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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 ministry programs. 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 are promoted many religious conservatives and by one small professional association: the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH)

    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.


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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.


References used:

The following information sources were used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlinks are not necessarily still active today.

  1. Joe Kort, "So you'd like to learn about Gay Affirmative Therapy (GAT) at: http://www.amazon.com/ Kort has provided a list of 43 books on the topic.
  2. "Christian Ex-gay ministry hosts Chicago conference," Charisma. Online at Maranatha Christian Journal, at: http://www.mcjonline.com/news/news3280.htm 
  3. G.M. Herek, "Attempts to change sexual orientation," at: http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_changing.html 

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Copyright © 1996 to 2008 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance
Latest update: 2008-DEC-19
Author: B.A. Robinson

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