LGBT News More LGBT Kids will Die?

Why is it even called therapy? If you don't want guide a patient to improve their lives, are you really a therapist?

In terms of free speech, often times there IS free speech, it's just that there will be consequences from the public.

 

They believe that they are improving lives, by changing people to something that their "loving god" will no longer torture forever in hell. (not that it can actually change anyone, or that I believe in an actual "god" or a hell)

 

Conversion therapy can’t actually work. I presume eventually the people going through it are either brainwashed or saying what people want to hear just for it to end. I have read a book that had aversion therapy in it as a means to convert someone back to being straight. It didn’t work in the book and I doubt it would work in real life. You can’t change sexual orientation with therapy.

 

Hey thats my handle and I went through conversion therapy (I call it proxy conversion therapy). Hoot, hoot. And I'm still alive!

 

I've actually been calling conversion therapy, conversion abuse for some time now. It;s bull shit to call conversion therapy, therapy.

 

Great post. Thanks.

From the article: "Republican President Donald Trump appointed both judges in Friday's majority."

 

I was put through it also, it shoved me back into the closet. I believe that is how I ended up disabled as I am. I just indicate it as conversion "therapy". It is torture designed to convince people that living miserable in this life as someone they are not "saves" them from being tortured forever by the "loving god" they believe in.

 

Instead of going into a closet, some people become clerics in different denominations to avoid that and gain respect in the process. Certainly not all of them. But I've seen it and I don't like it.

 

He is not at all conservative. He wants people to think that. He surrounds himself with Pence and appoints conservative government VIPs so he can further his political agenda and insatiable appetite for fame and power.

 

I was unable to bring myself to do that. Growing up the congregation that I was in was trying to groom me for the ministry. When I left that church after college my sunday school teacher even wrote me a letter asking me to keep at it even if I did not believe because of how I could be used to influence people and inculcate them, I was sickened by that then and still am now.

 

I really like this comment. Thanks.

 

Cult, run for your life. Save yourself.

Seriously this is such an unbelievable (fantastic) comment because if gives a first hand account of people practicing cult behavior.

 

That particular event happened in 1981, though I have been in the clutches of several cults since then.

 

We all seem to agree that more states need to ban it and they especially need to ban it for people under 18 to start with.

For people over 18, it seems that governments reason that people who have reached 18 can choose to pick what types of medical and mental health services they want. So if there's a demand for it, there will be someone to provide it and make money from it.

People over 18 are going for these services. There aren't many and it's dropping. It has to be that they come from religious and political environments where they are looked down on. Then they try to "change" to get approval. They may also implode in the process.

I support it being banned for everyone. I don't see that happening though.

 

So, should children who have HOCD not seek out therapy? Ah, but how does a child know if they are genuinely attracted to the same sex or if it's just obsessive compulsive thoughts they are having?

Questions not answered with blanket statements.

 

I agree with part of what you're saying. I speak from my own point of view. The answers therapy will give are all over the board, from being same sex attracted to it being about something else and everything in between. A client or patient will also get different answers from different therapists and there's the risk of being led down different paths - from a supportive path to a destructive one. In an area like this, it's probably better to stay away from "fire and brimstone" and "feel good" therapists as two opposing practice styles.

In therapy, which I am in as an adult for various reasons, I want to understand the roots of all the issues that have come or continue to come my way. And so would a person who is concerned about their sexuality, which they can obsess over. I just don't believe in conversion therapy. The odds of conversion are very low and I'm not going to even touch this. It's just that it puts people seeking it at risk of more damaging circumstances, and that includes children, teens, and adults.

 

I agree that forcibly trying to change what a person thinks/believes should be a non-starter.

The issue with legislation is trying to define "forcibly trying to change" someone versus merely discussing and exploring issues. I don't believe anyone should jump on supporting or opposing a piece of legislation, merely because someone describes it as doing X or Y.

I would contend that, if through discussion and exploring the issues you find that your same-sex attraction isn't genuine or a sexual attraction then therapy did it's job just as well as if they had confirmed your same-sex attraction.

So while I would agree with the ends, I'm suspect of any legislation trying to make the issue black and white. Generally, the more narrow it can get in defining what is proscribed the better.