Retired psychiatrist Robert Spitzer is apologising to the gay community for a decade-old study that said 'reparative therapy' can turn some people straight. The 79-year-old, formerly of Colombia University, has written to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, where the 'gay cure' study was originally published. Spitzer points out the flaws in his study, including "the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject's accounts of change were valid," he wrote. "I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy," he says. "It's the only regret I have; the only professional one," Spitzer told the New York Times of the study. "And I think, in the history of psychiatry, I don't know that I've ever seen a scientist write a letter saying that the data were all there but were totally misinterpreted. Who admitted that and who apologised to his readers. That's something, don't you think?" Spitzer's study has been heavily cited by anti-gay groups. Thirty years before the study, Spitzer played a leading role in removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Saturday, 19th May 2012 - 5:04pm