Thank God for Reparative Therapy

According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, repair means “to restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken” or “to restore to a sound or healthy state.” Therapy is defined as “medical treatment of impairment, injury, disease, or disorder.” Combining these, reparative therapy is a medical treatment intended to restore a person’s broken or impaired parts to a healthy state. This is the overarching goal of all therapy, including reparative therapy.

Yet, the Supreme Court had to strike down a law that prevented parents from seeking treatments intended to repair their children. Why was such a law enacted to begin with, and what does this say about society’s view of attempts to restore health?

Before going any further, I need to state that I am a member of the Courage Apostolate and frequently write about the apostolate, but I am not a spokesman or representative of Courage when I speak or write. Within any apostolate, there are variations of thought on certain ideas, and my ideas in this area diverge from Courage. While the apostolate acknowledges that people can be restored, it does not necessarily encourage its members to seek therapy to aid in doing so or push them in that direction.

I, as a member of the apostolate, think a little push in this area is necessary. The Courage Apostolate’s stance on this issue is: “Courage does not provide, refer for, or require therapy of any kind. Our approach is pastoral, not therapeutic.” The Five Goals of Courage, as well as the 12 Steps, which all have a corresponding virtue, lay out a pathway to chastity and holiness for us in the apostolate outside of therapeutic intervention. I think more is necessary.

Many resist the idea that healthy sexual behavior can be objectively defined. Based on my decades of experience as a gay man, I observe that those who challenge sexual norms often do so because of their own unresolved sexual issues, which they may not recognize as harmful. Convinced of the goodness of their own desires and behaviors, they advocate for their normalization, including with children.

This greatly influences efforts to ban “reparative therapy” for minors. If these advocates see no need for change in themselves, then they see no value in offering healing to youth. Instead, they argue that society’s standards unjustly limit fulfillment, advocating the removal of such constraints.

For years, I, too, believed these restraints should be removed. At that time, I was unaware of any options for healing, nor did I perceive that unhealed wounds played any role in my sexual desires. However, now that I have experienced healing and growth, I see the lasting effects of early influences and the behaviors they encouraged me to engage in. The drive to ban reparative therapy stems, in large part, from a refusal to accept or examine these underlying realities.

Around age 6, I was called gay for the first time and began to be bullied for it. Somewhere between ages 9 and 11, I was molested, exposed to pornography, and my connections with the two most important men in my life, my dad and my brother, broke down. I was confused by the intense pain these events caused and the strong feelings and desires they stirred. I wasn’t aware that anyone would help me in these areas or that I needed help, so I dealt with them in the way that made sense to me at the time, which was to give in to the desires they created in me without questioning them or the impact they would have on my relationships with human beings or with God.

I am a child of the’70s and ’80s, so the idea of some sort of intervention to help me was unknown, and parents had no idea of what they should be looking out for regarding issues with identity and sexuality in their children. My life fell apart. I sometimes wonder what would have been different if there had been therapies that could have helped me at an early age. There is no way to know for sure.

But we do have ways to help young people now. These ways are imperfect and don’t always effect the change we hope for. Even if they are imperfect, however, why would we withhold them from our children? Part of this withholding has recently been reversed by the Supreme Court, at least for Colorado children.

While “reparative therapy” has often failed to eliminate unwanted same-sex attraction and, at times, caused harm, the principle behind it—the belief that sexual deviations frequently stem from addressable underlying issues—remains important. My own self-identification as gay arose from bullying and trauma, not original attractions. Early emotional wounds led me to behaviors that developed into automatic responses to distress, illustrating the complexity of sexual formation.

As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Becoming A Good Man, these patterns were not innate but developed over time. Thus, the main purpose of reparative therapy is to provide an opportunity to explore and heal the origins of desires and behaviors. However, this prospect unsettles adults who are unwilling to examine the reasons behind their feelings. Their resistance has contributed to the drive to ban reparative therapy. Ultimately, the main argument is not about whether a specific treatment is effective but about whether access to healing and self-understanding should be restricted by law.

The abuses associated with reparative therapies are real and unacceptable; those responsible must be held accountable. However, to discard the therapy entirely because of misapplications is misguided. Many have experienced genuine healing and beneficial changes—not always the restoration of opposite-sex attraction but meaningful nevertheless.

I urge policymakers, parents, Church leaders, and therapists to ensure these options remain open. These options, even if imperfect, should not be withheld from children and adults under the guise of protection. The long-term harm from living a disordered, stunted form of our sexuality is far more damaging to us as individuals—and to society—than the discomfort and emotional pain caused by responsible therapeutic self-examination and healing.

I went to therapy wanting to stop acting out sexually, but that was not the focus. Instead, we worked on my many wounds and psychological issues—whether genetic or environmental. Over eight years, my relationships with my brother and father improved dramatically. I formed platonic male friendships for the first time. I recognized my selfishness, narcissism, rebellion, and pride; and I came to understand how these contributed to early problems. This self-knowledge helped me become more responsible instead of feeling like a victim.

As these areas healed, my desire for sex and relationships with men decreased—even though this was never the focus. This is true human repair—something I, like many others, thought impossible. My experience is just one example of the kind of growth therapeutic options can foster. When psychological work is combined with a strong sacramental life, change can occur to varying degrees. Because of this, I believe society must ensure these options are available to children early on so they have a chance at a normal life—a term I use intentionally.

Society has deviated further and further from what is normal. As we have done so, what is normal has come to be seen as abnormal, and what is abnormal has been normalized. When the majority of people have been warped in certain ways, the warping no longer seems warped; and those who are not warped, who want to help society and individuals return to normalcy, are seen as dangerous.

People often say, as a response to me saying that I am not normal, “What is normal?” or “Who is normal?” This is done with the intention of helping me feel better. But the unintended effect is that it blinds me to what is abnormal. The truth is that there is a normal I should be striving toward—a normal that Jesus wants to restore me and others to in varying degrees.

“With age-old love, I have loved you; so I have kept my mercy toward you. Again I will restore you, and you shall be rebuilt, O virgin Israel” (Jeremiah 31:2-4).

What a beautiful, reassuring passage—God speaking to us, His children through baptism, from the past into the present, letting us know that He has always loved us and, because of that love, He remains merciful to us just as He was to the Israelites. The passage says “again I will restore you,” which indicates He’s had to do this multiple times and has not given up on His people.

He even says through Jeremiah, “O virgin Israel.” If Israel had to be rebuilt so many times, it’s unlikely that she was still pure. This message resonates with me and should resonate with all of my brothers and sisters who struggle with sexual compulsions and addictions. In particular, it can be applied to the healing that can come to us who experience same-sex attraction.

Restoration is complex and requires our cooperation. God does not force anyone. He simply lets us know the option exists and that He wants to do the work with us.

Many inside and outside the Catholic Church believe homosexuality is natural and unchangeable. While this often stems from a desire to love and be compassionate, it can leave those who recognize this understanding to be untrue feeling uncertain or in the dark. This is sad considering the history of our Holy Catholic Church and how our priests and religious used to be willing to die for the truth. I would never say that this no longer exists in the Church, but those willing to die for the truth seem to be a small minority, and many within that minority are not willing to be vocal. The reason for this is, in part, the tragedy of misused and misunderstood reparative therapy.

The Catholic Church teaches that people with same-sex attraction do not have to change their sexual orientation to become holy, virtuous men and women of God, being divinized to spend eternity with Christ. I agree with this teaching wholeheartedly. What I would add to that, though, is that based on my long experience in the community, there are many common wounds and psychological problems among us. To deny that our sexual attractions are formed through a combination of those wounds, our own genetic predispositions, areas of weakness, and attacks from the enemy of humanity seems shortsighted. By doing this—and ignoring the healing and restoration that is possible—we leave out something pivotal to our growth.

Many people, including myself, have found that a strong sacramental life, along with therapy, 12-step programs, or a combination, has greatly diminished our desire for same-sex activity, relationships, and, for some of us, has decreased our same-sex attraction altogether to a point where our opposite-sex attraction is restored to a certain extent. Stories related to these impacts can be found on ruthinstitute.org, reintegrativetherapy.com, and therapeuticchoice.com.

To deny this reality is to deny us who carry the cross of same-sex attraction the opportunity to be restored by our God. We cannot allow the fear of society’s misunderstanding of what it means to be healed, restored, and repaired to keep us from speaking the truth that this is possible for everyone, including those who experience same-sex attraction. I think that part of the reason this is denied is that the Church, and society in general, refuse to acknowledge that same-sex attraction and the behavior associated with it is often something that is learned; it is not something we are born with.

There is disagreement among the scientific community about this, but the desire to find a gay gene to prove that same-sex attraction is something unchangeable never materialized. The inability to find this gene, and the clear evidence that shows people’s sexual attractions can change—acknowledged in the LGBTQ+ community through ideas like gender and sexual “fluidity”—should give the Church confidence. She should encourage people to pray for their own healing and to seek out help from good Catholic therapists and 12-step programs.

Many of us who have lived gay lives have been told that to live our true identity we must act on our sexual attractions; and the more we act on those sexual attractions, the more our sexual identity becomes ingrained in our neural pathways. But there is clear evidence from some people who have gone through 12-step programs and other therapies that when the sexual activity and the obsession, which many of us act on, decrease, so does the feeling of it being our identity.

Once again, to deny this because it cannot be absolutely proven or is not exactly the case for every single person, to me, is a shortsighted reason not to encourage people to try. The Church is open to the idea of having us go to exorcists or priests who engage in Deliverance Ministry to free us from demons, which to the world is foolishness; but for some reason, the Church won’t also encourage people to seek out what may seem strange to the world to bring healing to their sexuality and their identity.

Our Church is the Church built by Jesus Christ. We have nothing to fear! Even were we to lose our money and property because we speak the truth, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against us. But we sometimes seem to live in fear. At least our leaders do. I’m all for discernment and prudence when it comes to the ways and times when we express the truth, but I’m also all for saving souls.

We who experience these attractions and confusion about our sexual identity and choose to follow the teachings of Christ and His Church often feel abandoned by the Church and stuck in behaviors and identities we can’t seem to get out of. This is, in part, because the leaders of our Church won’t speak to us honestly. We need to be told that change in both behavior and identity is completely realistic and possible with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ and the tools that He has graciously given us in the Church’s Sacraments, Deliverance Ministry, Catholic therapy, and 12-step programs.

Freedom from behavior and freedom from false identity are possible. We are not doomed to lives of sexual obsession, loneliness, addiction, materialism, and self-harm of different sorts, unless we don’t believe that something better is possible. It is one of the Church’s jobs to remind us that humanity was made male and female for a reason (procreation).

If our attractions tempt us to act outside that reality, something better is not only possible but completely realistic. This requires that we submit to the Church and allow ourselves to be helped through these programs and therapies. It also calls for mortification and self-discipline, as has been shown by many of the great Saints of the past who have been afflicted with what we might now call sexual addictions and compulsions.

“And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith” (Matthew 13:58).

Jesus didn’t not work mighty deeds because of their disordered behaviors or the distorted understanding of their identity but because they didn’t believe He could. How sad for them and how sad for us. For us laypeople to have faith that healing is possible in our lives, we need our leaders to have that faith as well.

Part of faith is making an act of the will—that even when we don’t feel something is possible, we choose to believe it with our intellect and our will. Our leaders can do this. They may not see a lot of healing among people with same-sex attraction, but they must know that with Jesus anything and everything is possible. If they choose to believe that—and act in a way that is in accordance with that belief—they will enable us who carry these crosses to have faith that the same can happen in our lives. With that faith, we can take steps to interact with the tools given us by our Lord to enable Him to work in our lives.

I am not a trained expert, but I have lived experience gained from both the deep lows of living as a gay man and the highs that have come through the reparative therapy I’ve been involved in over the last eight years. I sometimes imagine what it would have been like to have received therapy from a very early age that addressed my disordered attractions and desires. What would it have been like if I lived in a society that followed the natural law as a guide to what is healthy and natural, and what is not, and then any behavior that was contrary to that law would be seen as something worthy of being addressed and treated?

To me, that’s what the Supreme Court did when it struck down the ban on reparative therapy for children. It has opened the possibility for young people who have a distorted understanding of identity and the role our desires play in it to now have at least a chance of not living the life I’ve lived.

Some may say that reparative therapy isn’t fair to those young people who wish to accept their disordered attractions and feelings. Would we apply this same standard to other distortions of identity in the lives of young people? Obviously, the answer is no.

Why, then, should we leave a young person stuck in a sexual identity without the option of those who know better than them, their parents, to seek help for them? That is not good for their physical health; and LGBTQ+ identities are not good for the mental health of young people or adults—who have higher rates of suicide and drug and alcohol abuse, according to the American Psychiatric Association and American Addiction Centers.

Some have argued that reparative therapy doesn’t work. But it worked for me. Their evidence is that people who go through this therapy do not necessarily revert to having opposite-sex attraction. But that doesn’t mean the therapy isn’t working.

If someone breaks their leg and goes to physical therapy, they may still limp, but that doesn’t mean the physical therapy didn’t help them walk better. Therapy may not restore our opposite-sex attraction, but it can certainly help us better understand our identity, the root of our desires and attractions, and give us more of a fighting chance to live a life that doesn’t revolve around a false identity and habitual sexual acting out.

Contrary to the understanding of many therapists and judges, therapy is not designed to remove our wounds or the scars from them necessarily. Therapy is to help us live the best possible life we can, carrying the crosses we’ve been given or brought upon ourselves through our own choices. If therapy is looked at from the perspective that it is there to help us live better lives, not necessarily to restore us back to what we once were or could have been, then its effectiveness is determined by a more reasonable standard and is not as easily criticized when it doesn’t do what others think it should do.

I’ve been in therapy most of my life. I did not necessarily get what I initially hoped for out of it—to stop acting out; but in time, I have received much more: acceptance and a better understanding of my masculine identity. I have no doubt that with this baseline reestablished, I will eventually achieve my initial goal. Am I perfect? No! Am I better than I was? Yes!

Thank God for therapy that repairs and heals in many different areas of our lives. Despite the flaws in therapies specifically designed to address sexual attraction and identity and the way they have been practiced, their intentions are good. The answer to the problems with them and their practitioners is not to ban therapy and take away parents’ rights to aid their children in healing.

Rather, individual cases should be addressed when they arise, including when therapists or members of the Church or other ecclesial communities have done harm. Children deserve to have their innocence and purity defended. And when it is damaged or violated in some way, they deserve to have the wounds that they carry addressed so they have a fighting chance for a spiritually, emotionally, and physically healthier life.

This option wasn’t available to me at an early enough age to keep me from the pain of living as a gay man. Thank God the Supreme Court has given back to the children of Colorado, and hopefully children and adults across our nation, the opportunity for healing and restoration.