Reparative and similar therapies changing sexual orientation
The two approaches to therapy
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Types of mental health therapies:
There are two contrasting beliefs about homosexual behavior:
It is morally neutral. Homosexual activity, like heterosexual and bisexual
behavior, has the potential to be profoundly immoral if it involves
coercion, lack of safety, and other factors. Absent these factors, it can be
moral, positive, and relationship-strengthening -- again just as
heterosexual and bisexual behavior can be.
That it is always immoral because it is abnormal, unnatural, and hated
by God.
With such opposing beliefs concerning homosexual behavior, there are
obviously two different approaches to the counseling and therapy of
homosexuals.
The two main types of mental-health therapies are:
Gay Affirmative Therapy (GAT) generally assumes that a homosexual
orientation is:
Part of what a person is,
Discovered, not chosen,
Fixed in adulthood,
Normal and natural for a minority of adults, and
Is morally neutral.
The purpose of GAT is to help the individual accept their sexual
orientation and to overcome:
"... the psychological effects on lesbians and gays from the
heterosexism, homophobia and homo-ignorance from society, family
religion, and one's culture..." 1
This form of therapy is promoted by many persons with a homosexual or
bisexual orientation, religious liberals, secularists, and all of the large mental
health professional associations in North America.
As with all forms of therapy, clients will have various degrees of success
with GAT, depending largely on their relationship with their therapist.
Reparative therapy or transformational ministryprograms.
These assume that homosexual behavior is:
Part of what a person does,
Chosen, not discovered,
Changeable, through therapy and/or prayer,
Abnormal and unnatural, irrespective of the nature of the
relationship,
Always immoral, and
Hated by God.
The purpose of these therapies is to produce change -- not necessarily in
the individual's sexual orientation, but certainly in their sexual behaviors.
These therapies have considerable success convincing some clients with a
homosexual orientation to decide to be celibate. They are often successful
at helping some clients with a
bisexual orientation to confine themselves to opposite-sex relationships.
Unfortunately, many clients with a homosexual orientation enter these
therapies with the expectation of changing their sexual orientation from
homosexual to heterosexual. All or essentially all fail. This has produced
serious clinical depression among many clients and has triggered suicides.
Sponsored link:
Description of reparative therapy and transformational ministry programs.
There are dozens of topics involving medical science, physics,
psychology, natural science, etc., where religious conservatives hold
views that conflict from those of many other faith and science groups. Specific topics include abortion,
homosexuality, cosmology, age, origin and development of the world and its life
forms, religion, and therapies designed to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals -- the topic of this
section.
Attempts have been made to change sexual orientation
through psychotherapy, aversion therapy, nausea producing drugs, castration,
injections of estrogen, LSD, hypnosis, electric shock, brain surgery, breast amputations, etc.
Both the U.S. government and the Nazi government of Germany tried to find a way
of changing homosexuals to heterosexuals. All of these programs have one factor
in common: they were miserable failures.
These methods were largely abandoned by
the mid-1970's. However, Outrage!, a British support group for lesbians and
gays, recently found it necessary to ask the Royal College of Psychiatrists to
renounce aversion therapy and instruct its members to halt "the use of all
therapies that attempt to cure homosexuality." 2
Two methods are still in use with which therapists and lay
groups attempt to change sexual orientation: Reparative Therapy is
an experimental and controversial secular
therapeutic technique. Another consists of various religious and spiritual
practices by Transformational Ministries. Many groups that practice these therapies estimate their
"cure" rate at 70% or more. Many gays, lesbians, mental-health
professionals, religious liberals and human sexuality researchers estimate
a rate of adult sexual orientation conversion as equal to or near 0.0%.
3
We suspect that the latter estimate is closer to reality.
Unfortunately, no long-term objective studies have ever been conducted, so there
is little hard data to consider.
Millions of dollars per year are spent by individuals and groups:
Obtaining individual counseling to change sexual orientation,
Promoting these methods as safe and effective "cures" for homosexuality, and
Denigrating these methods as useless and potentially life threatening.
However, no money or motivation appears to be available to fund a meaningful study
of these counseling methods' effectiveness and potential adverse side effects. That is a pity,
because there exists a lot of anecdotal evidence that failed therapy can drive
many gays, lesbians, and bisexuals into deep depression; some commit suicide.
Alternately, when some people fail to change their sexual orientation
after reparative therapy, they realize that their orientation is fixed.
Some come to terms with this and lead much better lives.
Whether
reparative therapy generates more dead bodies than persons with changed
orientations remains an open question.
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