my dad just sent me a long letter via email (i'm a week into my junior year of college) about how he wants me to...or rather, requires me to restart "reparative therapy" phone sessions once a week. i had been feeling so good, had been getting healthy, feeling happy, working hard, and then this hit. i knew it was coming because i kinda let the therapy sessions drop off at the end of my last academic year. i did the sessions for an entire year before stopping. i'm just so MAD at my parents right now and so mad at the therapy and the stupid backwards fool of a "Dr." I have to talk to. just curious, has anyone else on here had to do this kind of thing?? it's so ridiculous and horrible to do it! even though it's not like hurting me emotionally it just feels wrong, such a waste of time, and still holding me back concerning my parents from moving on to a real happy place. the only reason i'm doing it is because my parents pay for my college and a lot of other things and always use that to say that i should do this one thing that "they want for me".
unfortunately no. the LGBT center director at my school has said that under extreme circumstances they've had students get financially covered before, but I just have to push through until i'm financially independent
So compared to no degree and having to enter the work force right away, how bad is sticking it out for another two years? What are all of your options no matter how ridiculous?
it's not bad compared with a lot of other people's situations. it's also tricky tho because i want to have relationships with my family in the future but sometimes i just want to cut all ties to my parents because they are so unsupportive and hurtful. i think being in a couple years will help me sort that out and allow me to have more courage to face them
Have you considered seeing an actual therapist and not just this other quack? That way you'll have someone who's in your corner.
I did last year with a therapist at my college's counseling center. it was really helpful. unfortunately they only provide sessions on a need-basis so i kinda used up my quota not having a mental health issue and all. and i can't pay for one outside of school without my parents finding out. that's part of the reason i started posting on here...for support! thanks!
absolutely! Well here's an idea, if your parents give you money for food or gas (let's say food), take some of that money to a therapist. You should be able to find one that has a sliding pay scale, which could mean $60 a session for you. Once a week is best, once a month is better than nothing. Buy Ramen Noodles instead of whatever else you'd eat. You probably have a meal plan on campus though, correct? If your parents send you money, is there something you could covertly forgo so that you could use that money for a therapist? You could even do skype sessions on the cheap.
oh that's a good idea. i'll have to look into that! i do get food money from my parents so I could dip into that.
Actually, if you explain the situation, you should be able to find a therapist who will see you for very cheap, maybe $25 a session. And EC isn't a substitute for therapy, but the peer support here, and the advisor team are all available to you to help out. I pretty much concur that going through the reparative therapy charade is probably the most sensible choice at the moment. Is your quack therapist reporting back to your parents? If so, is there a way you can stop that? As far as I know, it is a violation of the ethical code for a therapist to disclose any information about treatment to anyone other than the client if the client is of legal age. If no reporting of what goes on in sessions is happening, then you can use the sessions for whatever you want. Even if reporting is happening, another route is to simply (assuming the therapist is even marginally competent in other areas) redirect all the discussion to issues that have nothing to do with your sexual orientation, and if your therapist brings it back, just keep redirecting. If s/he calls you on it, just say that these other issues are more pressing right now and it's important to you to discuss them. There isn't much a therapist can do, within ethical guidelines, if a client doesn't want to talk about a given topic. I can give you a ginormous list of topics you could talk about that might actually be helpful to you and conveniently avoid talking about how sexual orientation can('t) be reprogrammed. I feel bad that your dad is throwing money away that could be used for a good purpose, but you might as well try and make use of it. Who knows? If the therapist has an ounce of integrity, s/he will eventually figure out you're happy and well adjusted as you are and maybe s/he will STFU about your orientation. I've seen it happen.
I don't think that hack's who claim to give reparative therapy care about silly things like th ethical code of the therapist profession....
Remember, gay away the pray! Reparative therapy can be traumatic, but if these are phone sessions, I suggest one of two things. If they report to your dad, or your dad listens in, go along. What the hell? I don't know what they do on a phone session, but go along with it. If he doesn't, use it as a source of LOLs. Fuck with the "doctor".
They don't have to care about it, but they care about getting their licenses revoked. So most will stay within the lines of what they can and cannot do as licensed therapists. And with the exception of one or two states, there's no provision that prohibits reparative therapy... yet... so that's allowed, but violating confidentiality, for example, would not be.
I don't think the quack tells my parents anything, then again I don't think I'd find out if he did. I guess I should try to use it for my own benefit maybe talk about other issues like stress. I've tried talking just about getting more confidence in the past but then he always tied it back to my "insecurity as a male" and said my attractions to other guys were because I found attraction in the qualities they had that I lacked--like confidence...which I guess was kind of a LOL moment. I'm glad they've made some progress with banning this junk in a couple states for minors--that's the way it should be.
Right, Chip, but isn't it the official position of psychology that reparative therapy is harmful? So couldn't the professional organization respond?
Unfortunately, it isn't that cut-and-dried. The APA did a very exhaustive meta-study a few years ago looking at every published study from the last 50 years on the topic. It was pretty unequivocal that reparative therapy doesn't work, and that in some cases, it can be harmful. However, they tapdanced on the issue of whether some people might find "some benefit" in it even if it didn't actually work. This was largely a political game; they wanted to try and appease the religious bigot contingent of APA a little bit. A couple of states (NJ and California, if memory serves) have banned it entirely for people under 18, and those bills have much stronger language that pretty much condemns it. Unfortunately, most other states have nothing in their code of ethics that specifically speaks about it, so therapists are free to screw people up. I would suggest simply out-tapdancing him. It would be entirely appropriate and reasonable to respond to something like the above with something like "My understanding is that therapy is not supposed to be directive, and that therapists don't have the answers. I don't agree that these issues tie back to my insecurities as a male, and as the therapy client, I'd like to focus on other causes or factors that could be contributing to this." There isn't much he can say to that... if he has any training at all, he has to know that it is not the therapist's role to shove an ideology down a client's throat. If you are comfortable getting slightly more confrontational, you could say "My interest and focus in therapy is on bettering myself. I am not interested in talking about sexual orientation, attraction, or anything related to that, and as the client, I get to determine what will be discussed during the therapy hour. I would like to spend this hour talking about ________________ and I would like your agreement that we can do that, that you will not attempt to bring it back around to sexuality and sexual orientation, so that I can actually get some benefit out of these sessions. It is your ethical obligation as a psychotherapist to work within the framework of the work that I want to do. Can I have your agreement on that? Again, there isn't much he can say. He won't like it, but my guess is he'd rather collect his $100 an hour (or whatever) than tell your father you're being uncooperative.
I doubt that'd bother them in the slightest since reparative therapy itself isn't endorsed by any of the major therapeutic or psychological associations and has no scientific studies to back it up. In fact, a couple of them probably don't even have proper licenses. I think it'd be hard for teens to take it to the authorities, to bypass your parents and put it all out in the open. :icon_sad:
Therapists who practice unethically do get their licenses revoked, and more and more reports come from other professionals -- school counselors, other therapists, social workers, CPS workers, and the like. Most people who do reparative therapy do other types of therapy as well, and losing your license is losing your livelihood, so most therapists, reparative or otherwise, do in fact care about their licensure, at least in the US. I can't speak for the Netherlands.