Timothy Lock: Part One at the Brisbane Oceania Courage Conference 2009

Courage Ministry Article 59 – October 2010 Brendan Scarce

Introduction When opening the presentation Tim mentioned that in his Graduate School of Training as a Psychologist he had no training on how to deal with the issue of homosexuality. And in the first ten days of beginning his practice as a psychologist he had one man come in who had unwanted same sex attraction. Since then Tim’s clientele has been about 20% with unwanted same sex attraction He calls same sex behaviour sinful and also describes it as a gender identity problem.

Shame and Attachment as defined by Joseph Nicolosi Recently, Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, a pioneer in the development of reparative therapy, has stated that Attachment Theory is significant in the development of same-sex attraction . Tim calls it a huge shift from his earlier work. Tim defines Attachment thus: Attachment is an interdisciplinary study of the relationship between mother and infant. (Brendan’ comment: Shades of John Bowlby and David Winnicott) Throughout development there are a series of needs that, when met, lead to healthy development. We can review the stages of development and ask questions to see if the basic needs of that developmental stage have been met. Mother-child Attachment: Birth to one year old The way the mother responds to the baby determines the style of the attachment that the child forms with the mother. If a mother is reasonably responsive to the baby’s cries and needs, the child forms a health attachment, called by Bowlby a secure attachment. If the mother does not respond or does not consistently respond to the child, the child may develop an unhealthy attachment called an anxious ambivalent attachment. The basic question the child asks in this development stage is: Will mum be attending to me? Nicolosi suggests that adults with same-sex attraction had developed anxious-ambivalent attachments with their mothers during the first year of life. This laid the ground work for the ‘defensive detachment’ that will be seen at a later developmental period. Tim now explored the Nicolosi theory further by outlining the following points.

Separation/Individuation State From one to three years The child at one year who successfully has secure attachments is making friends. The child at one year who has developed an anxious-ambivalent attachment is more dependent on the mother, is more anxious and is more easily overwhelmed. The next question for the boy will be – Will my mum let me be autonomous, will she let me explore and have fun exploring ? Children naturally are curious and want to explore; once they can crawl, they can move away from the mother and explore. This is how they begin to become autonomous.If he cannot be autonomous he will feel shamed.

Erik Erikson This classical Freudian psychoanalyst wrote an important book Childhood and Society where he mentions the eight stages of human development with the second stage being - Autonomy versus Shame. If the boy does not experience autonomy, he is left with feelings of shame from this developmental period - which further exacerbates his feeling shame in adulthood. Once the boy is able to separate from the mother, he then has to come into his own- become his own individual. As he does this, he sees and experiences the masculine road and the feminine road. The feminine road is mostly just staying where he is, close to mum. For the boy to start on the road to the establishment of his healthy sexual identity he must go to the masculine side. If the child can maintain his autonomy he can separate from mum and go forward, make friends easily, be flexible and have good self-esteem. If he is shamed and if the mother does not allow him to become his own individual self, he is ambivalent, does make friends , but can be overly dependent on teachers. The Father’s role is important and we can ask: Is the father salient, strong, confident, self assured as well as being benevolent? If the father is more attractive than the mother will he do the rough and tumble with his boy? If the boy goes to the feminine side will the father pull him out of that environment? If the boy experiences all of this conflict and is left to his own devices without his father’s intervention he may say to himself: “I must not be worth it.”

Comments from Tim’s Clientele One client told Tim: No one helped me to be a man. And I feel really ashamed. Another client said; Dad was loving but not present to us- he was not benevolent. A 20 year old said: Dad did not give us any attention, now he wants our attention. Yet another client stated: My dad taught me how to get out of things. I was lazy. At times I did feel like a perfect servant being at the service of my father: ‘please get me a drink.’

Nicolosi asks a very relevant and significant question: Is my relationship with my father a shared delight relationship?

The development of a boy from a narcissistic family Narcissistic parents actively prevent a child individuating. The child becomes defensively detached. The defence the child will invoke will be shutting down leading to dissociation. The child learns the ground rules in living with and dealing with his mother. He shuts down before he is let down again. The boy detaches in order to protect himself and he may develop a false self, eg. His job is to be responsible for his feeling. He adopts the good little boy role. Because when he does this he maintains his relationship with mum. (I have heard a mother of a same-sex attracted man state that: he was such a good boy, he was no trouble at all!) The boy becomes a mood regulator for mum. The good little boy must prevent his natural masculine side . He gets punished implicitly. One client reported to Tim that: I wanted someone to tell me it was ok to do masculine things. My father never got physical. Yet the good young boy has an unsatisfied longing for deep connection. The parents may now punish masculine behaviour when it is contrary to the picture they present as an idealized image of the family. The parents project an image or picture of themselves and the boy must fit into the idealized family that is presented to the world. Some of Tim’s clients believed into late middle age that they had a great childhood even though they had been abused. Tim gave an example: A fifty year old man was sexually abused by his grandfather. The client believed that his grandparent was initiating him into sexual practice. (In fact the grandparent was grooming the boy). The same man had also been sexually abused by a baby sitter. Nonetheless the client believed until his therapy with Tim, that his childhood was extremely good, he had not processed the effects of his sexual abuse. Another client had kept in his emotional memory bank the overbearing image of his mother when he believed that if he reached out to women he would be manipulated.

Peer Phase The boy now enters the age group from five years to twelve years. It is the sexual attraction period. He picks up that he is a boy and says I am a boy. The secure attachment boy is warm with his parents. The insecure boys seek intimacy but with hostility. Teachers generally indulge them because they feel sorry for them. The burning developmental question is: Will the boy grow up and join the pack? Will the boy show gender conformity? Will the boy show gender esteem, in order to be integrated into the masculine world? Will the father help when the boy is bullied and when he does not connect with his peers? The problem emerges of the boy displaying gender non-conformity. In an anonymous survey Tim mentioned: 70% of heterosexual men reported they had peer support and masculine activity in their developing years. Just 11% of same sex attracted men enjoyed peer support and masculine activity, consequently a gender esteem decreases significantly – he does not feel good about being a boy. Low gender identity boys will not mix with other boys and will not tell parents, who are often oblivious to this. There sometimes is poor hand eye coordination which will lead the boy not to engage in sporting activities with others, thereby losing an opportunity to ‘join the pack’ and increase gender esteem. A salient father will step in and assist his son who is “awful” in his sporting skills and encourage him.

Examples from Tim’s clientele on how it plays out in gender inadequacy: One client: My brother in fifth grade said to me You throw like a girl. Thirty five years later the man is still upset by that comment. Another client said that he created a fantasy world and sneaked around the playground to escape sports. I imagined… Yet another man said that his dad never got involved in sport and that he was always the last one picked!! And one client reported that he had never felt protected by his mother and father. Nicolosi asks us to imagine what it would be like to be called, clumsy, sissy, cry baby, mum’s boy, which confirms for the boy that his hidden fear is a true fear. It may lead to a fantasy life that I can be both a boy and a girl and so becomes an issue of androgyny. Adolescent Transitional Stage The post gender boy meets severe rejection by his peers, by other important males and by his father, and begins his separation from masculinity. At the crucial stage of sexual integration, it all falls apart and the young man may now search for a youngish, caring person who is a representative of what he lost. He fails at integration. He seeks to meet his unfulfilled needs in an adolescent erotic transitional stage. Neural scientists are reporting that in teenagers neural changes occur and that decision making is less sure and there is a drop of dopamine regarding the ability to feel pleasure. Teenagers take the risk and for the same sex attracted when emotional needs are not met the surge of sexual feelings lead to an intense desire to fulfil those unmet needs.

A Survey Interestingly in Minnesota 34,000 teenagers were surveyed about their sexual feelings when they had been twelve years old. 25% said that they had been unsure of their sexual identity whether they had been heterosexual or homosexual. Another study found that 10%-16% of men in their 20’s admitted that they had same-sex sexual behaviour during their teen years. Another broad group of adult men were surveyed and 2-3% self- nominated as adult same sex attracted. A conclusion Tim states is that there is a danger of labelling a kid at twelve years of age as being same sex attracted. There is sometimes gender confusion in the middle school and high school years and this is often used by the gay lobby to recruit boys to live out a gay lifestyle by the glamorization of the gay lifestyle. It should be strongly stated that just because there is gender confusion does not mean that the child will, in his adulthood, have same-sex attraction.

Various questions asked

Question One: Will parental perceptions shape you for the rest of your life.? Tim answered this in the following way. Most of the research findings on this issue are based on childhood perceptions. Nicolosi makes the point regarding shame. Boys come to shame themselves, they anticipate shame and make assumptions about what is to come and what is going to happen.

Question Two: What advantages are there in knowing this research? Tim believes that his research and knowledge base is a template for making reasonable assumptions. It helps him see where the deficits are for the client. If the client’s needs were not met in his life, Tim explores that notion. He does approach the issue(s) with great compassion. And Tim does make the point that there are moral issues involved.

Courage is a ministry of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane Website www.bne.catholic.net.au/courage Email [email protected] Address PO Box 151, Geebung Qld 4034.