Former APA President Dr. Nicholas Cummings
Describes his Work with SSA Clients...20% of clients with successful outcomes changed sexual orientation; the rest reduced promiscuity.
Dr. Nicholas Cummings is past president of the American Psychological Association and served for years as Chief of Mental Health with the Kaiser-Permanente Health Maintenance Organization. He is co-author with Dr. Rogers Wright of Destructive Trends In Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm. Wright and Cummings gave keynote speeches at the NARTH Conference in 2005.
Q: When you were at Kaiser-Permanente, how many clients did you see who were dealing with same-sex
attractions?
Dr. C: During the 20 years I was at Kaiser-Permanente (1959-1979) San Francisco's gay and lesbian population
burgeoned, so we were seeing a much larger number of such patients than might be seen in a usual
psychotherapy practice. I personally saw over 2,000 patients with same-sex attraction, and my staff saw
another 16,000. We kept extensive notes as we were working very hard to develop psycho-therapeutic
approaches to meeting the needs of these patients. In many respects we were pioneers in meeting the needs
of this population.
Q: Of these, how many were reoriented toward heterosexuality, how many failed in this effort; and how many
remained identified as homosexuals?
Dr. C: Most on presentation did not express a goal of reorienting, but came for a number of related issues and
dissatisfactions concerning the life style that eventually elicited a desire to change. These issues included the
transient nature of relationships, disgust or guilt feelings about promiscuity, fear of disease, a wish to have a
traditional family, etc. Exactly how may presented with the initially stated wish to change I do not now recall,
but I can say with certainty that it was a minority, possibly even less than 10% of the 18,000 patients. When I
say that 67% had satisfactory outcomes, the majority of these were able to attain a more happy and sane
homosexual life style with stable relationships. This would have been a bit more than 10,000 of the 18,000
presenting, with another 2400 actually reorienting. About 1/3 of the 18,000 had unsuccessful outcomes
(continued promiscuity, unhappiness, perpetually chasing after anonymous sex, drug addiction, etc.).
Q: A third of your clients weren't helped at all by therapy. How would you describe these individuals?
Compulsive? Obsessive?
Dr. C: Remembering that these percentages do not describe the homosexual community at large, but only those
individuals who sought treatment with us, about one-third were sexually compulsive, driven to seek
anonymous sexual encounters, never satisfied, and constantly obsessing on what they termed as their
"sexual addictions." There was a high incidence of drug abuse among this group, and often the thought of
repeated sex with the same individual was terrifying. I recall one patient who thought he was having an
anonymous encounter when the man with whom he had a forgotten previous contact called him by his first
name. My patient fled in terror.
Q: You have been critical of the psychological community for its part in distorting research on sexual orientation.
Can you describe why you are critical of the APA?
Dr. C: First, let me say that I have been a lifelong champion of civil rights, including lesbian and gay rights. I
appointed as president (1979) the APA's first Task Force on Lesbian and Gay Issues, which eventually
became an APA division. In that era the issue was a person's right to choose a gay life style, whereas now an
individual's choice not to be gay is called into question because the leadership of the APA seems to have
concluded that all homosexuality is hard-wired and same-sex attraction is unchangeable. My experience has
demonstrated that there are as many different kinds of homosexuals as there are heterosexuals. Relegating all
same sex-attraction as an unchangeable--an oppressed group akin to African-Americans and other
minorities-distorts reality. And past attempts to make sexual reorientation therapy "unethical" violates patient
choice and makes the APA the de facto determiner of therapeutic goals.
Q: What is your basic premise of the book Destructive Trends in Mental Health?
Dr. C: The APA has permitted political correctness to triumph over science, clinical knowledge and professional
integrity. The public can no longer trust organized psychology to speak from evidence rather than from what it
regards to be politically correct.
Q: What must be done to correct the situation?
Dr. C: At the present time the governance of the APA is vested in an elitist group of 200 psychologists who rotate
themselves in a kind of "musical chairs" throughout all the various offices, boards, committees, and the
Council of Representatives. The vast majority of the 100,000 members are essentially disenfranchised. At the
2006 APA Convention in New Orleans I gave a speech, "Psychology and the APA Need Reform," which was
widely circulated on psychology list serves but has been totally ignored by the leadership of APA. It is not
going to reform itself out of office!
Dr. Nicholas Cummings is past president of the American Psychological Association and served for years as Chief of Mental Health with the Kaiser-Permanente Health Maintenance Organization. He is co-author with Dr. Rogers Wright of Destructive Trends In Mental Health: The Well-Intentioned Path to Harm. Wright and Cummings gave keynote speeches at the NARTH Conference in 2005.
Q: When you were at Kaiser-Permanente, how many clients did you see who were dealing with same-sex
attractions?
Dr. C: During the 20 years I was at Kaiser-Permanente (1959-1979) San Francisco's gay and lesbian population
burgeoned, so we were seeing a much larger number of such patients than might be seen in a usual
psychotherapy practice. I personally saw over 2,000 patients with same-sex attraction, and my staff saw
another 16,000. We kept extensive notes as we were working very hard to develop psycho-therapeutic
approaches to meeting the needs of these patients. In many respects we were pioneers in meeting the needs
of this population.
Q: Of these, how many were reoriented toward heterosexuality, how many failed in this effort; and how many
remained identified as homosexuals?
Dr. C: Most on presentation did not express a goal of reorienting, but came for a number of related issues and
dissatisfactions concerning the life style that eventually elicited a desire to change. These issues included the
transient nature of relationships, disgust or guilt feelings about promiscuity, fear of disease, a wish to have a
traditional family, etc. Exactly how may presented with the initially stated wish to change I do not now recall,
but I can say with certainty that it was a minority, possibly even less than 10% of the 18,000 patients. When I
say that 67% had satisfactory outcomes, the majority of these were able to attain a more happy and sane
homosexual life style with stable relationships. This would have been a bit more than 10,000 of the 18,000
presenting, with another 2400 actually reorienting. About 1/3 of the 18,000 had unsuccessful outcomes
(continued promiscuity, unhappiness, perpetually chasing after anonymous sex, drug addiction, etc.).
Q: A third of your clients weren't helped at all by therapy. How would you describe these individuals?
Compulsive? Obsessive?
Dr. C: Remembering that these percentages do not describe the homosexual community at large, but only those
individuals who sought treatment with us, about one-third were sexually compulsive, driven to seek
anonymous sexual encounters, never satisfied, and constantly obsessing on what they termed as their
"sexual addictions." There was a high incidence of drug abuse among this group, and often the thought of
repeated sex with the same individual was terrifying. I recall one patient who thought he was having an
anonymous encounter when the man with whom he had a forgotten previous contact called him by his first
name. My patient fled in terror.
Q: You have been critical of the psychological community for its part in distorting research on sexual orientation.
Can you describe why you are critical of the APA?
Dr. C: First, let me say that I have been a lifelong champion of civil rights, including lesbian and gay rights. I
appointed as president (1979) the APA's first Task Force on Lesbian and Gay Issues, which eventually
became an APA division. In that era the issue was a person's right to choose a gay life style, whereas now an
individual's choice not to be gay is called into question because the leadership of the APA seems to have
concluded that all homosexuality is hard-wired and same-sex attraction is unchangeable. My experience has
demonstrated that there are as many different kinds of homosexuals as there are heterosexuals. Relegating all
same sex-attraction as an unchangeable--an oppressed group akin to African-Americans and other
minorities-distorts reality. And past attempts to make sexual reorientation therapy "unethical" violates patient
choice and makes the APA the de facto determiner of therapeutic goals.
Q: What is your basic premise of the book Destructive Trends in Mental Health?
Dr. C: The APA has permitted political correctness to triumph over science, clinical knowledge and professional
integrity. The public can no longer trust organized psychology to speak from evidence rather than from what it
regards to be politically correct.
Q: What must be done to correct the situation?
Dr. C: At the present time the governance of the APA is vested in an elitist group of 200 psychologists who rotate
themselves in a kind of "musical chairs" throughout all the various offices, boards, committees, and the
Council of Representatives. The vast majority of the 100,000 members are essentially disenfranchised. At the
2006 APA Convention in New Orleans I gave a speech, "Psychology and the APA Need Reform," which was
widely circulated on psychology list serves but has been totally ignored by the leadership of APA. It is not
going to reform itself out of office!
