Ideas Regarding Sexual Orientation
Cohen claims that repeated molestation by a male relative while he was a child caused him to identify as a homosexual as a result of learned behavior. He says that dealing with the psychological damage that resulted from the molestation allowed him to revert to his "natural heterosexuality." He believes that all homosexuals are actually heterosexuals who can find peace and self esteem through healing and restoration of their natural heterosexuality.
Cohen's 2001 book Coming Out Straight calls homosexuality a "same-sex attachment disorder" and details his methods of sexual reorientation therapy, including his theory of the causes of same-sex attraction (among them, divorce, death of a loved one, and race), his methods of changing sexual orientation, and stories of people who have undergone his therapies.
Cohen describes the "hidden meanings" of same-sex attraction as:
- need for same-sex parent's love
- need for gender identification
- fear of intimacy with the opposite sex
Though Cohen believes that one of the causes of homosexuality in men is the lack of bonding with the male parent, he does not believe that the cause of heterosexuality in males is due to the lack of bonding with the female parent, rather that heterosexuality is the "natural" condition of all people. Cohen uses a technique called bioenergetics. Cohen also uses holding therapy, which involves physical touch and repeating affirming words to attempt to establish healthy, non-sexual bonding that may have been absent during childhood. In Cohen's Counselor training program manual he states that only opposite-sex attracted mentors or same-gender parents should give holding therapy, and quoting from his 2000 book Coming Out Straight that the mentor should not be the same person as the therapist. However in a televised interview with Paula Zahn on CNN, he is shown hugging a patient who is lying in his lap and explaining that the patient didn't experience proper nurturing growing up.
Cohen has said, "If someone wants to live a gay life, that needs to be respected. If someone wants to change and come out straight, that too needs to be respected. Let us practice true tolerance, real diversity, and equality for all."
Read more about this topic: Richard A. Cohen
Famous quotes containing the words ideas and/or orientation:
“Cities need old buildings so badly it is probably impossible for vigorous streets and districts to grow without them.... for really new ideas of any kind—no matter how ultimately profitable or otherwise successful some of them might prove to be—there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Institutions of higher education in the United States are products of Western society in which masculine values like an orientation toward achievement and objectivity are valued over cooperation, connectedness and subjectivity.”
—Yolanda Moses (b. 1946)