Experts Split Over 'Bizarre' Sexual Orientation Therapy Techniques
by Jim Brown
June 20, 2006
(AgapePress) - - Christian psychotherapist Richard Cohen, board president of the ex-homosexual education and outreach organization known as Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX), is addressing criticism leveled against certain therapy techniques he uses on clients with homosexual desires.
Cohen, a former homosexual and the author of the book Coming Out Straight (Oakhill Press, 2005), insists that no one is born with homosexual desires. He claims his reparative therapy group, the International Healing Foundation (IHF), has helped many men and women with unwanted homosexual desires achieve their goal of changing their sexual orientation and becoming heterosexual.
It is not a choice to have homosexual desires, the IHF director contends, but it is a choice to act upon those desires. He says those unwanted homosexual feelings are the result of temperament, familial influence, and environmental or social conditioning, all of which can be addressed through specific therapeutic principles and practices.
Cohen's methods have raised some questions, however; and he has lately taken sharp criticism over a May 23 appearance on Cable News Network (CNN), in which he demonstrated a technique that involves cuddling a male client in his lap. Another of the unusual therapy techniques depicted involved a client hitting a pillow with a tennis racket while shouting the name of a parent or other individual who elicits painful childhood memories.
Cohen, who refers to himself as a reorientation therapist, explained the "holding therapy" exercise as a means of using "healthy touch" on clients, who very often were "touch deprived" as children. He says this technique is one of the most effective ways to help men and women leave homosexuality.
"They're hungering for that intimacy and that bonding that they didn't experience in primary relationships with parents and/or same-gender peers," the psychotherapist asserts. "So what we have to provide then, in the Christian community, is really mentoring these men and women," he says, "and a lot of them need healthy touch -- hugging, holding, just palling around, buddying around."
Cohen contends it was just such "healthy bonding" that helped to transform his own homosexuality into a healthy heterosexuality. However, a prominent mental health counselor who has acted as a spokesman for PFOX in the past is distancing himself from the group because of this and other therapy techniques of Cohen's demonstrated on the segment of CNN's "Paula Zahn Now" that aired last month.
Colleague Raises Doubts About Cohen's Change Therapy Techniques
Psychologist Dr. Warren Throckmorton, director of college counseling at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, maintains a blog on sexual identity change therapy and related information for interested individuals. He is not a reparative therapist, but he claims Cohen's techniques as demonstrated on CNN are bizarre and are not based on solid research.
Since viewing the "Paula Zahn Now" segment, Throckmorton has notified PFOX that, although he supports its mission and its belief that people are not born homosexual, he will not represent the group as long as Cohen remains its board president.
"Richard means well and has a good heart," Throckmorton acknowledges. "I think he is interested in helping people achieve the change that he himself has achieved. However, I also am concerned that the techniques and the portrayal of them left the wrong impression in the minds of many people in the public."
The impression the psychologist and Grove City College official is concerned about leaving with the public, he explains, is the false notion that all change-oriented therapists engage in the kind of techniques employed by Cohen. Not all reparative therapists use such techniques as Cohen's, the former PFOX spokesman says, nor is their use widespread or mainstream in change therapy circles.
In fact, Throckmorton points out, "It's hard to tell how many people do practice those techniques." But, he asserts, when CNN refers to Cohen -- an unlicensed therapist who uses strange methods like "holding therapy" and bioenergetics -- as a leader in the reparative therapy movement, that statement obscures the divergence of opinion among those who practice sexual orientation change therapy.
One problem with reparative or change therapy practices, Throckmorton explains, is that "there are very few guidelines for therapists working in this area." He says he hopes to address that issue with guidelines he has written recently in cooperation with Dr. Mark Yarhouse of Regent University.
Meanwhile, Cohen has asked Throckmorton to apologize for his "fallacious" remarks, calling him "a brilliant man and a great brother in Christ" who is helping in this area of ministry but who has handled his disagreement with a colleague in the wrong way. The PFOX board president says it is "very unfortunate that, instead of following Matthew 18 protocol for any conflict resolution" and "instead of addressing me directly," Throckmorton "went right to the blog and then posted his comments."
Cohen continues to stand by his reparative therapy techniques and says he has, over the last 16 years, helped hundreds of people change their sexual orientations. He recommends Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conferences, featuring Freudian therapist Joe Nicolosi, as "a wonderful venue for anyone to find out what homosexuality is and what the church can do about it."
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
