To some, he was a monster, plain and simple. He was not a villainous outlier, cackling to himself in a basement, but the respected head of a major university department, someone who was not only in the academic mainstream but had defined, at least for Tulane, what that mainstream was. He used vulnerable patients to hone his theories, to no therapeutic benefit, causing many of them very significant harm. Dr. Robert Galbraith Heath implanted electrodes into many parts of patient B-19's brain to stimulate him during the experiment. On Friday, Rowling released Troubled Blood, the latest series in her series of Cormoran Strike novels, under the pen name Robert Galbraith. What Heath had discovered – as the global media eagerly reported – was that people with schizophrenia were, in effect, allergic to their own brains. Share this post . He also received permission from a state court to … The store then claimed that Rowling chose her pseudonym, Robert Galbraith, in honor of Robert Galbraith Heath, “a psychologist who helped develop conversion therapy.” “Hard to imagine that’s a coincidence,” they stated. those whose parents would rather they had a trans- child than a gay one. With the assistance of Ken Kramer of PsychSearch.net, who investigates cases of psychiatric malpractice, I was able to track down Moan, Heath’s co-author on the B-19 paper, but he refused requests for an interview. As we saw yesterday, Dr Robert Galbraith Heath was a man of extraordinary curiosity – and in a position to follow his muse wherever it took him, or have one of his many subordinates do so on his behalf. While I spoke to several of Heath’s former colleagues, those still working at Tulane itself refused to comment. At the end, he was asked about Heath’s apparent crusade to wipe out homosexuality. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. In it, he did criticise the experiment – but for its method, not its motives. But it did not change things in Louisiana: Heath continued to be given awards and positions, to be respected and venerated. Unlike the others, Valenstein – now professor emeritus of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan – was a member of Heath’s own profession. Robert Galbraith Heath was an anti-LGBTQ+ therapist who actually developed harmful practices that are now known as "conversion therapy," which is when LGBTQ+ individuals are taught that their sexual orientation or gender expression is shameful and needs be to "corrected." Heath’s work, and other such biological approaches, were notable mostly because they seemed to offer an easier and more lasting solution than long-term therapy. Robert Galbraith Heath performed experiments into conversion therapy that would now be considered deeply unethical (Picture: Wikipedia) ‘Galbraith came about for a slightly odd reason. Heath, a mid-20th century psychiatrist, pioneered a range of practices that would later become known as conversion therapy, controversially used … Her writing pseudonym Robert Galbraith has been linked to Robert Galbraith Heath — a psychologist who helped develop gay conversion therapy, however, Rowling denied the link saying the ghostwriter was named after Robert F Kennedy and a surname she always liked as a child. “I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives,” she wrote, conflating the concepts of sex and gender. “It isn’t hate to speak the truth.”. Read our full mailing list consent terms here. As well as stimulating the schizophrenic brain, Heath was studying it. Rowling wrote The Cuckoo’s Calling, a 2013 detective novel that would be the first in a four-book series known collectively as Cormoran Strike, under a male alias, Robert Galbraith. Mission accomplished, then? Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. As psychiatry has caught up to the general public’s acceptance of LGBTQ+ people, experiments like those Heath conducted have been condemned as harmful and ineffective by the APA, along with groups like the American Medical Association and American Counseling Association. “I don’t even know how I knew that the surname existed, because I can’t remember ever meeting anyone with it. . I will admit I had to google this, but I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of other people had to look it up as well. In an interview in 1972, he went further, claiming that B-19 “has solved many of his personal problems and is leading an actively and exclusively heterosexual life”. Among these were his efforts to treat gay men by turning “repugnant feelings ... toward the opposite sex” into pleasurable ones – and similar work on “frigid women”. Yet from the available evidence, it is hard to disagree with the judgement of Alan Baumeister, a Louisiana State University psychiatry professor and the leading academic expert on Heath, that the Tulane electrical brain stimulation experiments were “dubious and precarious” not just by today’s standards, but by those of the time. In 1963, a different group of scientists at Tulane started transplanting chimpanzee kidneys into humans. Robert Heath claimed to have cured homosexuality by implanting electrodes into the pleasure centre of the brain. “If you go for that door one more time I’m calling the police and I’ll testify and be glad to watch you go down for attempted murder. Ad Choices, J.K. Rowling Denies Pen Name Is Inspired by Anti-LGBTQ+ Conversion Therapist, “Any assertion that there is a connection is unfounded and untrue,” a spokesperson told, Harry Potter Saved My Life. But some of the things he did couldn’t conceivably have been done for the benefit of the patient.”, He may not have been a god, but Heath was clearly a man of extraordinary gifts and extraordinary charisma – yet one whose self-belief blinded him to the flaws in his theories and his methods. The patient, who had been arrested for marijuana possession, was implanted with electrodes into the septal region(associated with feelings of pleasure), and many other parts of his brain. Homosexuality was, until 1968, formally listed in the diagnostic textbooks as a sociopathic personality disturbance, a fear of the opposite sex that was thought to result – just like schizophrenia – from childhood trauma. It was still listed as a ”sexual deviation” until 1973. Robert Galbraith Heath, a psychologist known for his work on gay conversion therapy. This was, he dramatically announced in 1956, not a by-product of schizophrenia: rather, it seemed to be its cause. The report caused a sensation. Psychiatrist Marilyn Skinner remembers, as a young resident at Tulane, being given the case of a 22-year-old woman: “She was wild, you couldn’t get close to her, she was literally scarred – her whole body was a scar, from her own cutting and burning. She's a liar and a bigot. “When I was a kid I really wanted to be called Ella Galbraith, I don’t know why.It’s a lovely anecdote – but unfortunately Rowling shares her pseudonym with real psychiatrist Robert Galbraith Heath, who in the 20th century pioneered what we now call conversion therapy using techniques such as electroshock and “brainwashing” drugs. 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