Leading Psychiatrist Apologizes for Study Supporting Gay ‘Cure’
By BENEDICT CAREY
Published: May 18, 2012 221 Comments
PRINCETON, N.J. — The simple fact was that he had done something wrong, and at the end of a long and revolutionary career it didn’t matter how often he’d been right, how powerful he once was, or what it would mean for his legacy.
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Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, considered by some to be the father of modernpsychiatry, who turns 80 next week, lay awake at 4 o’clock on a recent morning knowing he had to do the one thing that comes least naturally to him.
He pushed himself up and staggered into the dark. His desk seemed impossibly far away; Dr. Spitzer suffers from Parkinson’s disease and has trouble walking, sitting, even holding his head upright.
The word he sometimes uses to describe these limitations — pathetic — is the same one that for decades he wielded like an ax to strike down dumb ideas, empty theorizing, and junk studies.
Now here he was at his computer, ready to recant a study he had done himself, a poorly conceived 2003 investigation that supported the use of so-called reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality for people strongly motivated to change.
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4 comments:
A Times reader posted this comment:
"
SanJoseDameSAN JOSE, CA
FLAG
This man has done so much damage, no matter his contributions. Now is the time for him to personally call on the religious groups--including the Vatican--and political organizations using anti-homosexual fears to advance their cause and tell them to call off their dogs. Will Dr. Spitzer go on a speaking tour--real or digital--and spread the word of his errors, which have caused so much pain? That might redeem him--sort of."
I applaud, strongly encourage this be done. . . especially at the Vatican and beginning with the Vatican. . . asap.
~~~~justin o'shea, editor.
Justin, I was going to email you that link earlier today, but I thought you might be posting it anyway. Duners might also be interested in this related link: http://prospect.org/article/my-so-called-ex-gay-life
I would think that Dr. Spritzer, will never go to the Vatican. He has to much pride and time against him. Like when he was a junior associate back in the '70's and he got the upper ones to go with his theory.
Just like the Church we live in they are not in sinc with the will of God. They think they are the one and Only Brains in this World.
I don't understand that comment, Coop. Why couldn't you say the same thing about Downes syndrome?
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