Today the journal Frontiers in Psychology published the latest study from Father Paul Sullins, Ph.D., which compares LGB persons who have undergone “conversion therapy” (aka sexual orientation change efforts, or SOCE) with those who haven’t, and finds no difference between the two groups for multiple measures of behavioral harm, including suicidal morbidity, psychological distress, self-harm (cutting), and substance abuse. In other words, sexual orientation change efforts aren’t harmful.
The study, titled “Absence of Behavioral Harm Following Non-efficacious Sexual Orientation Change Efforts: A Retrospective Study of United States Sexual Minority Adults, 2016–2018″ is available to read or download at no charge at Frontiers in Psychology.
Frontiers in Psychology, based in Switzerland, “is the largest journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research across the psychological sciences, …” Articles are automatically indexed in NIH’s PubMed and most other national public health repositories. The data examined on sexual minority adults were collected by the Gallup Organization for the Williams Institute, a pro-gay research and advocacy institute at UCLA Law School, Los Angeles, California.
The conclusion contradicts a large number of studies that report substantial harm following SOCE, particularly increased suicidal behavior. Only four such studies used a representative (random) sample, however, and all four failed to distinguish suicidal behavior before SOCE from that following it. The research from Fr. Sullins found that suicidal behavior is much higher before SOCE (perhaps prompting the recourse to therapy) but not afterward. In fact, suicide attempts are significantly reduced following SOCE – the opposite of what is widely claimed.
For at least two of the four representative sample studies, the failure to account for pre-existing distress is not inadvertent, but intentional, by scholars who maintain that even prior distress invalidates SOCE. This backwards logic may bring about the very harm such scholars and advocates say they want to prevent.
Fr. Sullins argues: “It would be a perverse policy indeed, for example, for heart surgery to be discouraged or even banned because those undergoing it experienced higher rates of cardiac dysfunction than the general population before the surgery.” He concludes: “Concerns to restrict or ban SOCE due to elevated harm are unfounded.”
This fallacy was more extensively addressed in another study still in peer review but available in preprint: Sullins, Donald, Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) *reduce* suicide: correcting a false research narrative (March 16, 2021). This study is available at SRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3729353 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3729353.
The findings are also notable for two reasons:
1) The SOCE participants experienced higher minority stress, negative childhood conditions and lower socioeconomic status, all of which predict higher harm or lower well-being, yet following SOCE their level of harm was no higher than their peers who had not experienced these conditions. Undergoing SOCE may alleviate or protect against harm from other causes.
2) Some previous studies have reported lower suicidality following SOCE for those who also reported reduced same-sex attraction or behavior, i.e. they “converted” at least somewhat, but higher suicidality for those who did not. This is the first study to find no harm for persons who underwent SOCE yet remained strongly LGB in identity, behavior and attraction.