Not exactly sure how to direct this debate as there are a number of points at issue.
I guess I will toss out how two well known and generally well regarded papers reported the same news. I’ll leave it to Dopers to decide if this is just perfectly fine reporting from two different angles or if one or the other is intentionally misleading.
Yes, they ultimately both get around to touching on the same points but the thrust of the articles is clearly different.
Well, the first one is the AP, not the NY Times. They seem to have completely conflicting messages. Which one is closer to the actual APA report? Also, that is some odd writing for the Wall Street Journal.
Fair enough but the NYT saw fit to print it in its entirety and even so I think we can say the Associated Press is in the club of respected journalistic institutions (despite their recent decision to charge $2.50/word to people who quote their articles…that’s another debate though).
They are both right although I think the WSJ article is only just barely technically correct and is misleading. From the APA website their press release says:
That last bit I think is where the WSJ article is hanging its hat.
Their op-ed page was conservative before the Murdoch takeover. However, I thought this article was written for a Christian newspaper. This part of the headline:
“…Allow Counselors to Help Clients Reject Their Same-Sex Attractions”
while sort-of accurate, seems to almost directly conflict with the APA press release. I know one of the WSJ editors – I’ll send him a note.
If it does not break any confidences between you two I would be interested in his/her response (or the upshot of the response if you prefer).
Surprised no one else here has chimed in. To me this seems to violate journalistic integrity. I might expect this from fringe publications that make no bones about catering to a specific audience but the WSJ?
I’d say that WSJ take on it is spinning pretty damned hard. If it had been on WND I wouldn’t have blinked, but I’ve always though that WSJ had a pretty decent core of reporting.
I read the Times one, and don’t have time to look at the real report. Both say that attempts to change are not effective, however the WSJ article buries this in the quote, while the AP one makes it the lead, which seems right.
I could imagine something in the report saying that for people in committed heterosexual relationships who have homosexual longings might be counseled to resist them to preserve the relationship - no different really from trying to reduce a man’s straying eyes. Am I correct? That doesn’t sound like news to me. It would also have been more interesting if the WSJ had interviewed someone who was trying to change sexual orientation on others.
As has been discussed elsewhere on this messageboard recently, the WSJ had a pretty decent core of reporting before it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch, owner of Fox News Network and The New York Post, among others.
I think it’s more along the lines of, if a patient is gay, and is consumed with guilt over having gay sex, it’s reasonable to counsel him to stop having gay sex, since it’s clearly making him miserable. Although I’d hope that this would just be an interim step in getting the patient over his feelings of shame for being gay in the first place.
The Times leads with a declaration that isn’t news at all. We’ve known for a long long time that gay therapy is bullshit. The Times chose to lead with one more affirmation of that fact. Big fucking deal.
The WSJ leads with the real news, namely the psychologists have decided it is ethical and beneficial in certain cases to help reject gay sexual impulses.
That is the big news as far as I’m concerned and by far the most significant outcome to report from this resolution.
We knew this all along? Guess no one told the American Psychological Association then. You could have saved them a lot of time and effort if you had just phoned them up and told them what we all already knew. :rolleyes:
Yes the psychological profession has been creeping towards removing “being gay” as a disorder that needs psychological counseling. Nevertheless, as the NYT/AP article notes, a contingent of psychologists has remained that feels this is a disorder that needs fixing.
The news here is the APA resolution passed by a 125-to-4 vote and based upon an examination of 83 studies done since 1960 that such therapy is mostly bullshit.
If you read the APA press release linked above they pan the whole idea of treating someone for being homosexual except in one very narrow instance where their religious beliefs conflict with their sexual desire.
It of course makes sense to treat someone for that because they are at odds with themself and need help in resolving an inner conflict.
I would totally disagree with you though that “it is ethical and beneficial in certain cases to help reject gay sexual impulses.” Indeed the APA press release explicitly rejects that.
There is nothing there about rejecting gay sexual impulses and in fact tells therapists to avoid doing that.
My opinion is their religious belief should be the thing that is modified.
Religious beliefs are learned and not innate. It is possible to modify your religious beliefs to encompass being ok with being gay far more easily than it is to reject being gay.
Indeed the report suggests that trying to get people to reject being gay is harmful to them.
Being gay as a disorder was officially rejected by the APA before you were born.
Upon review I’ll accede that this resolution is the first official statement that claims reparative therapy does not work. I just assumed that the thousands of postings on this message board over the past nine years asserting that fact was based on accepted scientific evidence.
They’ve panned the idea since 1998.
Careful please, I’m not making that claim. I’m reporting that the WSJ reports the APA is making that claim. Its quoted in the OP. Perhaps you could support your claim where the APA explicitly rejects “that”
I’d cite the WSJ article but you won’t accept that. The best I can do is cite the NYTimes.
Breaks ground
detailed
nuanced
But for some reason we have to go to the WSJ for a better handle on the ground breaking details.
Well, as noted the APA saw fit to study this again and put out another finding on this.
Further, I was born before 1973. On top of that, my ex-wife’s cousin was put in an institution for Gender Identity Disorder in the 1980’s. She even wrote a book about it. For all that it was off the books it apparently was still deemed an issue and “treated”.
Swell.
Why did they see fit to initiate a new study then and vote on this again? I honestly do not know but I do find it odd they’d revisit this if was a decided issue to them.
The OP is about the WSJ making faulty or at the least misleading claims.
Where in the APA press release does it say therapists can help patients reject gay impulses?
Want me to support my claim? Easy (from the APA press release cited above…bolding mine): “Practitioners can assist clients through therapies that do not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather involve acceptance, support and identity exploration and development without imposing a specific identity outcome.”
Have you read any of the cites? They are not that long.
The point is the WSJ article is misleading.
They latch onto the issue of someone who is conflicted because they are gay and their religion clash in their head.
As noted above the APA explicitly rejected changing sexual orientation. They merely acknowledge that someone might be conflicted and that status can benefit from counseling.
If you think through it a bit this will almost certainly entail the patient adapting their religious views to become more tolerant of themselves. The APA noted that changing sexual orientation is, if anything, damaging to the patient.
I’m guessing that they’re treating the issues of “Is homosexuality a mental illness?” and “Can therapy change sexual orientation?” as separate questions. This study was meant to answer the second question, not re-address the first.