when you disagree), but addressing most of the comments here is a waste of time.
Warren,
Wow. We cause that? We must be mighty powerful, all these 17,000km away from you. (Was that a plea for help from XGW editors?)
We really are amused how rapidly your maturity level drops whenever you are challenged.
You could just answer the questions, of course, unless you have some other ambition.
I think my “better half” has something more to add, from the way he’s typing.
Pathetic.
Warren
Insulting us will not hide the fact of your inexperience, ignorance or animosity towards gay people. It also does alter the fact that you have no idea who we actually are. You really do say the most ridiculous things at times.
To be perfectly honest, “we” see you as simply the media anti-gay therapist de jour — and this is something you set out to be.
You will be replaced. Just as Rado was. Just as Hatter was. Bieber. Socarides. Nicolosi. Cohen… (it’s a proud Crown you wear)
You first came to our attention with an absurd paper from 1998. We looked, we laughed, we forgot. Even at that point you included a “study” that “proved” Michael Bussee was 100% heterosexual — despite him telling the World otherwise many years before. Yeah, stupidly laughable. And you put complete faith in it.
You then came back to our attention in 2004 when you stood in front of the Ohio Legislature and declared that gay relationships were “not based on trust”. Remember those vile words? Remember how insulting you were to your embarrassed professional colleagues who politely called you “non-mainstream”?
(Jeez, if we’d said anything that ignorant and hateful that we’d have died of shame by now. You’re plainly made of different cloth.)
Yeah, enough about you… back to the post.
A typical red herring from you:
We demanded no identities be revealed. You educate us… nothing.
What we said was that the refusal to talk to Jones and Yarhouse was revealing in itself.
If push is to come to shove — what we also said was that you, Warren Throckmorton PhD, wants to use that anonymity to make a dangerous dismissal of the harm done to people.
How very convenient that nobody can check Jones or Yarhouses drop outs — because that is where we would expect to find the damage done to people. Yet, in the absence of any knowledge… Warren Throckmorton declares “no harm” occurred.
If these — Jones and Yarhouse, or you — were honest academics, we doubt anyone would question the integrity of the study. Of course we have the toxic anti-gay history to fall back on for all of you, but that doesn’t discount the study itself.
But… there’s that awkward little business of Dr Stanton Jones lying to us personally over at Box Turtle a few days ago. Yeah, he stupidly lied; for no good reason other than his bloated ego. He’s been making the same stupid mistake for years… and suddenly pretended it was a momentary lapse.
Stanton Jones lied to us.
I’m sorry, but we are sick and tired of exgays lying about themselves — and we are sick and tired of anti-gay therapists lying on their behalf. They are free to declare themselves the Queen of Sheba for all we care, but please do not expect us to kow-tow.
Warren, your third paragraph is completely incoherent, other than some point about it being pointless dealing with you.
OK. We know that. But don’t expect to spew anti-gay diatribe in public, and be unchallenged.
You have more to learn than you even know.
Now, people…. what happened to those “drop offs” Warren has no care for…
Ok, enough. Can we exchange facts and views civilly please? This is becoming personal and you need to take it to an email exchange if you want to continue.
Agreed. (that’s both of us).
Warren: I’m trying to follow some of the discussion. Forgive me if I goof on the exact percentages. Please do continue to post.
(1) Given the APA year 2000 ‘Guidlines’ document that was posted, it’s considered ethical for a Psychologist to discuss the expected/likely outcomes at the start of therapy. Therefore, do you at the first session state to your clients (that desire a change to their sexual orientation) that 11% do change and 27% become celibate, but approximately 60% will find no change to very limited change?
(2) When a client of yours signals that he/she is part of that 27%, what then are your standard concerns/explorations with that client?
(3) When a client of yours signals that he/she is part of that 60%, what then are your standard concerns/explorations with that client?
(4) When a client of yours signals that they will not select celibacy as an acceptable outcome, do you advise them of an 89% chance of failure?
(5) At what point in therapy do you advise a client to cease pursuit of the 27% or 11% targets, and to recognize/accept their current sexual orientation?
Thanks ahead; Caryn (who is bisexual and certified with Gender Identity Disorder… sooo, she is also interested in the ‘orientation’ discussion.)
Please see our sexual identity therapy framework for the informed consent features. I believe there is a 29% group in there that expresses satisfaction with Exodus. But yes, clients should be informed of the research that exists, warts and all. Regarding acceptance, I advise clients to accept their experience as is. My approach is in line with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which promotes acceptance, values clarification and pursuit of action in line with chosen values. The moral/value direction of counseling is up to the client, not the therapist.
Warren Throckmorton constantly refers to his sexual identity therapy framework. It is basically a long convoluted document designed to legitimize reorientation therapy. Its primary purpose it to try and co-opt non-reorientation therapists into lending legitimacy to reorientation and reparative therapists. It is far more a political document than anything else, and Throckmorton pushes it more aggressively than a lobbyistt for the NRA.
Dr. Throckmorton,
It seems to me that the acceptance principle could be directed at those straight people most ignorant and fearful of homosexuals and who are under the mistaken idea that gay people are oblligated to change at all.
What you espouse, the infomation YOU accept and the objectives of the community of therapists you support-aren’t doing anything new, revelatory or especially groundbreaking.
Would it KILL anyone to accept homosexuality as an inversion of sexuality that isn’t a matter of moral choice anymore than heterosexuality is.
Being morally responsible with one’s sex life, requires that gay people bear an unfair and unrealistic burden.
Why does convincing them that relief of that burden is not being themselves?
Why convince straight people of that?
I don’t understand why, considering the positive outcomes that acceptance of gay youth, marriage equality in other societies, this doesn’t convince you that YOUR way, isn’t the best way.
It’s simply been ordered as the ONLY way, when it isn’t.
Societal acceptance looks like the strongest and best contender for a hopeful quality of life.
We know that acceptance won’t kill anyone….not accepting, possibly can.
Rather than the standards be set exclusively around heterosexuality, why not have neutral standards that can be applied to both orientations and look to those outcomes in emotional adjustment?
Warren: thank you much for the links. I read your four phased approach in your ‘framework’. I also noted your statement, “My approach is in line with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which promotes acceptance, values clarification and pursuit of action in line with chosen values. The moral/value direction of counseling is up to the client, not the therapist.”
I am rapidly concluding that I am missing the boat entirely, as I try to understand the arguments being posted here.
Your (Warren’s) framework and statements show the concept of helping a client to “assess” his/her internal sexual orientation and sexual identity, and then to also assess the external forces upon them: parental, societal, religious, work, and so forth. This appears to be to help the client understand his/her sense of conflict.
Your framework and statements then appear to allow the client to set the direction for his/her conflict resolution – e.g., such direction might include staying with the current orientation (even if not heterosexual), working out strategies for dealing with parental grief/pressure, accepting religious conflict at an old church and moving to a new church. I also recall that you may even refer a client to someone else that is more in keeping with the client’s chosen direction for conflict resolution.
I think that self-assessment and conflict identification are worthy goals. I think that allowing the client to set the direction of their conflict resolution, and obtaining counseling that may assist in pursuit of that resolution, sounds wise. Also, allowing the psychiatrist to ‘bow out’ and refer the client to another counselor more in keeping with the client’s goals, strikes me also as wise.
In my current thinking, I find all this to be well within the bounds of the Bible.
I need someone to tell me why Warren’s ‘framework’ is not acceptable to them in clear and concise terms, please. Many thanks; Caryn
Caryn,
A review of that framework is in progress, but dealing with it here isn’t in scope. Let’s stick to the major topic of the post, and deal with the other either in an open thread or when a post is devoted to it.
David: I accept that you are on staff, and therefore have the right to declare a comment ‘out of scope’. I’ll abide by that. But some writers in this thread have attacked Warren’s published framework, and some have made remarks that seemed less-than-professional review. Please do realize that squelching an honest question that could have lead to productive comments, while not squelching the other, makes this ‘court room debate’ appear a bit slanted. Please let us all know the date by when you wish to publish your organization’s review of Warren’s framework. I look forward to your review and will be searching again for analysis of assumptions/belief systems, definitions, logic, and/or evidence. Sincerely; Caryn
Caryn,
I have already asked that the previous OT discussion be taken to email as it was both out of scope and becoming personal. Your question would have taken us back in that direction, so I asked you to stay on topic and wait for an appropriate thread to discuss Warren’s framework – it is not the subject of this thread.
I don’t have a date for when we might review the SIT framework, but then we don’t announce our post dates ahead of time. This is a volunteer effort so if you are interested you will need to check back or use the RSS feeds to know when we and what we are posting.
Now we have added two additional off-topic comments to a thread already littered with them, so unless there is good reason, let’s go back to the topic.
Thank you.
Ex-Gay Study Rigged to Achieve Desired Results?
WordPerfect 11 definition of Rig:
rig2 – manage or conduct fraudulently so as to gain an advantage.
From the Mel Seesholtz article:
Here is the full APA paragraph text of that quote, which can be found here:
Compare that with the Jones and Yarhouse take below (p16), immediately after stating that “…a minority of dissent exists within and outside of the professional community, believing that change is possible.” This, in relation to the current majority opinion expressed above. They go on to say:
_________
Look at me, I’m Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse:
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
“Do you not know that…the…homosexual…will inherit the kingdom of God.”
_________
They then pontificate on the nature of an absolute claim with the “All crows are black” analogy (which I spoke of here), in order to demonstrate the inherent flaw of ANY absolute claim – In other words, they explain common sense. But take three paragraphs to do so, and in such a round about way that by the time they get back to making their own absolute/universal claim, that (p17) “the universal claim that sexual orientation change is impossible,” one forgets that the APA now represents the entire universe. Where did the “minority of dissent” go between page 16 and 17, who knows? Maybe the black crows ate them.
The book starts on page 15, so the premise for the motive of the study is established within the first three pages. The entire first chapter is online here.
The entirety of their goal was the falsification of an absolute claim, which they’d previously established does not exist.
This fundamentally corrupts the very premise for the study. And in turn, and perhaps more importantly, fundamentally corrupts their approach to the accuracy of the results of the study (in addition to the dropout issue).
Whether it’s bigotry, idiocy or something else, remains to be seen. I’m trying to establish (or at least start to) that they went OUT-OF-THEIR-WAY-TO-NOT be scientific about the accuracy of the results in places where they definitely could, and should have been.
The implications are damning. What’s so absurd and confusing about it, is that they pretty much admit to all of it – as though they don’t even see what’s wrong with their “who cares about anything beyond minimal effort” perspective.
Sorry for these long posts, but this is big. It’s almost like this is becoming more of a study about them, and people like them, and how they think, especially in regard to logic, reason and the conscious attempt to be objective. It’s fascinating, but vilifyingly disturbing.
The study itself may not be rigged, but there’s ample evidence that Jones and Yarhouse are.
And more importantly, the political ex-gay spin on the results are exceptionally rigged.
How can little to no hope for an actual change from homosexual to heterosexual (11% or less probably bisexual functioning) be spun into a 60%+ probability of change as I have heard Family News in Focus spin?
That’s where the true dishonesty is!
Agreed, and we contacted Stanton Jones about this almost two weeks ago with no reply. In fact, I’m baffled by the lack of public comment from the authors, something which normally would accompany a book release. I haven’t seen or heard the first thing from Yarhouse, though we did receive some replies from Jones before the release.
Emproph,
How dare you criticize Jones and Yarhouse for incompletely quoting the APA. Clearly they just didn’t have room for the complete quotation in their book.
That would have made it a full paragraph longer and paper doesn’t grow on trees, you know.
That’s where the true dishonesty is!
Agreed, and we contacted Stanton Jones about this almost two weeks ago with no reply. In fact, I’m baffled by the lack of public comment from the authors, something which normally would accompany a book release. I haven’t seen or heard the first thing from Yarhouse, though we did receive some replies from Jones before the release.
Dr. Throckmorton has dedicated a thread to the reasons that Jones and Yarhouse don’t say a single word to correct the blatant dishonesty of those using their book. It’s because Shidlo and Schroeder didn’t personally criticize Alicia Salzar’s misquoting of their study many years after its release.
Yes, I’m being serious.
The following is from chapter 8, p277: “Can Sexual Orientation Change? Report of the Qualitative (and Supporting Quantitative) Analyses”
This is where they establish the “Six Qualitative Categories of Outcomes” that “meaningfully summarize the general outcomes for these participants at the Time 3 assessment.”
P280, they talk about how they transcribed the phone interviews and then went over them to categorize them into success / failure categories (conversion, chastity, etc.) to then be compared with the “scientific” portion of the study (Kinsey scale forms, etc.). They explain all that, and then:
I wasn’t expecting anything, I just wanted to get to the full definition of “Success: Conversion” on the next page (BTB post of that here). So I’m thinking, ok, they’re being open and honest here, they ran out of funding, or full rigorous analysis wasn’t practical, or whatever, no biggie. What I wasn’t expecting, was a one page literary hole-digging-journey to the center of the Earth.
I read on, unaware:
Which programs, I thought? Are you saying that they DO exist? How “rigorous” was your investigation of the existence of these programs and/or their potential efficacy? Or were your non-beliefs about them simply “faith based?”
But they just moved on:
That’s the first one, which seems to be indicative of the rest. It looks like another strawman, because it appears to be based on having others (independent parties) categorize and agree on the already biased categories that Jones and Yarhouse already came up with.
So BFD, it should have been independent entities that FIRST came up with the categories, agreed upon them, and then ALSO rated the subjects and placed them in those categories.
But here’s the nuclear clincher:
So they trump up reasons as to why it was unimportant to even ATTEMPT to be as accurate as possible, in order to further legitimize their effort to stamp-any-change-what-so-ever, with the “approval” of science.
Believe me I’m foaming to get to their Biblical stuff (that’s a whole ‘nother vomit bucket), but the point is they’re claiming their motive is from a Christian perspective. Furthermore, people are attempting to “change,” and will be doing so for some time to come, and the fact is, some of them actually will be, and are happier, living celibate/chaste lives without love. As sick as that may sound to us, and while we’re trying to change society to prevent the need for that, it’s still a reality. These are the people who truly needed for the results of this study to be as accurate as possible.
So if they don’t even care about the only people that actually could have been helped…
I still do not understand why this study was released in book form rather than submitted to a major psychological research journal where it could be peer reviewed by psychologists. I am guessing that the major psych publications would find it too weak to publish.
The other thing that I do not understand is why it has to be so long. Surely this study could have been condensed to the size of a normal journal article with some proper editing.
For those who bought the book, how much did it cost? I wonder how much the authors are making on the sale of these books.
I’ve been very busy with work, but it appears that since I last caught up quite the conversation has been started on this thread!
First, to respond to your comments, Warren, I think it’s misleading to present this half-truth of the initial recruitments by Shidlo and Schroeder, though I’ve noticed that you have done this before on your own site. Due, in part, to the paucity of supportive data and the fact that conversion-oriented therapies are often framed in the context of empirically disproven ideas about sexuality and gender, Shidlo and Schroeder understandably began their study by assuming these were unhelpful therapies. When it became clear that some individuals felt helped by this, regardless of still being gay, they broadened their study. They began recruiting in ex-gay media sources for individuals who reported benefit, regardless of outcome, as well as a variety of “neutral” ads.
Additionally, I think it is important to also frame this research within the larger context of debates in the field regarding efficacy vs. effectiveness research. For you non-psychologists, efficacy research is intended to demonstrate that a therapy actually leads to the predicted changes in behavior, symptom reduction, etc. The “gold” standard of efficacy studies would involve randomly assigning participants into a control or a treatment group and demonstrating change. Recently, there has been a shift toward the use of an “intent-to-treat” analysis as opposed to a “survivor” analysis – in other words, follow everyone assigned to each group, not just the ones that follow a therapy through to the end!
Effectiveness research, on the other hand, looks at the real world application of those therapies. Something that works in a treatment study with depressed college sophomores may not work in the messy real world where depressions are tied up with a variety of other psychological and environmental factors. The Shidlo & Schroeder study explicitly invoked this debate through their title, as this debate began with a study of general therapy satisfaction published in Consumer Reports, with an accompanying article in American Psychologist (Seligman, 1995).
So it’s true to say that Shidlo and Schroeder say nothing about efficacy – in a well-controlled, randomized trial, who knows if therapy changes sexuality? It has never been tested, though the ethics of such a study would be seriously questioned. In terms of the study of effectiveness, Shidlo and Schroeder attempted to recruit a broad sample of all persons that had gone through such sexual reorientation programs, whereas the current and past Yarhouse and Exodus studies fail to even design a solid intent-to-treat protocol.
All that being said, I must add in relation to another comment that the idea it does not matter that some participants in this study had been enrolled in treatment for years prior is patently bizarre. Warren stated:
Of course they could not have failed just as easily – this statement represents a profound lack of experience with research. These participants had 2-3x the intervention, and had continued in a treatment that many participants discontinue. There is no reason to believe that this subsample is even representative of those who pursue change-oriented therapy.
Warren continued:
We’ll have to disagree here, Warren. As I’ve already clarified, to hold that this highly skewed sample involving a survivor analysis and inadequate justification for efficacy without controls, Jones and Yarhouse is clearly not in league with Shidlo and Schroeder. Warren is wrong to maintain otherwise.
Finally, encouraging efforts to change a trait (that the vast majority of scientists consider immutable and possibly inborn) flies in the face of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Yoking this pseudoscience to the bumper of a moving train will not help pull it along, Warren.