Clearly, he said, reparative therapy helps some people alter sexual behavior.
Marc Breedlove, a neuroscientist and psychologist at Michigan State University, said there was overwhelming evidence that sexual orientation is affected by both biology and environment. They also point out that the failures of such therapy are seldom reported. Spitzer, publicly repudiated as invalid his own 2001 study suggesting that some people could change their sexual orientation the study had been widely cited by defenders of the therapy. Reparative therapy suffered two other major setbacks this year. Major mental health associations say teenagers who are pushed into therapy by conservative parents may feel guilt and despair when their inner impulses do not change. (While some women also struggle with sexual identity, the ex-gay movement is virtually all male.) Confronting these psychic wounds, they assert, can bring change in sexual desire, if not necessarily a total “cure.” The theories, which have also been adopted by conservative religious opponents of gay marriage, hold that male homosexuality emerges from family dynamics - often a distant father and an overbearing mother - or from early sexual abuse. Whether they have gone through formal reparative therapy, most ex-gays agree with its tenets, even as they are rejected by mainstream scientists. Some choose celibacy as an improvement over what they regard as a sinful gay life. Some are trying to save heterosexual marriages.
Many ex-gays guard their secret but quietly meet in support groups around the country, sharing ideas on how to avoid temptations or, perhaps, broach their past with a female date. Bitzer, who plans to seek a doctorate in psychology and become a therapist himself.
“I found that I couldn’t just say ‘I’m gay’ and live that way,” said Mr.