Disclaimer: Fleckinstein comes to this topic, as always, happily free of expertise and certification, entirely lay and non-professional, blessed only with Catholic catechesis and common sense, as well as affection, over the years, for so many "gay" and non-"gay" friends with homosexual attractions.
I need reparative therapy. I think we all do. Well, obvi, not Jesus and our Blessed Mother. Perhaps not John the Baptist. But St. Joseph and all the saints, even the virgin-martyrs, need it! Almost 30 years ago I was introduced to Joseph Nicolosi Sr. and Elizabeth Moberly by a friend seeking an awakening of heterosexual desire to have marriage and family. This was perhaps the most personally moving piece of psychological theory I have ever read. I resolved to seek repair of my own wound-based compulsions and disorders in regard to women.
It is NOT, NOT, NOT conversion therapy, the attempt to con-re-invert "sexual orientation" from "gay" to "str8." To call reparative therapy a version of conversion therapy is a slander, a false witness (8th commandment), a rash judgment: Shame on You! (JK of course! Fleck does not play the shame/blame game!😇)
The two therapies...conversion/reparative...are different formally, substantially, interiorly. They have distinct aims and assumptions, in accord with their names. Confusion is understandable. Most who enter reparative therapy are probably seeking stronger heterosexual attractions and a chance at marriage/family. And so they are seeking a kind of conversion. Many who practice it no doubt do so poorly, tending into an intention to convert or invert. However, the two are distinct. Reparative is soundly based in a Freudian approach and is Catholic friendly in pursuing sexual wholesomeness, sobriety, maturity and chastity.
It is repair of wounds, in our sexuality, suffered in childhood and youth. Some kind of trauma or harm, especially regarding Mom/Dad, peers, and/or body image harms the developing gender-identity and results in disorder and compulsiveness in sexual attraction. This assumes that much (but not necessarily all) sexual attraction is effected by the 12 or more years of life prior to human puberty. Some years ago, a thorough review of research, led by a prominent gay activist, controversially found that about 70% of homosexual attraction comes from nurture, 30% from nature.
My own resolution, upon learning about this therapy, was to further deepen and strengthen wholesome, sexually sober, intimate, prayerful friendships...primarily with men...but also with women...to relieve or at least lessen the underlying emotional/psychological issues fueling disorders in sexual desire. I continue this program to this day and intend to pursue it till I die.
At the same time, my Catholic sensibility reminds me that the wounds of concupiscence are treatable, but often not curable. They remain as foundational, constitutional to my psyche, probably for the remainder of my life. A priest once told me in confession that these flaming passions and compulsions would remain with me until my body is 4 days cold in the grave. So, whatever your personal proclivities you are ontologically vulnerable to romantic/sexual compulsivity and need a rigorous program involving the sacramental economy, reparative therapy or their equivalents.
In this light, I have been recently following with delight the writings of my young friend Stephen Adubato. As a leader of the CLUE (college students associated with the Communion and Liberation Movement) group in NYC, he is a something of a mentor to my oldest granddaughter as she navigates a Catholic life in the prestigious but perilous currents of that city (Columbia University, internship with America Magazine, aspirations for career in law.) He is a friend of my daughter Margaret Rose and, like her, a member of Memories Domini, who live professional lives in secular society as they dedicate themselves to Christ in lifelong promises of poverty, chastity and obedience within households of prayer and charity. He is rock solid in Catholic theology and spirituality, rooted (like myself) in urban, ethnic parochialism (positively understood) and fascinated with lay renewal movements. At the same time, he is NY hip, avant-garde, ironic, artistic, comedic, transgressive, and playful. He is classic Catholic Bohemian, countercultural and anti-bourgeois. He writes for an extraordinary range of Catholic journals: America, First Things, Plough, Compact and both NCRs (Who does that?) At the same time, he recklessly, with malicious delectation (possibly a venial sin; check with your confessor or spiritual director!), disparages equally the ideological presumptions of the cultural right and left. His mentors: Luigi Giussani, Dorothy Day, and in lesser degree Camille Paglia. With Luigi he assumes a classic, Roman Renaissance-like cultural confidence, even cockiness! With Dorothy he shares identification with the poor and an anti-bourgeois, iconoclastic radicalism. From Camille he draws ancient, pagan, nature intuitions on sex and gender which he receives in Christian mode.
In this contentious, delicate arena of sex and gender, Stephen says things I have thought for many years but have not read or heard anywhere...certainly not with such finesse, humor, and playfulness. He cavalierly dismisses orthodoxies on both sides, declaring there is no such thing as " sexual orientation," "born-that-way," or "conversion therapy." Glory to God! My favorite Stephen quote:
"If someone tells me they are gay and ask what to do about it, I will say: 'You can become straight; become an artist; become a monk; or become a total deviant. Just don't talk so much about it!'"
He brings an unusual lightness to the entire discussion as he dances gracefully, even handedly appreciating and critiquing perspectives from both sides of the culture war. He detaches from the moralism of the right and the decadence of the left in a confidence that is serene and celebrative. He is so deeply traditional that he critiques The Latin Mass as a form of modernity.
He is a blessing for me...and not just as he assists my granddaughter to preserve her faith, assuming from contemporary culture what is good and rejecting what is not. More personally, he is reviving in me the liberal-radical inclinations of my youth. In early adulthood, the late 60s, I was counterculture in a deep-Catholic fashion: hippy-esque, anti-bureaucracy/materialism/consumerism/status/meritocracy/technocracy/racism/imperialism. I read Goodman, Fromm, Illich, Holt, Freire, Day, Maritan, Doherty and others. These dimensions of my Catholicism became recessive as I moved into adulthood: supporting a family, waging culture war from the right, engaging in charismatic renewal and "Communio" theology. Stephen is rejuvenating me as he brings me into some contact with younger generations, recalling happy memories of youth.
His substack, "Cracks in Postmodernity" succinctly identifies his position. He engages postmodernity free of fear and appreciative of what is good. Who else does this? More academically, Monsignor Tom Guarino at Seton Hall. But no one else that I know in my small world. He is at home in the Nietzchean cosmos of fluidity, isolation, moral chaos, creativity and the absence of structure, foundations, and permanence. He lives in that world sensitive to the suffering; charitably; appreciative of the "cracks" that open to the Transcendent.
Finally, my question for Stephen: Why so negative about reparative therapy? He recognizes its strengths but still strongly identifies it with conversion therapy. He is clear on the theoretical or formal distinction between the two. Interestingly, he takes a direction which reconciles his iconoclastic with his deep-Catholic propensities. He looks to Camille Paglia who recognizes a degree of fluidity in sexuality and encourages therapeutic movement to interior freedom, balance, maturity, and virtue...but no inversion of so-called orientation.
This is a refreshing, appealing approach. It recognizes fluidity and the possibility of change even as it sees that some psychic structures are durable, resistant to human effort and therapy. Some cravings and compulsions are virtually invulnerable. Treatable but not curable. Crosses that must be born, patiently and perseveringly. Life patterns of support/accountability/correction must be established to channel and restrain such irrepressible forces.
Stephen's case seems to be not so much against reparative therapy in theory, but in practice. Unlike this writer, he knows the literature (including the internet) on the issues and many who practice or seek it. He seems to be convinced that a critical mass are actually seeking "conversion." They intend to effect a change that allows for marriage and family. He may well be accurate about this.
However, it seems clear that, in theory, the two paths which he contrasts are in fact identical. They differ in name only. Neither aspires to a change in orientation. Both seek healing of inner memories involving bondage to anxiety, shame, compulsion. Both seek liberation into spontaneity, self-confidence, serenity, generosity, generativity, and joy.
Whatever you call it...reparative or Paglian...Let's all practice it!
Let's get to confession...maybe once a month, as my Grandfather suggested: don't think about it, just go every month, like Sunday mass or morning brushing of teeth.
Let's pray for purity...sexually, romantically and every which way!
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