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Fact Sheet

Reparative Therapy

Literature spanning many decades reveals that homosexuality has long been recognized as treatable. Wilhelm Stekel addressed the issue in the journal Psychology Review in 1930, and there are reports throughout the years on successful treatment. A composite of nine of these studies reported a 52-percent success rate in reparative therapy (range 27-100 percent). Success was defined as “considerable” to “complete” change. It is fair to conclude that all the existing evidence suggests strongly that homosexuality is quite changeable.
Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), pp. 185-186.

An implicit precondition of all change is commitment to that change on the part of both patient and therapist.
Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), pp. 186-187.

Between 1966 and 1974, more than 1,000 articles appeared in the Medline databases alone on the treatment of homosexuality, showing evidence that homosexual behavior is treatable and changeable.
Jeffrey Satinover, Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1996), p. 169.

In 1995, Dr. Robert Spitzer appeared on a national television program proclaiming that homosexuals could not change their sexual orientation. However, he eventually met several ex-homosexuals and launched a study. Summarizing that study, Dr. Spitzer wrote: “The subjects’ self reports of change appear to be, by and large, valid, rather than gross exaggerations, brainwashing or wishful thinking. We therefore conclude that some individuals who participate in a sexual-reorientation therapy apparently make sustained changes in sexual orientation.”
Pete Winn, “A Crak in the Wall? A Respected Psychiatrist Rethinks Homosexuality,” CitizenLink: Family Issues in Policy and Culture, (21 February 2000).

A study of 200 recovered homosexual men and women indicated that some homosexual men and women, following reparative therapy, reported that they made major changes from a predominantly homosexual orientation to a predominantly heterosexual orientation. In fact, 76 percent of the men and 47 percent of the women eventually married opposite-sex partners. Furthermore, 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had achieved “good heterosexual functioning.” The changes following reparative therapy were not limited to sexual behavior and sexual orientation self-identity. The changes encompassed sexual attraction, arousal, fantasy, yearning and being bothered by homosexual feelings. The changes encompassed the core aspects of sexual orientation. Participants who only made a limited change nevertheless regarded the therapy as extremely beneficial. Participants reported benefit from nonsexual changes, such as decreased depression, a greater sense of masculinity in males and femininity in females and developing intimate nonsexual relations with members of the same sex.
Robert Spitzer, "Can Some Gay Men and Lesbians Change Their Sexual Orientation? Two Hundred Participants Reporting a Change," Archives of Sexual Behavior 32, 5 (2003): 403-417.

A literature review found that reparative therapy resulted in changes of sexual orientation for 23 percent and 30 percent of cases studied.
Warren Throckmorton and Mark A. Yarhouse, "Ethical Issues in Attempts to Ban Reorientation Therapies," Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 39, 1 (2002).

Using a combination of behavioral group and individual psychotherapy, Birk (1980) reported that 100 percent of exclusively homosexual men who began therapy with the intent to change sexual arousal were able to attain a heterosexual adaptation. This subgroup of clients remained in therapy for more than two years or had achieved their goals prior to this cutoff period. Of those 14 clients who had shifted, Birk reported that 10 of the 14 (71 percent) were satisfactorily married at follow-up.
Cited by: Warren Throckmorton, “Attempts to Modify Sexual Orientation: A Review of Outcome Literature and Ethical Issues,” Journal of Mental Health Counseling 20(1998): 283.

Bridges and Croteau (1994) found that 25-50 percent of lesbians in various reports had once been in heterosexual marriages. While heterosexual marriage alone may not be a complete gauge of sexual orientation, the reasons for the marriage offered some insight into the sexual identity of the women at the time. Kirkpatrick (1988) reported that once-married lesbian women often married because they were in love with their husbands. In examining the reasons for the shift in sexual expression, Charbonneau and Lander (1991) found two broad explanations. One group felt they had always been lesbian and were becoming true to themselves. However, another group viewed their change as a "choice among sexual options."
Cited by: Warren Throckmorton, “Attempts to Modify Sexual Orientation: A Review of Outcome Literature and Ethical Issues,” Journal of Mental Health Counseling 20(1998): 283.

"I believe there is rather powerful evidence that human beings are a two-sex species, designed for sexual rather than asexual reproduction. If this is true, then the absence of desire for the opposite sex represents, at a minimum, a sexual dysfunction much as impotence or infertility."
Maggie Gallagher, "Fixing Sexual Orientation," Townhall.com, 10 May 2001.

Dr. Stanton Jones, professor of psychology at Wheaton College, said, “I would not regard homosexuality to be a psychopathology in the same sense as schizophrenia or phobic disorders. But neither can it be viewed as a normal ‘lifestyle variation’ on a par with being introverted versus extroverted."
Stanton Jones, "Homosexuality According to Science," in J. Isamu Yamamoto,( ed.), The Crisis of Homosexuality (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1990), 107.

Dr. Joseph Nicolosi said: “The assumption that people can’t change is a political conclusion rather than a scientific conclusion.”
Timothy Dailey, Dark Obsession, (Broadman & Holman Publishers: Nashville, Tennessee, 2003), 137.

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