Lifesitenews article: An exercise in confirmation bias

Yesterday, Lifesitenews published an article complaining about me. Many of the complains are recycled from Peter LaBarbera’s website and a OneNewsNow article. I addressed those criticisms here and here. Mark Yarhouse also did so on the SIT Framework website. Beyond rehashing LaBarbera’s issues, I think the article reflects poorly on Lifesitenews. Let’s start with their characterization of how my peers have been reacting to my work. Reporter Matthew Hoffman wrote:

Throckmorton’s defection from the ex-gay movement has been met with condemnation by Evangelicals. “Though he works for an evangelical institution, Pennsylvania-based Grove City College, which advertises itself on faith-based websites as ‘authentically Christian,’ Warren promotes a new, morally neutral paradigm on homosexuality that affirms people’s ‘Sexual Identity’ according to their feelings (and comfort level with same),” laments Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH).

Evangelicals? Let’s count how many condemning evangelicals are quoted by LSN. If you count Michael Glatze, two people are quoted as complaining about my views, the other one being Peter LaBarbera. My reason for hedging on Glatze is that he began his ex-gay journey as a member of the LDS church and is listed as an “Executive Assistant” at the Buddhist inspired Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado, which, according to an article written by Glatze in 2009, is a welcoming place for gays and lesbians.

Rather than reporting some broad evangelical condemnation of my work, the article repeats the criticisms of Peter LaBarbera. I noted to Mr. Hoffman when I declined his interview (more about that shortly), that I am on the National Advisory Board for the American Association of Christian Counselors (as is Mark Yarhouse) and that they paid Mark and me to present a half-day workshop at the 2007 conference on how to apply the sexual identity therapy framework. By any definition, the AACC would be considered an evangelical organization. Mr. Hoffman says that I am under fire from evangelicals and yet only quotes one, maybe two. At the same time, he ignored evidence that my views are promoted within a much larger, more mainstream evangelical organization (not to mention several others he could have consulted).

As an aside, it is curious that Mr. LaBarbera has not included the AACC in his crusade. The AACC still promotes the SITF via the tapes they sell of the pre-conference workshop. The SITF was featured in the AACC magazine in 2007 via an invited article by Mark Yarhouse. Perhaps, the AACC will be next.

When I declined the interview, I pointed out to Mr. Hoffman that the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) also claims to value client self-determination. I sent Mr. Hoffman a link to my recent post, “Is NARTH the next target?” which notes that Joseph Nicolosi says, on the NARTH website, that he provides gay affirmative therapy to some of his clients. NARTH is mentioned favorably at least 46 times on Peter LaBarbera’s website. I also sent a link to a YouTube video where Dr. Nicolosi says this about his practice:

The therapeutic approach is always positive. In fact, to be honest with you we never tell our clients not to have homosexual activity. If they want to do it, let them do it. It’s up to them. Our job is to help them understand what they learned from it. When a client comes in to me and says, ‘I had gay sex last night.’ My only question to him is, ‘What was going on with you just before you decided to act out? What was your psychological state of mind that made you want…?’ That’s where the lesson is. So we don’t tell clients not to act out. They can act out, but every time they do act out, it’s an opportunity to learn something about themselves.

Given that Mr. Hoffman mentions my movement away from NARTH’s emphasis on reorientation, it would have reasonable and responsible for him to mention that NARTH holds to a view of client self-determination that is arguably more permissive than my own. For instance, in the SITF, if a client seeks celibacy or monogamy, we advocate working with clients to avoid contexts which could elicit undesired behavior.

Mr. Hoffman is correct that I changed my mind about an interview with him, but failed to completely describe the circumstances, saying

After agreeing to an email interview with LifeSiteNews, Dr. Throckmorton refused to answer the questions submitted, claiming they were “slanted.” The questions sent to Dr. Throckmorton, are available at this link.

In fact, I declined his original request. After thinking it over, I asked to see the questions he wanted to ask. I did not agree to an interview although he may have thought that I did since I asked to see the questions. Once I read the questions, which he posted, I decided there was little chance for a fair representation of my views. For instance, I asked Mr. Hoffman how he formed this question (#3 in his list):

3. In a recent article you defended the thesis that sexual orientation is biologically determined in the womb, by hormonal deficiencies. Do you now believe that homosexual orientation is immutable?

I wrote to ask where I “defended the thesis that sexual orientation is biologically determined in the womb, by hormonal deficiencies.” He then wrote back citing this article in Uganda’s The Independent and quoted this section:

However, we do not know this to be the case. Most researchers around the world agree that there is no consensus about the causes of any given person’s sexual orientation. While it seems unlikely that there is one biological or genetic cause for all homosexuals, there are data which suggest that genetic and hormonal factors during pre-natal development have some impact on our desires, in different ways for different people.

In the email, Mr. Hoffman explained:

Perhaps I overstated your position slightly. You are suggesting

apparently that hormonal and genetic factors in the womb contribute to the phenomenon. Please consider my question amended to that effect.

I believe he did more than slightly overstate my position. His original question slanted my plainly stated views. That was enough for me to stick with my decision not to do an interview.

Currently, LSN is lamenting exclusion from a mainstream Catholic news source, Zenit. I know nothing of the specific issues but it relates to criticisms of LSN’s reporting. I can say after this experience, that I will not accept what I read there at face value. Perhaps in the zeal to promote a certain point of view, LSN’s reporting is skewed in a manner which concerns more mainstream outlets. Here are some tips. If you are going to advance a thesis, call it an op-ed, don’t present it as news. If you make a generalization about a trend or a group, interview more than one person from the group you are characterizing. If you want to have sources trust you, then do not slant or misrepresent their views. Follow up on aspects of a story that may lead you away from your preconceived ideas – avoid confirmation bias.

Mankind Project provides journalist with a “very weird weekend”

The Mankind Project has been off my radar for months. However, UK journalist Tom Mitchelson put it back on with his eyewitness account published in Saturday’s UK Mail Online

I first heard about the MKP’s New Warriors Training Adventure at a NARTH (National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) conference in 2003. Various members, including then President Joe Nicolosi, were recommending it to those in attendance as a way to support healthy masculinity.  A few same-sex attracted men who tried it thought it was great and a few others thought it made no sense to be naked in the woods with other guys. New Warriors is still recommended on the NARTH website. In view of the current critiques of the sexual identity therapy framework (SITF), it is worth pointing out that the SITF discourages experiences like NWTA. More about that after I review Mitchelson’s weird weekend.

The next time I recall thinking much about MKP was when I read Chris Vogel’s Houston Press article about the suicide of Michael Scinto. You can read all of the articles on MKP and NWTA here.

For veteran NWTA watchers, these experiences will seem familiar. Mitchelson grabs your attention out of the gate:

How our man found himself with 65 naked men chanting, drumming – and screaming their rage against women to ‘reclaim’ their lost masculinity…

The temperature has plunged to freezing. I am deep in a remote English woodland outside Exeter.

I have been blindfolded and I am standing, holding hands, with a long line of men – who, until about 24 hours ago, I’d never met before.

Together, we are stumbling through the scrub as beating tribal drums guide our way. Oh yes, and we are naked. Totally naked.

Abruptly, my blindfold is ripped off and I see we have been led to a shadowy candle-lit room. There are about 65 of us in a double horseshoe formation.

This is a ceremony where we are to become ‘new warriors’. And then the dancing begins.

I wish I were somewhere else. Anywhere else. So why on earth am I here?

Why indeed? On its website, MKP proclaims:

We’re redefining mature masculinity for the 21st Century – and we want your help!

Along the way Mitchelson seems amused that the NWTA is viewed as a path to redefined masculinity.

A leader holding a wooden staff decorated with feathers rambles on about the mission of the weekend, using the pompous jargon that would later become very familiar: words like ‘shadow’, ‘warriors’, ‘masculine’, ‘commitment’ and ‘responsibility’.

He tells us how to be a man. It’s hard to take from a man wearing face paint, carrying a feathered stick.

Whatever healthy masculinity is, it seems to involve making the world into a giant man-cave, free from those pesky women.

Everything I read from them is baffling non-speak. They claim the weekend is a ‘process of initiation and self-examination that is crucial to the development of a healthy and mature male self’.

They claim they help move men away from the ‘comforting embrace’ of their mother – something, on the face of it, some wives might even encourage. Then I am told I will ‘confront’ my ‘dependence on women’, to help me move into the ‘masculine kingdom’.

The fun begins when they arrive at the camp. Continue reading “Mankind Project provides journalist with a “very weird weekend””

The value of self-determination in counseling

In response to the recent attacks on the sexual identity therapy framework, a supportive reader contacted me with a story of one of her experiences in counseling. I do know the person and can confirm the accuracy of the situation. Why should therapists avoid imposing their beliefs on clients? Read and see what you think.

As someone who has been in counseling, I enormously appreciate your emphasis on self-determination.  As you wrote the other day, any therapist can force any views at any patient. When I was in grad school, I had just started with a female therapist.  She was given plenty of information about my Christian beliefs and how it was important to operate within that for me to succeed.  And then within 5 weeks (before I quit), she sent me to the library to read a book that was essentially how to be a lesbian. And then she basically told me that if I’d just go and have sex with someone that I wouldn’t have problems with it anymore.  And then I quit.  Why is respecting beliefs a better way? I really had a hard time with that, because she tried to force me out of my beliefs.  And it was awful.  I had a hard time trusting any therapist after that.

That therapist should have made a referral. Apparently, the value conflict was so great that the therapist apparently was not able to get past it. Therapists are not machines and have strong beliefs about many things so when the conflict is great, referral is indicated. The sexual identity therapy framework allows for such referrals while at the same time requiring respect for clients and their values.

Is NARTH the next target?

As I noted yesterday, Peter LaBarbera of American for Truth About Homosexuality doesn’t like the sexual identity therapy framework, saying

As you can see above, Throckmorton’s and Regent University’s Mark Yarhouse’s “Sexual Identity Therapy” model grants the possibility that some clients may come to embrace a positive “gay identity” that “modifies” their religious beliefs in such a way as to “allow integration of same-sex eroticism within their valued identity.”

If he is consistent, he will need to expand his crusade to include an organization and therapist he often cites approvingly. On the AFTAH website, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality is referenced at least 46 times (e.g., here). However, on the NARTH website, co-founder of NARTH, Joe Nicolosi says that gay affirming counseling should be available.

The developmental model we suggest must deeply resonate with the men we work with, or they will (rightfully) leave our office and pursue a different therapeutic approach. We explain that our position differs from the American Psychological Association, which sees homosexuality and heterosexuality as equivalent, and along the way, we encourage them to clarify and re-clarify the direction of their identity commitment. Gay-affirmative therapy should, of course, be available for any such client.

A few gay-identified clients do decide to stay with us. Out of respect for diversity and autonomy, I affirm them in their right to define themselves as they wish, and I accept them in their gay self-label.

Nicolosi affirms these clients in “their right to define themselves as they wish,” and he accepts “them in their gay self-label.” Of course, here Nicolosi is speaking as a professional therapist and as such acknowledges that such affirmations come from a respect for autonomy. There is little difference between these options and the options LaBarbera criticizes in his article on the SITF.

There are many problems with LaBarbera’s recent crusade. One, highlighted by this post, is that his critiques of the SITF are devoid of any proper context. The SITF is intended for mental health professionals and professional relationships with clients of all ideologies. Pastors and ministry workers follow a more directive line in keeping with the teachings of their faith. Will NARTH now become a target since they support acceptance of some clients “in their gay self-label” and affirmation of “them in their right to define themselves as they wish?”