Psychologist defends therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction after Milo spotlight: 'Clients deserve the right'

A licensed clinical psychologist who often works with men seeking help for unwanted same-sex attraction says clients should be free to pursue their own therapeutic goals — an approach he hopes will increasingly be considered in mainstream psychological circles.

"Clients deserve the right to pick their own therapy goals," Dr. Joseph Nicolosi Jr. told The Christian Post. "Our clients are people whose goal is to live a life consistent with their values, including as it relates to their sexuality. We want to support them to live in accordance with their deeply held values."

'Disordered urge'

Nicolosi, who practices in California and serves as president of the nonprofit Reintegrative Therapy Association, drew widespread attention earlier this month when political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos mentioned his therapeutic approach during an hours-long conversation with Tucker Carlson.

Carlson had earlier questioned the "born-gay" theory of homosexuality during a viral tussle with British journalist Piers Morgan last month, noting that rates of LGBT self-identification have exponentially skyrocketed among young people in the West, which he attributed in part to "propaganda and pornography."

Yiannopoulos, who told Carlson he has repented of homosexuality and expressed remorse for what he sees as his role in "mainstreaming" such behavior in the Republican Party during his most influential years, described homosexual inclinations in men such as himself as a symptom of early trauma.

"In almost every case, and certainly in every male case, it is a trauma response," Yiannopoulos said. "It is not a sexuality. It is not part of what you are, or who you are, or a component of your personality ... it is a set of behaviors that emerges in people with a number of very easily identifiable common etiologies."

Yiannopoulos, who pinpointed his own sexual abuse by a priest as a young teenager amid estrangement from his father, said he came to realize his sexual compulsions were spiritually destroying him. He tried to expunge his unwanted attractions on his own with acts of self-mortification, such as pouring hot oil on himself when a sexual stimulus arose.

"Another reason gay sex is unfulfilling is because it's refilling a battery that's always depleting," he said, describing the act as a futile attempt to assume the masculinity of another man. "It's like a slow puncture, and you just top it up. You can never fill it up. You can top it up for a moment with an encounter. Those urges in the first place come from a memory or a thought or something that's leading to this arousal, this disordered urge."

Yiannopoulos said he came to learn that such an endeavor was the inverse of the "infinite, limitless generosity and charity and grace of God."

Yiannopoulos also claimed many homosexuals suffer "shards in the personality" after learning from a young age how to show different faces to different people, but said he came to discover Nicolosi's approach of reintegrative therapy to be a much healthier way of healing a brain and spirit that have learned to seek out relief from pain in an insatiable sexual addiction.

"It's reintegrating those shards and those broken bits of memory that lead to the wrong output," he said.

'Unresolved conflicts'

Nicolosi told CP that his therapeutic approach, video examples of which are on his website, resembles other trauma-based structured therapy such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy.

EMDR was first developed in 1987 for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and helps patients process memories that continue to cause distress, according to the American Psychological Association.

"We use trauma treatments to help clients with unresolved memories from their past, unresolved conflicts from their past," Nicolosi said.

Nicolosi told CP that childhood loneliness and a perceived failure to identify with other boys growing up is a common trend among his male clients, whose envious pain becomes eroticized upon reaching puberty.

"Many of my clients describe childhoods as feeling estranged from their same-sex peers," he said. "Many of my clients describe feeling more temperamentally sensitive than those peers, feeling like they lacked or missed out on male attention, affection and approval. That's a story I hear virtually every day of my practice."

In one video example on his website intended to illustrate how he helps clients to analyze and detach from their unwanted same-sex attraction, Nicolosi helps a young man realize how his feelings of arousal toward an idealized male are rooted in feelings of inadequacy, shame and sadness regarding himself.

WATCH Thomas' Sexual Attractions CHANGE #reintegrativetherapy#conversiontherapy ? pic.twitter.com/NS3LbvCmPw

— Reintegrative Therapy® (@Reintegrative_) March 9, 2024

"There are three perspectives on what we can do with these sexual feelings," Nicolosi tells the client. Noting the prevailing culture provides embracing or repressing such attractions as the only two options, Nicolosi said a third option is to mindfully observe the arousal response without judgment.

"You kind of look at the guy in the attraction moment, and it's like, 'OK, there's something coming up for me. There's some attributes in him that I feel I don't have in myself,'" Nicolosi tells the client before moving on to address the underlying issue of his self-perception compared to other men.

During a conversation earlier this year with conservative podcaster Lila Rose, Nicolosi noted that his late father, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi Sr., whose books about homosexuality have been banned on Amazon, came to notice that many of the men who sought his help for same-sex attraction generally exhibited unusual anxiety and deference when they first met him.

"The men who had that kind of guarded posture were more likely to be men who would later on disclose to him that they had unwanted same-sex attractions, versus the guy who opens the door and thoughtlessly plops down on the couch and starts complaining about his life," Nicolosi said.

"So my father began listening to the stories of these men and hearing that the same defensive detachment posture they had toward him, they were exhibiting toward other men in their life."

'This topic is being pushed upon us'

Though he did not opine to CP on so-called "conversion therapy" bans in countries such as Canada, where psychologists face up to five years in prison for any therapy that does not affirm homosexuality and transgenderism, Nicolosi recently participated in an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Chiles v. Salazar, which is poised to set a legal precedent regarding state "conversion therapy" bans for minors in the United States.

Nicolosi, whose state of California became the first in the U.S. to ban conversion therapy for minors in 2012, argued that such bans are vague and constitute viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment while hindering legitimate, evidence-based psychotherapy. He drew a distinction between "conversion therapy" aimed at changing sexual attractions and therapy by which sexual attractions can sometimes be changed as a byproduct of processing trauma.

The amicus brief also noted that the legal definition of conversion therapy is broadening to encompass "any therapeutic intervention operating under the premise that a specific sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression is pathological."

"This topic is being pushed upon us by politicians, I believe, and they're pushing it into our classrooms," Nicolosi told CP. "And they're driving this conversation into our lives and gearing it toward children at younger and younger ages, and so it's forcing this topic into the mainstream."

Telling the truth about the nature of unwanted same-sex attraction is an uphill cultural battle, Nicolosi suggested, but some degree of change is possible for those who are willing.

"The mainstream media in the past have shown themselves to be very agenda-driven, and I want to provide the public with a clear explanation of what we're doing, providing evidence-based treatment," he said. "Sexual attractions can change for many people. When we talk about sexual attractions, it's very important that we define our terms."

"I'm not talking about flipping a light switch. We're talking about rotating a light dimmer. We're talking about gradual shifts of varying degrees. No one can guarantee an outcome. No two people respond identically, but even a few degrees of shift can be very helpful to some people, and they deserve to know that this can be an option for them."

Nicolosi, who is a Christian, did not go into detail regarding the role he believes faith plays in overcoming unwanted same-sex attraction, but observed that many of his clients are religious people who are endeavoring to live according to their consciences and what they believe is their intended design.

"Many of my clients are people of faith — Jews, Christians, Muslims and other religions — who believe they were created heterosexual," he said. "Respecting them means respecting their freedom to pursue their goals."

Nicolosi also said there is growing interest among therapists regarding his form of reintegrative therapy, the results of which have been published in peer-reviewed journals and extend to other unwanted behaviors, though he expects ongoing resistance.

"I suspect the psychological establishment will continue to push back, but there are more and more therapists expressing interest in doing this work," he said. "Right now, there's high demand, long wait lists of therapists and people who want help."