Is homosexuality curable through psychotherapy?
January 5, 2013 | 50,00 EUR | answered by Uni-Arzt Freddy Feuerstein
Dear doctors, completely non-ideologically I am interested in the question of whether homosexuality is curable according to current knowledge. There is a new study "Homosexuality As A Consequence Of Epigenetically Canalized Sexual Development" by Rice, Friberg and Gavrilets (The Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 87, No. 4 (2012), pp. 343–368. In this study, the cause of homosexuality is attributed to epigenetic factors. My question now is whether these factors are changeable and whether it is theoretically possible to cure homosexuality. As far as I know, it is possible to change the epigenetic factors, so perhaps it is possible to cure homosexuality or is such an imprint only changeable in the early stages, shortly after conception, through genetic adjustment? PS: Unfortunately, this topic seems to be heavily ideologically charged. I am not an extremist or a devout Christian, I simply want to know non-ideologically where homosexuality comes from, whether it is pathological, and whether it can be changed (by changing the epigenes so that it can be cured). Unfortunately, I found hardly any information on the internet about this, there are statements about epigenetics, but not about homosexuality. It is personally important for me to find out if a change is possible following the above-mentioned study. Thank you in advance.
Dear questioner,
first of all, it must be said that homosexuality in itself does not have any pathological value!
Today's science at most assumes a deviation from the norm, meaning that same-sex love is a "normal" thing occurring in nature, which is even observed in animals.
Therefore, one should not even consider therapy. However, since this is the main concern of your question, I will say a few words about it.
You have found a study that sees the cause in epigenetics. Epigenetics is still a very young field of study. We know that almost all processes have a higher level. This means that just when we thought we had a somewhat good understanding of genetics, the next higher level emerged, which we only partially understand.
I have worked in human genetics for a long time and must tell you that even if we know diseases and understand their genetic cause, we can do almost nothing apart from confirming the presence of the disease.
Gene therapy is still a vision of science fiction, even though we may eventually get there.
For example, for female breast cancer, we know about its familial occurrence, we know various responsible genes (BRCA), but what can we do? Can we deactivate the genes? Apart from frequent check-ups, can we offer something reasonable to affected individuals (apart from prophylactic hysterectomy, breast removal, etc.)? No, not yet, and it will still take some time before we can really do something.
And now you ask about epigenetics! We actually only know that it exists and roughly how it works, and theoretically, we can influence it. I am not aware of any serious successful studies on regulation, especially in living humans.
And even if we consider HS as genetically or even epigenetically justified, and if we now theoretically consider it as a disease of multifactorial genetic and epigenetic origin, it will take decades before we can seriously modify anything about it.
If you have further questions regarding this ethically and fundamentally very interesting but also very critically viewed discussion question in human genetics, you are welcome to ask.
Have a nice evening
T.C. Müller
