NARTH’s Disconcerting Pattern of Twisting Legitimate Research Should Be Considered In California SB1172 Court Cases, Says TWO
In what has become a disturbing pattern, a top researcher has accused Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, the co-founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), of grossly distorting his work to advance NARTH’s discredited view that gay and lesbians people are mentally ill.
Dr. Allan Schore, a leading psychotherapist and neuropsychologist, is the latest NARTH victim to have his research deliberately misused and politicized. This is particularly alarming because NARTH is the primary organization trying to use the courts in California to strike down a new law prohibiting reparative therapy for minors.
NARTH is not a scientific organization, but a disreputable public relations campaign that twists legitimate research in an effort stigmatize the LGBT community. NARTH members, including Joseph Nicolosi, are ethically challenged and should not be taken seriously by the courts or society.
According to Dominic Davies, of the London-based organization Pink Therapy, in the acknowledgments section of Nicolosi’s book, “Shame and Attachment Loss,” the author expresses a “deep gratitude for the assistance of Alan Schore, P.h.d,” implying a close a personal relationship between the two men (despite spelling Dr Schore’s name incorrectly).
“Throughout the text,” said Davies, “Nicolosi claims homosexuality as an Attachment Disorder and distorts
and misattributes Schore’s work in Attachment Theory in support of his spurious argument.”
Davies contacted Schore to clarify his relationship with Nicolosi. In their correspondence, the scientist made clear that he was “deeply disturbed” that he was misquoted by Nicolosi and said that “there is absolutely no neuropsychological research evidence that homosexuality is a disorder.” He further stated that Nicolosi is “grafting my shame and attachment models on to gender identity disorders, something I have never even written about.”
Despite pretending to be a scientific organization, NARTH does not conduct original research. In the absence of producing data, this disgraceful group quotes obsolete studies and cherry picks the research of real scientists like Schore.
This is not the first time NARTH has been accused of manipulating data to mislead the public. University of Utah researcher, Lisa Diamond, was interviewed by Truth Wins Out and claimed in a Youtube video that Nicolosi deliberately distorted her studies on sexual orientation. According to Diamond’s video statement:
Dr. Nicolosi, you know exactly what you are doing. This is a willful misuse and distortion of my research. Not an academic disagreement. Not a slight shading of the truth. It’s willful distortion. And, it’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you know that. And you should stop.”
Dr. Schore is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of four seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, and The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy, as well as numerous articles and chapters.
Pink Therapy is the UK’s largest independent therapy organization working with gender and sexual diversity clients.
The video of Dr. Diamond is excellent.
Thank you very much for this work Wayne. Keep up the good fight!
TWO might consider writing a brief of it’s own for the upcoming SCOTUS showdown pointing this out as well as the malicious deception and pattern of distorting research. Just a thought.
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How come as far as I know they do this therapy, but do not have to prove that it works. I mean many therapies start out a theory, I would guess, and you would see if it really works, but since there has been so many cases of abuse, treatment that doesn’t work, why haven’t they had to prove that what they do works, as there are so many stories of people who have suffered after the treatment feels. If this was a medicine that was coming out to treat any illness it would have to be tested, and proved to work.
How come we can’t force them to provide proof. Proff would be hard to prove, as sexuality is something there is no way of testing, but you could see how many claim they have been healed and how many have failed to be healed. Then keep tabs on those who claim they have been healed over several years. Question them about what it means to be healed. To me this should be a case of malpratice, as they can’t delieve on what they promise.
Let’s even say healing was from traumas in our life and so forth, many people have trauma and go to therapy and are never able to get over it fully. Why would we think that if trama was the cause they anyone could be truley healed. I think they need to be investigated, even if it takes years, and some form of action needs to take place at the end, depending on the findings.