my last article sey gay? The church is the rehabilitation of street racing Sey gay? The Church makes the courses illegal rehabilitation
investigation of David Varì the newspaper "Liberation":
The appointment is with Don James at the headquarters of the Paulist Press edition Garbatella not far from the former district of Rome. A meeting to define time and manner of my entrance into a group therapy to cure homosexuality. An appointment sweat: the self-styled healers gay, at least in Italy, do not want too much publicity. To trace the Italian one I had to call a corresponding Swiss group that I shot the Milan offices of "Objective Chaire" ultra-Catholic association that organizes, yes, therapeutic encounters, but only in Milan. Finally I suggest Don James in Rome, a young prelate who, they say, can you help. And now, after this long pilgrimage, there are: I'm finally in front of the studio of Don James. The first leg of my journey of healing. A journey lasted about six months in which I found myself immersed in a parallel world made reservations, half-truths, ambiguities and strange alliances in the Vatican and some groups of psychologists led by Professor Tonino Cantelmi, president and founder of the Italian Association of Psychologists Psychiatrists and Christian and professor of psychology at the Gregorian University. But first there's Don James, the first level of evaluation of the "seriousness of the patient" it is for him, a representative of the Catholic Church. Don James is kind. After several telephone conversations in which, with great discretion and tact, he asks me why I push for this therapy, comes the time of the meeting. After a brief presentation, start the interview proper.
The two or three fundamental questions: how many gay relationships have consumed, how often and how I felt. I tell him almost the whole truth, all except the fact that I am a journalist and who are not homosexual. I tell him I'm married, I have a little girl and threw out a couple of homosexual experiences related to my adolescence and the concern that those experiences can return to the surface and ruin my marriage. Don James listens participation. Then begins the work of investigation to understand the reasons for my homosexuality. I asked my parents, the relationship with my mother - with respect to which I pull out a nice conflict. It's always good, I think, like the priests and psychologists - the story of the marginal role of my father, sexual intercourse with my wife, interpersonal relations, and so on. A scan of the surface but complete my experiences. Then the question: "When was the first time, David", I asked Don James. The story of my high school classmates, that Luke, a close friend with whom I was and how that friendship, with time and so totally unexpected, it was transformed into a sexual relationship. Don James listens attentively and participation. I tried it and change the subject see: "Believe in God?" She asks. I answer that I come from a very religious family, but no, I never practiced. But lately, I add, I feel reborn in me something different. It is the most delicate moment, the moment when we must choose whether to go all the way through on the sincere religious convictions of Don James, or end it there and leave. It 's like me making fun of his faith, and perhaps no one gives me the right to get to that point. Then I am convinced that in the daily reality of these "healers of homosexuals" only do damage: take a person, in most cases driven by the family, told him that his homosexuality is a deviation from the norm and invite you to take with them a healing journey, indeed, to "repair". And then I decide to go ahead and pick up the appeal of Don James: "Please."
me strength, and atheist pray with him. After the moment of recollection Don James, with the same delicacy, invites me to continue my story. "Your relationship with Luke - he says - was only passive or active?". Don James wants to know if I "immediately" or no penetration. It must be just what the crucial distinction to understand in front of him if there is a real homosexual. "Active and passive," I say suddenly. "And I also liked," I say almost in the sense of challenge, facing the question so vulgar. Vernacular not the thing itself, but, rather, because for the first time beginning to glimpse, or so it seems to me, the real thoughts of the priest so young and friendly. One hole that exposes the opinion of me who, indeed, "people like me."
Don James nods so austere and then asks me to talk to other relationships. Then pull out a fleeting relationship with another guy "used" after the wedding. Don James invited me to talk about the feelings that I experienced. I invented a "sense of moral filth" that I live and I still carry inside. The young priest is silent. Blesses me and calms me. "The Your homosexuality - he says - is very shallow. I think you are ready to begin the healing journey. "
Then am I doing a few questions and I inquire about what he calls "the path". Don James, by and large, he explains that most homosexuals have suffered a trauma or something, which interrupted the "natural" construction of true sexual identity. "For this - he says - are reparative therapies. To take back that experience, finding the gap and redefine their gender identity. You are in a state of sexual confusion, you have to get help to redefine our sexuality properly. " Perfect, I am ready to begin the "path". Don James takes a piece of paper and writes the address and phone Professor Tonino Cantelmi, "call it a week, tell him I sent you, he already knows everything." Blesses me and I leave.
***
The first meeting with Professor Cantelmi
The report of Professor Tonino Cantelmi - President of the Institute of Cognitive Interpersonal Therapy, is written on the label - is a sea port where the transit and land concerns and anxieties of varied humanity: children, adolescents, mothers, grandmothers. There is everything in that study. I sit down and wait to be called. He, the professor, sometimes comes out and greets the patient to turn. Has a relationship with all highly confidential, all call him Toni. Finally comes my time. I collect ideas to prevent than to contradict the story that I told Don James a few weeks before. Review the scheme, invented the names of my false love and I put in the study of Professor. Him me up, smiles at me and makes me sit. "I'm David, I say, I sent Don James." He nods - 'under that name I have entered in the category repentant homosexual, "I think to myself - and invites me to tell my story. Then again with the story of high school, my relationship with my classmate and concerns with respect to another relationship after my marriage I had with a guy a couple of years ago.
"What kind relationships have you had? "he asks Cantelmi.
I do not pretend to understand.
"I mean - continued the professor - you had intercourse?".
nod, but expect the professor to come out of his hole and I put the question, the question with a capital D, in a direct way. And he does not disappoint: "Well David - I say blunt - you have been too passive in your relationships?".
Here we go again, I think to myself. "Yes," I reply. I decide to play the part of the brief. On the one hand because I'm afraid to disagree with the other because I want to see the teacher's skills in action. I am curious to see how it moves. How it works. But he surprises me and after Answer that one, ready to get rid of me, take a pen and paper and writes the name of a colleague: "She is Dr. Cacace - he says as he hands me the note - this is my assistant, contact them on my behalf. You already know everything. " I seem to see a film already seen. However I do not want to miss this opportunity to find myself in front of the "guru" of the Italian gay healers and then I raise before he liquids. "Listen, doctor - I say with the utmost of kindness - I want to understand exactly what I expected." "Nothing special - he does - the doctor will make a test .."
"A test?" I echo I
"Yes, a test"
"A test to measure the degree of my homosexuality?" Presses.
"Well! In a way, yes, "he says.
"Excuse me - I ask - but what exactly homosexuality?"
Then Cantelmi sits down, stretches out his arms on the table and begins: "I - begins - talk about your homosexuality, not homosexuality general. We say that we are a group of psychologists who try to help people in need. Ours is a reparative therapy "
***
reparative therapy: homosexuality as communism
one hears from time to these miracle-workers of deviant sex. A fashion depopulated in North America through the work of many church-related groups, and following the teaching and practice of Joseph Nicolosi, president of NARTH, National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. A clinical psychologist, this Joseph Nicolosi, a "holy man" who has a whopping 500 cases of "gay processed" and treated - just like, "treated gay" - and that pulled out of the hat of his witchcraft psychiatric so-called "reparative therapy" whose stated purpose is "to bring the orientation heterosexual homosexual persons." A message that has been taken in Italy and raised by Professor Tonino Cantelmi, president and founder of the Italian Christian psychologists and psychiatrists and a professor of psychology at the Gregorian University. In short, the guru of Italian reparative therapy, a person associated with the Vatican and double knot around which has resulted in a working group of five or six young psychologists who follow individual therapies of the future and "repaired" heterosexual.
This reparative therapy is ancient history. Already in 2005, the Gay Pride magazine published a long article in which he doubted any scientific validity and reliability. Franco Grillini, honorary president of Arcigay, also appeared to block a parliamentary question, by any professional, reparative therapy. Even for someone like this JM van den Aardweg, the American psychotherapist who wrote "Homosexuality & Hope," talks about the scientific assault on gay lobby. Just to understand what is behind this alleged reparative therapy, the same van den Aardweg says - he did it in a recent interview for "Acquaviva2000, Catholic culture on the Net" - which many homosexuals "with serious mental illness, or have developed a behavior homosexual such proportions that it would not be so wrong to call them "sick". " Not only that, van den Aardweg is convinced that because of the gay movement, "the masses do not consume completely unnatural conception that is imposed on them. It'll be like with communism. Many, probably most, will pay all'innaturale "religion" homosexual cult formal dettatogli fear, but you will end up believing less and less. "
These are the famous scientists who sponsor reparative therapy. Even more explicit the watchwords of the aforementioned ultra-Catholic group "Objective Chaire" "spiritual, psychological and medical attention given to parents, teachers and educators in order to prevent the emergence of homosexual tendencies in children, adolescents and young people; search for causes (spiritual, psychological, cultural, historical) that contribute to the spread of attitudes contrary to natural law, knowable by reason directly formed. Then the inevitable
Joseph Nicolosi, a clinical psychologist-American who invented the reparative therapy. A day will be in Italy to upgrade its followers and show them, probably, the latest of his therapy. These basic ideas: first, in the light of the social sciences the ideal form of family foster healthy child development is the model of traditional heterosexual marriage, and secondly, sexual identity is formed at an early age on the basis of " biological, psychological and social "and thirdly, there are numerous examples of people who have managed to change their behavior, identity, sexual fantasies or stimuli.
In support of these thesis movements were born "ex-gay" people "repaired" and often converted to Catholicism, which has the stated aim of proving that homosexuality can be "cured." The beauty of this is that more and more groups of "ex-gay" are diluted by the fact that many members have re-found a same-sex partners right into that.
***
of reparative therapy Cantelmi
Cantelmi trying to fit on me, on my case, the reasons for that treatment. Talk about childhood trauma confusing in a world already full of contradictions and liquidity in interpersonal relationships. All this to explain that in a sense, the behavior of Homosexual persons are induced by this external schizophrenia. Not just gay though. Professor Cantelmi is convinced, and says to me that our age is characterized by a large sexual compulsivity: a dependency that affects thousands of people and among them many, many young people. It speaks of "sick relationship with sex," and "loss of control" and so on.
"And in all this, homosexuality?" I ask.
"Well, my studio is full. We have the row. There are hundreds of guys asking for help. "
"You see - I say trying to flush him out - I do not really know if they are homosexual. I do not understand if you are a victim of a kind of psychological problems or if I have to accommodate these my instincts. "
"Do not worry David - tell me serene and smiling - from your profile I think I can speak of a generalized anxiety neurosis and a light that somehow affects your choices and sexual deviates. Now we will test and we will have more elements to choose the best therapy. "
***
Test and the disciples of the teacher and care
Dr. Cristina Cacace Institute of interpersonal cognitive therapy directed by Cantelmi greets me smiling in his office. I observed, in fact I earnestly searches. "Now I pick - I think - he discovers that an infiltrator and I hunt." But no. Evidently diagnosis is Professor Cantelmi influenced me. A little 'neurotic, persecuted, I really feel there. The fact is that she invites me with kindness in his studio weblog Ikea makes me sit down and asks me: full name, age, address, telephone and marital status. I answer without hesitation and look, here too, "the" question. But Dr. Cacace already knows and does not need any introduction.
Go directly to the most intimate details: how often and to what extent. "Up to that point in what sense?" I ask. She smiles. I wonder if she, a young psychologist, do you really believe the madness and violence of this blessed "reparative therapy" or if it is there, in that small study just because you can not find anything better. But my thoughts are interrupted by the application of Dr.:
"David, your same-sex relations were only active or passive"? I feel a strong uncomfortable with the recurring question, obsessive. I am reminded of the prurient and voyeuristic side of those who puts it. In the end I say as I have already replied to Don James and the Professor Cantelmi: "Yes, active and passive." Then he also told her of my conflicted relationship with my mother, the absence of my father and I would add that sometimes, a child, I was mistaken for a child. The young assistant Cantelmi nods gravely and I fixed an appointment for the personality test. "After the test - Tell me before you take me to the door - we will know better how to handle your situation. "
few days later I'm back there and I find that the test takes about four hours and is nothing but the so-called "Minnesota Test" using the armed forces all over the world to select its own staff. Six hundred questions about who should provide answers about possible deviations of the candidate: hypochondriasis, depression, hysteria, psychopathic deviation, masculinity or femininity, paranoia, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, hypomania, and social introversion. A pout-pourri which, among other things, would identify my homosexual tendencies. However, the doctor gives me the paper, a pen and placed me in the corridor. I begin to scroll through the questions: "Have you had experiences very strange?" Or, "Would you like to be a florist?". Answer yes to the latter prompted by the banality of the account; Perhaps those who choose to do the florist, they argue, has a predisposition to become a po'checca.
Suddenly I am struck silent and distracted by the presence of a lady and a young teenager. They are mother and son. He seems very shy and uncomfortable. I can not know, but it could well be a boy forced by his mother to stem, at least until it is time, "his own homosexual deviance." Again I think of how narrow this practice and how much violence has itself. I think the pressure that may be a boy of 15-16 years who are discovering their sexuality. The concern, often well-intentioned, parents and the choice to do something to stop the "discovery" rather than accept it and support it. Then the woman and the boy are caught in one of the many rooms of the study the pupils' Cantelmi and I return to my infinite test: "Have you ever made unusual sexual practices?"; "I loved playing with dolls?"; "Someone check your mind? ";" You often the desire to be of the opposite sex to you? ";" The man should be the head of the family ?»...
No more questions, go back into the room by the doctor.
She puts my paperwork already contain the result of my "degree of homosexuality" and pulls out a dozen cards, colored shapes bizarre. These are the stains of the Rorschach test. Spray indefinite color, which act by activating subconscious reactions projective. In short, in front of those spots are asked to track and communicate sensible figures. I am struggling to see launched penis, vagina, anus and so on. Everyone also hung a couple of fetuses to the umbilical cord. I give the worst of me, trying to convince Dr. Cacace that my sexuality is very skewed, so corrupt and a homosexual to deserve his care. But she, in front of my rant genital is flawless: fashion one after another test of the cards carefully and take notes.
Meanwhile cometh to me and I am not holding fleeting glance at the neckline. Her surprise, retreats, cover and looks at me with embarrassment. I mean, after all that talk about my homosexuality probably fell into banality want to reaffirm my masculinity in the face of a woman. For the first time, in a sense, live on my skin the strength and violence of the social and cultural conditioning that gay people live. Then, I take with my figures ...
*** The test results, because they are homosexual?
"Not much, your really gay nuanced, "she says Dr. Cacace showing a score of pages that contain my" diagnosis ". "Homosexuality nuanced," just so. Then ask for more explanation. "So I would say that we are facing a neurosis that has led to a sexual bias - she continues - will be Professor Cantelmi to explain better.
few days later I'm back in the waiting room of the professor. The feeling is the same: a seaport open to all "human cases." Cantelmi, courteous and friendly as ever, browse the results of my tests and I talk about "light neurosis and depression" which led my sexual deviation, the output from the platform of a healthy sexuality and consciously. "You're not really a homosexual," he says. "Your concern seems more determined by a few incidents of childhood." Then stick with the conflict with my mother and my father's absence, which I totally invented that I would be deprived of a strong male figure, a reference point on which I should model my sexuality and define my style. So I am not entirely homosexual.
Perhaps therapy is begun. To deny my homosexuality is the first step towards "healing". It is probably a way to begin to dismantle the belief of the "patient." Being told, 'you're not really homosexual, perhaps, means starting to deconstruct the individual's personality, his convictions and put it before the fact - a fact certified by a psychologist - that his homosexuality never existed. Indeed, that homosexuality in itself does not exist except as a deviation from the norm, from the only real rule: heterosexuality.
"At this point - then continues the professor - this is going to fish out those fractures and overcome them through appropriate treatment."
"What kind of therapy?" I ask. "An individual therapy. We follow one of my assistant, but I - I am calm - I will be constantly informed of your progress. " "But I knew of mutual-help groups, I thought I should add there. " "The groups are there - he tells me - but they are groups with people who have a strong sexual deviance. I do not think is the best treatment for your condition. Have not decided yet. "
I do not give up and try to find out what happens inside those groups. "They are groups led by psychotherapists who share their experience on a course repair," he adds hastily Cantelmi. Then he gets up, gives me the phone number of yet another psychologist, of course, another assistant, and gave me a book: "Beyond the Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi.
Nicolosi, he, the guru of the healers, the creator of reparative therapy, which boasts no less than 500 cases of 'gay Treaties ", in fact, fixed. "Read it - tell me - you will find situations similar to yours. People like you who have made it. "
***
Nicolosi's book
Over Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi is a collection of life stories. Eight stories of gay corrected, repaired, and an appendix on how to end the therapy. Among them, Albert , a thirty year old who "speaks in a tone slightly effeminate and nostalgia - said Nicolosi - a child lost." In fact, the problem of Albert, Nicolosi says in his book, is his attachment to the lost world of childhood. Di here an illustration of the recurring characteristics in people homosexual attraction posted to your body, first sexual experiences with other children, ipermasturbazione - 'homosexuals - Nicolosi explains - masturbating more often than heterosexual is an attempt to establish contact with the ritual punishment "- and a mother figure overwhelming. At that point, the goal of Dr. Nicolosi is to "develop a stronger sense of masculinity" of Albert. How? First of all, free themselves from the oppressive maternal bond, cultivating nonsexual male friendships and making long bike rides. Long bike rides, exactly. Finally came the first progress: Albert is able to control masturbation, is separated from the mother, does not jump him to his friend and continues to spin bikes in the neighborhood. "The good things are happening right," confides Dr. Albert. Three years after Albert's voice is sure, every inflection has disappeared women, was "emotionally detached from other men and masculinity," and he is freed from the maternal control: the original sin, the cause of his homosexuality, was also Albert engaged to a girl. In short it is repaired. And it is repaired because "grabbed - says Nicolosi - the concept of false self": the false gay identity requires that the outside you. "No, I'm not gay ', is the last comment of Albert before starting his new life as a heterosexual.
Another interesting story is told from Nicolosi to Tom: "A strikingly handsome man, about 1m high and 80, blue eyes and well dressed." (Who knows that Nicolosi does not betray a homosexual orientation: the healer of gay men who discovers he is gay, a classic already seen a thousand times). Tom is married, but separated due to a relationship with another guy, "Andy, a twenty-four irresistible." Nicolosi is clear to Tom: "If she wants to divorce his wife and start his new life with his gay lover I do not follow." The fact is that Tom feels empty without his wife and children and do not know how to present themselves in society, how to pull out his homosexuality. A couple of good reasons to begin the reparative therapy. The fact is that, at least Nicolosi, Tom is a homosexual anomalous: "I do not claim to have problems in relation to other men, business is strong and determined and outgoing. But underneath - revealing Nicolosi - has the emotional fragility typical of homosexuals. " In short, Tom has a fear of losing his wife and black children and find themselves just because "homosexual relationships are no future." At that point he met his wife of Tom Nicolosi has every intention to cooperate to bring her husband on the right path. A job that fails, but the signs of homosexuality have left their indelible mark: Tom is HIV positive and there recently died. The message, rather, Nicolosi's warning is all too clear: beware of homosexuality can be cured but die.
***
tests healing
When I get in the studio of Professor Cantelmi I find that my recovery is in the hands of his young assistant. He also browse the results of my tests, and begins to talk about the path ahead. "Trace the conflict with your mother, your father's absence, trying to mend the fractures that have generated confusion."
"Confusion?"
"Yes, of course, gender confusion. But before David - continued the young doctor - talk to the your homosexual experiences. " For the fourth time I find myself talking to my fellow high school story and the fears of my marriage. But the question comes: "David, your reports are complete?". "He wants to know if I got back in the doctor? Yes, twice, "I say annoyed. He smiles sheepishly. But in fact it is exactly what he wanted to know. Then he recovers and attacks. "I would also like to know the feelings that you tried." On the verge of those questions so repetitive and low-level attack on an infinite Pilotto. The story, invented, every detail. I speak of the excitement of homosexual men, a sense of transgression and call to mind some passages particularly suggestive and "gory" one of the patients described by Nicolosi's book. He drinks all and diligently take notes. Finally I offered him the "sick" that is in me and it seems visibly pleased.
I start to feel a sense of nausea. Nausea for Don James, for Professor Cantelmi and his young assistants. Six months have passed since my first meeting and at this point I can not seem to pay more. I realize that this long period we have only spoken of my backside. For the first time I realize that none of them ever asked me if I happened to fall in love with any man. No one has ever wanted to know my emotions in front of homosexual relations. Not interest more than the number of penetrations "suffered"? The young psychologist I set a new appointment. I greeted him and disappear. I will never set foot in that study. Now I know enough.
