Only after he abandoned reparative therapy and entered more traditional therapy did he improve, he said.

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The bill was backed by mental health groups, and gay rights activists say reparative or "conversion therapy" can increase risk of depression or suicide.

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For many years before his paper on reparative therapy, Spitzer had conducted studies that evaluated the efficacy of self-reporting as a tool to assess a variety of personality disorders and depression.

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"To date, there has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective, " the American Psychological Association writes on its website.

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Wednesday's 23-13 party line vote came a few weeks after psychiatrist Robert L. Spitzer, in a letter to the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, apologized for his 2003 study of reparative therapy, which suggested that it could help gays and lesbians become straight.

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