Sexual Conversion Therapy

Book excerpt: Hear the other side of the story on sexual conversion therapy! In their fervor to “fix” homosexuals, practitioners of sexual conversion therapies have often overlooked or completely dismissed the possible psychological and social side effects of such treatments. Sexual Conversion Therapy: Ethical, Clinical, and Research Perspectives works to counterbalance the clinical and ethical omissions of overzealous therapists who have focused on efficacy and outcome at the expense of their patients’self-esteem. Sexual Conversion Therapy features first-person accounts of patients and clinicians, including psychotherapists who themselves have undergone treatments ranging from psychoanalysis to religious faith healing to aversion behavior conditioning and even electroshock therapy. In addition to examining the history and ethics of conversion therapy, the book presents empirical data on current practice and recovery processes for survivors of failed conversion attempts. Sexual Conversion Therapy presents current perspectives on the harmful impact of sexual orientation interventions, including: “Cures: A Gay Man?s Odyssey” “Becoming Gay” “A Psychologist?s Journey Through the Ex-Gay Movement” “Therapeutic Antidotes: Gay and Bisexual Men Recover from Conversion Therapies” “I?m Your Handyman: A History of Reparative Therapies” Nearly 30 years after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a small but dedicated group of mental health practitioners continues to diagnose and treat homosexuality as a mental illness. Sexual Conversion Therapy is an essential alternative to the bulk of published material that champions treatments that produce a handful of heterosexuals “cured” of their “illness,” while inflicting emotional and psychological damage on countless gay and lesbian patients who failed to convert.