Op-ed by Wayne Besen
By the time victims of so-called “ex-gay” or conversion therapy reach me at TruthWinsOut.org, their self-esteem has been trampled and their self-worth is non-existent. These individuals were often betrayed by therapists who were supposed to be helping, but turned out to be the root cause of their enormous pain and suffering.
Sadly, such therapists have aligned themselves with religious organizations that send the detrimental message that if a gay client refuses to undergo sexual conversion or commit to a lifetime of celibacy he or she will be socially ostracized or will burn in Hell. From my experience, I have yet to see how such coercive and cruel treatment is conducive to good mental health.
Having studied the “ex-gay” movement for a decade and authored a book on the topic, “Anything But Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies Behind the ‘Ex-Gay’ Myth,” I have found that conversion therapy is ineffective, harmful and anachronistic. These therapies don’t make clients heterosexual, nor do they help reconcile faith and sexuality. All that is accomplished, unfortunately, is enticing vulnerable clients to pay dearly for the identical shame and repression they previously received for free.
Regrettably, a well-financed cottage industry has arisen to deny reality and distort the lives of gay and lesbian people. This is evidenced by a group of politically motivated right wing counselors who filed a formal complaint in February with the American Counseling Association falsely claming that the ACA had violated its own polices and had stigmatized the beliefs of Christian counselors. It’s real goal, however, was to bully the ACA into allowing some practitioners to harm clients, while shielding this damage in the cloak of religious liberty.
In another example, last summer, right wing therapists wrote a letter to protest the American Psychological Association. They were expressing their outrage over an APA task force that will review current scientific research and stances on conversion therapy in a brazen attempt to intimidate the reviewers.
On behalf of the survivors of such therapy, I implore all mental health associations to withstand such political interference and resist the attempt to mainstream fringe therapies that harm gay and lesbian Americans.
There are three primary reasons why such therapy models should be definitively rejected. First, they confuse stereotypes with science. Secondly, they lack peer review studies and evidence that such therapies work – while there is a growing body of evidence that they hurt large numbers of people. Third, they rely on bizarre techniques that are a blight on the field of mental health. (Read More)
