Is There a War on Psychotherapy?

Last week, this came across my path:

I assume Christopher Doyle refers to the effort around the country to prohibit sexual reorientation change efforts for minors. However, I write this post to address a couple of points.

When it comes to sexual orientation and psychotherapy, the reparative therapy narrative of defective parenting doesn’t hold water or match up with research or experience.  However, there are still therapists who believe that and try to impose it on their clients and their families. Much of my work has been to develop a therapy approach (sexual identity therapy) which requires therapists to present scientific research about sexual orientation to clients and allow clients to decide what to do about it.

On the other hand, the Family Research Council speaker Christopher Doyle worked and trained with Richard Cohen who has a different approach. Here is a snapshot of a couple of Richard Cohen’s techniques.

I will leave it to readers. Is this psychotherapy?

Doyle defended these and other outrageous techniques in this legal brief designed to be used in a New Jersey trial involving JONAH, a Jewish change therapy group. JONAH lost at trial.

You can see Doyle in action in this review of a documentary called Sunday Sessions in which Doyle provides sexual orientation change counseling to a young adult man. Note that Richard Cohen is involved in the group sessions at the beginning.

In the end, the young man feels somewhat better but credits the teachings of the Catholic church for his mood improvement. There is no indication that his sexual attractions changed.

Sexual Identity Therapy

I watched the documentary (I recommend it although there is no real conclusion to the story), and I need to make another thing clear. In the film (and on this page), Doyle calls his approach to therapy “Sexual Identity Affirming Therapy.” I want to say plainly that what he does is unrelated to “Sexual Identity Therapy” as developed by Mark Yarhouse and me.

In the documentary, Doyle did not provide a range of information about the development of male homosexuality but instead authoritatively expressed the reparative narrative of weak fathers and an unmasculine upbringing. The directive style demonstrated in the movie review above is not taken out of context. None of this is consistent with sexual identity therapy. People working within the principles of SIT do not attempt to change a client’s sexual orientation. SIT is antithetical to what Doyle demonstrates in the documentary and more broadly, to what Cohen does in his various public demonstrations.

The War is Over

In my opinion, within psychotherapy, the war is actually over and change therapy has lost. No training programs teach it. I know of no Christian training programs that teach it (although I would like to be corrected if I am wrong). It is misleading to pretend there is a wronged group of psychotherapists who want to practice it and can’t. The courts have not been inclined to defend it.

On the other hand, there has been a resurgence of interest in ex-gay type ministries. While I don’t yet see an accompanying revival of professional interest in change therapy, it is the nature of true believers to keep trying.

Christian Post Provides Free Advertising for International Healing Foundation

I missed this a couple of days ago. The Christian Post provided free advertising for the following activity masquerading as therapy:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJXWFZz0Qjo[/youtube]
This video cannot be shown enough. This is what the Christian Post is advertising with their puff piece on the International Healing Foundation. Doyle says being attracted to the same sex is a matter of poor parenting. Richard Cohen, the founder of IHF, says the therapist should establish a parent child relationship as a means of replacing what clients didn’t get from their parents. This is a dangerous and false premise. Some gays and some straights didn’t get what they needed from their parents, but this doesn’t make them gay or straight. Putting the therapist in the role of a nurturing parent is reflects a wrong diagnosis and potentially sets up an unhealthy dependence on the therapist. Furthermore, a robust line of research suggests that the pillow beating catharsis treatment is fundamentally unhelpful.
Perhaps these points and more are why no graduate training programs offer these approaches for the purposes designated by IHF. I know of no graduate training programs housed in Christian colleges which teach these techniques. Even at Liberty, Doyle was not allowed to consider Cohen a clinical supervisor, nor was he allowed to count his experience there toward his school internship.
Chris Doyle says the IHF does therapy. However, I even wonder about that. According to their 2012 990 form, they took in very little money in program services fees with the lion’s share of their income coming from donations.
I hope the reporter will consider doing a counter point article in response.
 
 

International Healing Foundation Staffer Conducts Workshops For Unification Church

In 2007, parenting specialist at the International Healing Foundation Hilde Wiemann first denied, then admitted being involved in the Unification Church (Church of Sun Myung Moon who taught that he was the Messiah). Due to her involvement, the International Healing Foundation was briefly placed back on Steve Hassan’s list of Unificationist front groups.  IHF was originally placed on Hassan’s list because Cohen was once a member of the UC. IHF was removed when Wiemann recanted and declared the UC to be a “satanic, heretical cult.” IHF founder Richard Cohen initially denied Wiemann was a part of the church but later acknowledged her statement.
Apparently, Ms. Wiemann has changed her mind again. She recently presented a series of sessions along with long time UC member Pam Stein on behalf of the Women’s Federation for World Peace. The WFWP is a Unification Church entity headed by Angelika Selle. Selle pastors a UC church in MD and was appointed to her post as president of the American WFWP by none other than True Mother, Sun Myung Moon’s wife, Hak Ja Han Moon.
Ms. Wiemann has also changed her name. She now goes by Hilde Reinold in her non-IHF pursuits. Any doubt about her identity is dispelled by her Hilltop Retreat bio:

Hildegard Reinold grew up in a small town in Austria and came to the United States in 1982, where she married her husband, John Wiemann. John works hand-in-hand with Hilde as a massage therapist and Shiatsu specialist. John and Hilde have two sons and one daughter in their 20s, all happily married. Being a mother was and is the most important and fulfilling part of Hilde’s life.

IHF continues to partner with Reinold/Wiemann however, often using her Hilltop Retreat Center for their workshops. She is listed as Hilde Wiemann in the IHF literature but Hilde Reinold on the brochure promoting the UC workshop (note arrows pointing out the audience and the presenters):

I addition to the tele-course, Rienold/Wiemann led a session for the WFWP in October as a part of their of their annual National Assembly. During this event, Reinold/Wiemann presented a break out session on leadership and was quoted extensively in the article.
Reinold/Wiemann is not a peripheral player at IHF. In IHF’s Winter, 2012 newsletter, Cohen lauded Wiemann as a “true sister” and said she is “intrinsically laced into the fabric of IHF.”
In October 2012, one of Moon’s sons, Hyung Jin Moon identified Richard Cohen as being in the UC movement and as the “foremost expert” on homosexuality in the UC. There was no comment at the time from Cohen.
For more on the UC, see this in depth New Republic report from Mariah Blake.
 
 

PFOX Plays The Victim; Wants To Fix One Problem By Causing Another

Today, the Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays dropped a news release criticizing Virginia’s public universities for failing to distribute their literature to students. In the release, PFOX claims discrimination based on religion and ex-gayness is what motivates the lack of ex-gay literature.
While I don’t doubt that some of those counseling center staffers have problems with conservative religion, I submit that they are correct in their decision not to provide PFOX literature to students.  Much of what PFOX and related groups (e.g., International Healing Foundation, Voice of the Voiceless) promote is scientifically questionable and should be avoided for that reason alone.
The irony is that the group who conducted the undercover investigation accuse the university centers of suppressing accurate information when it is the ex-gay groups which (also?) do this. They know there is no peer reviewed research on therapeutic change that supports them. They also know that at least one of their therapeutic methods (i.e., cartharsis) has been evaluated via research and found to be harmful in some instances. They also know that their narrative regarding homosexuality (i.e., failures in the parent-child relationship) is scientifically dubious and yet they continue to promote this view as if it is supported by research and experience.
It may be that the counseling center directors favor gay affirming religion over non-affirming religion. If so, this would be problematic if the centers are publicly funded. However, any such finding of fact would not be reason to hand out erroneous literature to students. If there are non-affirming groups on campus or in the community (e.g., Andrew Marin’s groups or some other religious group which does not promote debunked theories and methods) then information about those groups should be made available to religious students. Therapeutically neutral approaches should be taught to center counselors to help them avoid establishing an approved religious stance on the subject in a public university. However, PFOX and Voice of the Voiceless should not be allowed to use religious discrimination as a basis to promote their problematic materials.

International Healing Foundation Announces The End Of Homosexuality

Really. Just look.

Announcing
THE END OF HOMOSEXUALITY
Want to Know How?

Greetings,
Want to be part of an exciting revolution? Want to end homosexuality and prevent bullying? Want to protect your children and grandchildren?
Everyday our kids are being inundated with false information about homosexuality-born that way and cannot change. This is both scientifically and scripturally untrue. We at IHF have developed solutions to end homosexuality:
1. Coming Out Straight: a plan to heal unwanted same-sex attraction (SSA)
2. Gay Children Straight Parents: a plan for family healing
3. Counselor Training Program: education for therapists & ministry leaders

Eventually all of this turns into a request for money. Want to end the gay? You gotta pay to play.
There is one thing that can be said about International Healing Foundation: Change is Possible.
They change their message and tone frequently. Good cop and bad cop, all in one package, all in one day.
Speaking of that slogan – change is possible – nearly two years ago, Cohen and IHF apologized for it.

We at IHF wish to offer a sincere, heartfelt apology to everyone in the LGBTQ community who may have been hurt by our message of “change.” As the director of IHF, I apologize and ask your forgiveness. I did not realize that by stating, “Change is Possible,” some would be offended. That was the furthest thing from my heart and mind. To think that our message of “change” would cause further pain to LGBTQ youth and adults is painful to imagine … I am deeply and profoundly sorry.

Now I can envision another future apology: We at IHF wish to apologize for claiming to bring about the end of homosexuality. We did not realize that by announcing the end of homosexuality, some would be offended.
One would be hard pressed to find a more confusing organization than IHF. On their “coming out loved” website, they claim to accept gays:

Some live a heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, transgender, or transsexual life, while others are unsure about their sexuality and seek to explore alternatives. We uphold your right of self-determination, to follow the path that fills your heart with love. 

Bringing in the bullying theme heightens the confusion and contradiction. I can only imagine how IHF’s message would be received by a GLB teen or young adult. IHF is now identifying with the bullies who also want to end homosexuality and is doing so in the name of preventing bullying.
Surreal.