Robert Spitzer pens letter of apology

Addressing the editor of Archives of Sexual Behavior Dr. Ken Zucker, Robert Spitzer writes a letter of apology concerning the study published in 2001 which claims highly motivated homosexuals can change their orientation to heterosexual.  Spitzer is now retracting the study and owning up to some major research flaws.  He is remorseful that anti-gay activists have misused the study to claim that people can change their sexual orientation, although the study was unable to prove so irrefutably. A portion of his letter was obtained by Truth Wins Out:

    Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I had to make public my current thinking about the study. Here it is.

    Basic Research Question. From the beginning it was: “can some version of reparative therapy enable individuals to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual?” Realizing that the study design made it impossible to answer this question, I suggested that the study could be viewed as answering the question, “how do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?” – a not very interesting question.

    The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid.

    I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some “highly motivated” individuals.

    Robert Spitzer. M.D.

    Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry,

    Columbia University