Joseph Nicolosi

Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist, founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic, in Encino, California, and the President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).

Since 1992, Nicolosi has studied and advocated reparative therapy, an umbrella term for techniques used to attempt to change people with same-sex sexual attraction to a heterosexual orientation.

Nicolosi's Ph.D. is from the California School of Professional Psychology. Nicolosi and his wife Linda Ames Nicolosi have one son.

Criticism
The medical and scientific consensus is that attempts at eliminating same-sex attractions are not effective and are potentially harmful.

The ethics and efficacy of these procedures are rejected by all mainstream medical and mental health associations that have taken a position on the topic. Their stance is that sexual orientation is unchangeable, and that attempts to do so are often damaging to the person's well-being. The American Psychiatric Association states that "ethical practitioners refrain from attempts to change individuals' sexual orientation."

Major organizations that reject reparative therapy include the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Counseling Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of School Psychologists, and the National Education Association.

Theory of reparative therapy
Joseph Nicolosi holds that homosexuality is the product of a mental disorder he describes as "gender-identity deficit" caused by an alienation from, and perceived rejection by, individuals of the subject's gender.


 * "The basic premise of reparative therapy is that the majority of clients (approximately 90%, in my experience) suffer from a syndrome of male gender-identity deficit. It is this internal sense of incompleteness in one's own maleness which is the essential foundation for homoerotic attraction. The causal rule of reparative therapy is "Gender identity determines sexual orientation." We eroticize what we are not identified with. The focus of treatment therefore is the full development of the client's masculine gender identity."

Nicolosi suggests that the subject, as a boy, first experiences rejection by his father, then lapses into helplessness, and finally retreats to the security of his mother and defensively detaches from his father. According to Nicolosi, this purported defensive detachment emotionally isolates him from other males and from his own masculinity, causing homosexuality.

Quotations

 * On preventing homosexuality in young boys: