Psychiatrist Regrets Gay ‘Cure’

Sleepless nights led to clarity for Dr. Robert L. Spitzer. The 80-year-old pioneering psychiatrist and researcher has decided to recant one of his most controversial pieces of work, research he conducted in 2003 that supported the use of reparative therapy to “cure” homosexuality. A recent World Health Organization report called the study “a serious threat to the health and well-being–even the lives–of affected people.” In a letter to be published in a research journal this month, Spitzer writes that he owes “the gay community an apology.” Spitzer has said that regrets for the study, which he now sees as a poorly conceived jab at orthodox research, have remained with him over the past eleven years.