Monday, June 26, 2006

Reparative therapy

The psychotherapy profession is filled with quacks promoting goofy ideas, Here is one:
[Christian psychotherapist Richard] Cohen, a former homosexual and the author of the book Coming Out Straight (Oakhill Press, 2005), insists that no one is born with homosexual desires. He claims his reparative therapy group, the International Healing Foundation (IHF), has helped many men and women with unwanted homosexual desires achieve their goal of changing their sexual orientation and becoming heterosexual.
The American Counseling Association has expelled Cohen for not sufficiently respecting the dignity of gays and other alleged ethics violations.

The American Psychological Association says:
Despite the unanimity of the health and mental health professions on the normality of homosexuality, the idea of "reparative therapy" has recently been adopted by conservative organizations and aggressively promoted in the media. Because of this aggressive promotion of "reparative therapy," a number of the health and mental health professional organizations have recently issued public statements about "reparative therapy" as well.
What is aggressively promoted in the media is that homosexuality
is normal, innate, and unchangeable. Anyone who expresses a contrary view is ostracized.

I think that it is very strange that the psychotherapist associations are so intolerant on this subject. They permit all sorts of other wacky therapies that have no scientific studies proving their effectiveness.

The best scientific evidence is that there is no gay gene, and there are bisexuals and others who report changing their sexual preferences. I think that the psychotherapists are being dishonest about this issue in order to promote a certain agenda.

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