The influential US psychiatrist who helped pave the way to have homosexuality disregarded as a mental disorder has died aged 83. Dr Robert Spitzer was responsible for defining mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (D.S.M) and is praised by LGBTI rights activists for removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the 1973 D.S.M. Spitzer pushed for the change after meeting with LGBTI activists and realising that if people were comfortable with their sexuality, homosexuality mustn’t be a mental disorder. He told the Washington Post at the time; "A medical disorder either had to be associated with subjective distress " pain " or general impairment in social function.” In 2001 Spitzer published a study that supported therapy that attempted to change a persons sexuality. In 2012 he apologised for this stating that the study was problematic, he told the Associated Press; “As I read these commentaries (about the study,) I knew this was a problem, a big problem, and one I couldn’t answer. How do you know someone has really changed?”
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Tuesday, 29th December 2015 - 9:16am