Jack Drescher (born 1951) is an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst known for his work on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Education and affiliations Drescher earned a B.A. in biology from Brooklyn College in 1972 and a M.D. from University of Michigan Medical School in 1980. He completed an internship in psychiatry at St. Vincent's Hospital & Medical Center and a residency at SUNY Downstate Medical Center. Drescher trained in psychoanalysis at the William Alanson White Institute, where he is a training and supervising analyst. He is a faculty member and senior psychoanalytic consultant at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research, clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and an adjunct professor at New York University postdoctoral program in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. Drescher is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a member of the American College of Psychiatrists and the International Academy of Sex Research. He is a past president of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry and a past president of the New York County Psychiatric Society. He is emeritus editor of the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Mental Health.
Ex-gays and conversion therapy Drescher was an early professional critic of the ex-gay movement and conversion therapy, calling it "questionable in its efficacy" and citing potential harms of therapy to suppress or change sexual orientation. In addition to writing about the ethical concerns, Drescher has likened attempts to suggest there is a professional debate about this to creationism: "You create the impression to the public as if there was a debate in the profession, which there is not." Drescher was one those who spoke out after Robert Spitzer in 2003 published his findings that some gay people can alter their orientation. Spitzer in 2012 repudiated the 2003 study's conclusions.
Gender identity Drescher was a member of the American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Workgroup on Sexual and Gender Identity Disorders. His subworkgroup was responsible for revising the DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder to the DSM-5 diagnosis of Gender Dysphoria. He was section editor of the chapter on Gender Dysphoria in the 2022 text revision of the DSM-5 or DSM-5-TR. He was also a member of the World Health Organization Working Group on the Classification of Sexual Disorders and Sexual Health which revised the sex and gender diagnoses in WHO's International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). That working group's recommendation was to rename the diagnoses "Gender Incongruence" and to move the GI diagnoses out of the mental disorders section of ICD into a new chapter called "Conditions Related to Sexual Health".
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