The authors evaluated 11 white men who claimed to have changed sexual
orientation from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality
through participation in a pentecostal church fellowship. Religious
ideology and a religious community offered the subjects "folk therapy"
experience that was paramount in producing their change. On the average
their self-identification as homosexual occurred at age 11, their change to
heterosexual identification occurred at age 23, and their period of
heterosexual identification at the time of this study was 4 years. The
authors report 8 men became emotionally detached from homosexual identity
in both behavior and intrapsychic process; 3 men were functionally
heterosexual with some evidence of neurotic conflict. On the Kinsey 7-point
sexual orientation scale all subjects manifested major before-after
changes. Corollary evidence suggests that the phenomenon of substantiated
changed in sexual orientation without explicit treatment and/or long-term
psychotherapy may be more more common than previously thought.
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