Am J Psychiatry 1980; 137:1553-1562
Copyright © 1980 by American Psychiatric Association
"Ex-Gays": Religiously mediated change in homosexuals
EM Pattison and ML Pattison
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.
