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New Study Shows Reduction In Same Sex Attraction in Religious Subjects

In "Effects of Therapy on Religious Men who have Unwanted Same-Sex Attraction", the authors, a New Zealander and two Californians, report on a survey they did of 125 men who had tried SOCE. They found that

Most of those who participated in group or professional help had heterosexual shifts in sexual attraction, sexual identity and behavior with large statistical effect sizes, similarly moderate-to-marked decreases in suicidality, depression, substance abuse, and increases in social functioning and self-esteem. Almost all harmful effects were none to slight. Prevalence of help or hindrance, and effect size, were comparable with those for conventional psychotherapy for unrelated mental health issues. Judged by this survey these therapies are very beneficial for lay religious people ...

The authors frame this objection in a less strident way. The APA, they say, only respects evidence based on "group sociological criteria". Well and good for the majority of homosexuals who do not want to change. But, they contend:

we affirm that psychotherapy is ultimately tailored to individuals and this is one important measure of satisfactory therapy. For example, we take harmful or helpful effects to a statistically insignificant group of individuals to be worth considering, whereas a pure sociological approach does not. If this emphasis predominated, some individuals would actually be prevented from obtaining the help they wanted..................

How effective was the therapy? Of the 125 men, 68 percent reported a reduction in their same-sex attraction and behaviour, ranging to "some" to "much" as well as an increase in attraction to women. On the whole, the participants found their therapy helpful. Only one reported extreme negative effects.

About one in seven (14 percent) claimed that their orientation had changed from exclusively homosexual to exclusively heterosexual.

Copy of new study posted here at the Catholic Medical Association website