NARTH’s Disconcerting Pattern of Twisting Legitimate Research Should Be Considered In California SB1172 Court Cases, Says TWO

In what has become a disturbing pattern, a top researcher has accused Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, the co-founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), of grossly distorting his work to advance NARTH’s discredited view that gay and lesbians people are mentally ill.

Dr. Allan Schore, a leading psychotherapist and neuropsychologist, is the latest NARTH victim to have his research deliberately misused and politicized. This is particularly alarming because NARTH is the primary organization trying to use the courts in California to strike down a new law prohibiting reparative therapy for minors.

NARTH is not a scientific organization, but a disreputable public relations campaign that twists legitimate research in an effort stigmatize the LGBT community. NARTH members, including Joseph Nicolosi, are ethically challenged and should not be taken seriously by the courts or society.

According to Dominic Davies, of the London-based organization Pink Therapy, in the acknowledgments section of Nicolosi’s book, “Shame and Attachment Loss,” the author expresses a “deep gratitude for the assistance of Alan Schore, P.h.d,” implying a close a personal relationship between the two men (despite spelling Dr Schore’s name incorrectly).

“Throughout the text,” said Davies, “Nicolosi claims homosexuality as an Attachment Disorder and distorts and misattributes Schore’s work in Attachment Theory in support of his spurious argument.” Davies contacted Schore to clarify his relationship with Nicolosi. In their correspondence, the scientist made clear that he was “deeply disturbed” that he was misquoted by Nicolosi and said that “there is absolutely no neuropsychological research evidence that homosexuality is a disorder.” He further stated that Nicolosi is “grafting my shame and attachment models on to gender identity disorders, something I have never even written about.”

Despite pretending to be a scientific organization, NARTH does not conduct original research. In the absence of producing data, this disgraceful group quotes obsolete studies and cherry picks the research of real scientists like Schore.

This is not the first time NARTH has been accused of manipulating data to mislead the public. University of Utah researcher, Lisa Diamond, was interviewed by Truth Wins Out and claimed in a Youtube video that Nicolosi deliberately distorted her studies on sexual orientation. According to Diamond’s video statement:

Dr. Nicolosi, you know exactly what you are doing. This is a willful misuse and distortion of my research. Not an academic disagreement. Not a slight shading of the truth. It’s willful distortion. And, it’s illegitimate and it’s irresponsible and you know that. And you should stop.”

Dr. Schore is on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and at the UCLA Center for Culture, Brain, and Development. He is author of four seminal volumes, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self, and The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy, as well as numerous articles and chapters.

Pink Therapy is the UK’s largest independent therapy organization working with gender and sexual diversity clients.