American Psychological Association Slams Ex-Gay Therapy
The American Psychological Association, the professional organization that represents psychologists across the United States, issued a statement this week from their annual conference that says therapists should stop telling clients they can change from gay to straight… because such attempts do not work and in fact reparative therapies may actually cause harm to their patients.
The APA announcement also said that parents and young people should avoid any treatments that represent being gay as a mental illness, and an alternative, should seek out therapy that provides accurate information about sexual orientation.
In the statement, the group said that, “Practitioners can assist clients through therapies that do not attempt to change sexual orientation, but rather involve acceptance, support and identity exploration and development without imposing a specific identity outcome.”
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While conceding that some clients may wish to change their sexual orientation because of clashes with their religious beliefs, the APA suggested therapists “explore possible life paths that address the reality of their sexual orientation, reduce the stigma associated with homosexuality, respect the client’s religious beliefs, and consider possibilities for a religiously and spiritually meaningful and rewarding life.”
Ex-gay reparative therapy attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation from gay, lesbian or bisexual to straight and is faith-based program that believes people can willfully change their sexual orientation through counseling and prayer.
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The APA report makes the essential point that aversion/conversion therapy is not capable of achieving its goal, being that of “curing” the homosexual of what some consider to be an illness. The very concept behind such efforts to change sexual orientation is simply ludicrous. It makes no sense physiologically and is misguided morally. The fact that there are persons who believe it should be undertaken serves as yet another reminder that a large segment of society still regards gay men and women as second-class citizens – or worse. That is the salient point of my recently released biographical novel, Broken Saint. It is based on my forty-year friendship with a gay Mormon man, and chronicles his internal and exxternal struggles as he battles for acceptance (of himself and by others). The story includes an episode in which the Church convinces the main character to undergo the type of therapy discussed here and, of course, it fails miserably. More information about the book is available at http://www.eloquentbooks.com/BrokenSaint.html.
Mark Zamen, author