Joseph Nicolosi helped thousands coping with unwanted homosexual desires
by Peter LaBarbera, LifeSite:
Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a psychologist and a pioneer of “reparative therapy” to help people overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, died March 9 at age 70 from complications resulting from the flu.
Nicolosi, a devout Catholic and the co-founder of NARTH (now the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice), leaves behind wife Linda and their son, Joe Jr. People from all over the world have written memorial tributes to him, with some thanking him for helping them overcome sexual identification problems or to understand the nature of homosexuality. A family funeral services for Nicolosi will be held Wednesday.
In a field fraught with ambiguous terminology (e.g., “sexual orientation”), escalating — even fanatical — LGBT opposition, media cynicism and misreporting, Nicolosi persevered. His counter-cultural message of “If gay doesn’t define you, you don’t have to be gay,” was outrageous and “hateful” to intolerant homosexual militants, but it brought hope to people of faith and others struggling with unwanted homosexual desires.
“Joe worked in a profession that has lost its intellectual integrity,” wrote his wife and professional partner Linda Ames Nicolosi. “Gay activists have such a stranglehold on psychology that no one dares defy them. Joe, however, did defy them. And I thank him for his courage.”
The Nicolosis contrasted their approach with that taken by “gay-affirmative therapists” that dominate the field.
One of the talking points of LGBT activists regarding “reparative therapy” — or any effort guiding people to leave LGBTQ lifestyles — is that it universally harms the people it is intended to help. Such generalizations, aided by biased media coverage, became the basis for laws banning ex-gay therapy for minors in California, Oregon, Illinois, Vermont, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia.
Nicolosi’s success stories: David Pickup
But that talking point conveniently ignores the success stories of pro-heterosexual change therapy — people like David Pickup, whose story is told in a PFOX (Parents & Friends and Family of Ex-Gays) on Nicolosi’s site. (There are many Christian-based testimonies of men and women like Charlene Cothran, who abandoned LGBTQ lifestyles without psychological therapy, but they, too, are largely ignored by the media.)
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