May 06, 2005  |  By: DYANA BAGBY  | COMMENTS     

A lesbian health group is accusing the country’s largest managed-care behavioral health company of relenting to pressure from conservative groups by reinstating to its national advisory panel a psychologist who counsels gay men and lesbians on how to be heterosexual.

Dr. Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor at Grove City College in Pennsylvania, was reappointed to Magellan Health Services National Provider Advisory Council on April 19, after being dismissed from the seat earlier this year.

Throckmorton practices the controversial and scientifically discredited treatment called “heterosexual-affirming reparative therapy” that seeks to change the sexual orientation of lesbians and gay men.

Erin Somers, a spokesperson for Magellan Health Services, said the company decided to dismiss Throckmorton in February based on internal discussions among Magellan staff and officials.

Magellan was concerned about the potential impact of Throckmorton’s stands on homosexuality on stakeholders in the company, such as employees and providers, although “we absolutely support Dr. Throckmorton’s right to express his views,” she said.

THROCKMORTON SAYS HE understands his views aren’t popular with gay men and lesbians, but he has served on a similar Magellan council since 1999 without his views on homosexuality becoming a public issue.

“It only became a controversy when Magellan made it one,” he said. “I don’t have an agenda.”

Throckmorton denied knowing about conservative groups contacting Magellan in opposition to his dismissal in February.

“I certainly didn’t ask groups to call or to mount an effort,” he said.

Somers would not disclose which groups sent letters of support for Throckmorton. Magellan did receive some letters agreeing with the decision to oust Throckmorton, but they were outnumbered by his supporters, she said.

“It appeared that we were taking a side on the issue of homosexuality, which we are not,” she said.

But according to Kathleen DeBold, executive director of the Mautner Project, a Washington, D.C.-based group focused on lesbian health issues, Magellan buckled to pressure from conservative groups to reinstate Throckmorton.

“They won,” she said. “As the nation’s largest mental health provider, Magellan’s announcement of Throckmorton’s reappointment should raise a red flag about the provider’s agenda and future effectiveness in serving the mental health community.”

MAGELLAN’S NATIONAL Provider Advisory Council also includes members who oppose Throckmorton’s views on homosexuality.

Dr. Paul Fink, another newly appointed NPAC member, is past president of the American Psychiatric Association.

The APA “opposes any psychiatric treatment, such as reparative or conversion therapy, which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his or her homosexual orientation,” according to the group’s Web site.

Fink, a professor of psychiatry at Temple University School of Medicine, told the conservative Cybercast News Services that Throckmorton’s views “[don’t] really fit with modern psychiatry.”

Fink also told CNS that practitioners of reparative therapy should not publicize their views.