A would be therapist is kicked out of a program and called a threat to "public safety" because he says he used to live as a gay man and no longer does. Therapists warned their licenses will be threatened if they try to help patients who want help with same-sex attraction.
Whether you are gay or not, the withdrawal of all assistance in helping people live the lives they choose--and the punitive attitude towards scientific discussion and professional practice--is chilling. An incredible repression not only of speech, and employment, but of science itself:
While most medical ethics throughout the western world has adopted the primacy of patient autonomy as its guiding principle, the psychiatric and psychological professions in the UK are becoming increasingly authoritarian in matters of sexuality, according to one would-be therapist.
Recently published professional guidelines in the UK say it is an “ethical offense” to either offer to help a client overcome homosexual temptations and feelings, or to accede to a request to do so from a client.
“I would agree that the focus is no longer on autonomy” in ethics in psychotherapy, said Dr. Michael Davidson, PhD, Director of the Core Issues Trust. In Britain’s main psychotherapeutic organisations, “the person-centred approach is not being respected,” he said.
The Core Issues Trust is a Christian organisation that helps equip Christian ministers to help those with unwanted same-sex attraction and who want to leave the gay lifestyle.
Dr. Davidson told LifeSiteNews.com this week that he has fallen afoul of a “politically motivated” shift within the counselling and psychotherapeutic professional organisations, one that he says is betraying the real needs of clients and patients, and their freedom to make choices.
“I started my training in 2009 with the UK Psychodrama Association, and was very open and explicit about my position, including about my own journey out of homosexuality,” he said.
Nonetheless, two years into his training to become a therapist, Davidson was suddenly presented with an “interim order” telling him he was a threat to “public safety” and was not allowed to practice any type of therapy or even to train and attend classes, pending the outcome of an investigation into his conduct.
Since the publication last summer of the professional guidance, he said, the psychotherapeutic community has created a climate in which therapists who do not toe the official “gay affirming” line, daring to assert that homosexuality is not, or does not have to be a fixed condition, face severe censure, even the loss of their professional credentials.
Dr. Davidson said that the system overrules even the wishes of patients, telling them, in effect, that they must remain in the homosexual lifestyle, whether they want to or not. -- LifeSiteNews
21 Comments
Homosexuals are attracted to the psycho professions as are many with psychological issues. Once they obtain positions of power, their personal psycho issues direct their decision-making over science. We've seen this in the US with the APA, which has now become a political organization.
As one who has given up the homosexual lifestyle, I am astounded at what is happening in the UK. But if a guy wants to get his penis cut off because he wants to be a girl, that's fine. Honestly, it's the inmates running the asylum run amok.
The psychology community would have the same reaction to a therapist who offered to "cure" someone of their religious beliefs.
I got the impression this applies to sexual orientation conversion therapy and not merely someone just trying to abstain from sex. It's an important distinction. A person with same sex attraction could still live chastely if they don't act on that attraction.
I still think this ban is wrong though. There is a lot of liberal bias and moralizing being dressed up as science here. Meanwhile, the actual unbiased search for truth that science is supposed to be is too often set asidein favor of political correctness. I agree with the previous comment that is a pretty insane double standard for the same industry to hold that "sexual orientation" is unchangeable but to go out of their way to help someone "change" his sex/gender based on what he(she?) thinks it is.
It seems to me that the UK government is attempting to establish homosexuality as a universal constant. That is why they are pressuring everyone into adopting the attitude that being gay is eternal, immutable, and beyond reproach in the face of all the thousands of ex gays who testify to their change. That, by the way, is how most religions describe God. Homoseuxality is a cult being embraced by the UK state.
When any government starts endorsing and enforcing such articles of faith, they have become too big for their britches.
If therapists are muzzled, perhaps citizens looking to change could consider the following religious counsel:
"True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior." Boyd K. Packer
Fortunately, government cannot muzzle a person's private relationship/communion with God.
This is identity politics at its worst. Not many gay folks want to acknowledge the fact that people can and do exit the gay lifestyle. It's a much simpler sell if they can get everyone to agree that sexual orientation is immutable.
Interestingly, the gay narrative used to be that sexual orientation lies on a continuum, that nobody is completely gay or completely straight. That narrative has been dropped b/c it wasn't working so well. It gave folks the correct impression that sexual orientation is, to a certain extent, a matter of choice.
Some would like to move us to this point over here in the U.S. -- A point where the idea of sexual orientation change (SOC) can't be pursued or researched.
The marriage supporters here have noted the hypocrisies and inconsistencies of this topic: self-determination for the transgendered, but not for the dissatisfied homosexual; the shift from the belief that sexual orientation is on a continuum, to a rocked-ribbed dedication to belief of immutability. (I think part of the adherence to the immutability philosophy is because of the gay lobby's policy agenda.)
Yet, there is another hypocrisy. As Dr. Davidson noted in the article, with the aim of shutting down research on SOC, some U.K. professional bodies demand gold standard research in order for the possibility of SOC to be considered. Only randomised, double-blind controlled trials will do. But for many in the psychological community in the U.S. (and I'm sure this is true in the U.K.), the same-sex parenting studies will suffice in establishing that children do not benefit from being raised by their married-biological parents, although much of this research is anectdotal, conflicting, and methodologically-weak.
Sexual orientation is an unchangeable characteristic of a person. To attempt to change can result in great harm. And with no benefit. Homosexuals, if not mistreated by those who despise them, live normal, healthy lives.
Even Dr. Robert Spitzer, who most conversion therapists go to, has renounced his own research and admits that it doesn't show sexual orientation can be changed.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/11/4406240/dr-robert-spitzer-renounces-infamous.html
SSA may be nigh unto impossible to change (in this life), but that doesn't mean we go ahead and promote homosexual behavior. There's no moral justification for it, just as there's no justification for promoting heterosexual behavior outside of marriage. We also don't need to redefine marriage, from a sex-integrated union (legally oblivious to sexual orientation), to a sex-segreated union, simply because of orientation issues. There are countless orientations out there, and we turn a legal blind eye to them, because they don't affect licensing and regulation issues.
Organizations like Evergreen and NARTH have helped hundreds of thousands leave the grips of the gay lifestyle and are leading healthy and happy heterosexual lifestyles. Their testimonies need to be heard and not silenced by SS"m" extremists and their special rights agenda.
M. Jones
"Organizations like Evergreen and NARTH have helped hundreds of thousands leave the grips of the gay lifestyle and are leading healthy and happy heterosexual lifestyles"
Any proof of such claims?
Mark -
I don't know about Evergreen and NARTH, but I am one who has left the grips of the gay lifestyle and is leading a healthy and happy heterosexual life. WIfe and kids, never happier. If I can, certainly many others can.
ResistSSA
I am happy that you are comfortable with your life. However, a comment such as "If I can, certainly many others can." does not convince me. The evidence is pretty overwhelming that sexual orientation cannot be changed. People who are more bisexual may be able to choose either a hetero or homo lifestyle but they are not changing their orientation.
I was once addicted to the homosexual lifestyle. But through therapy and living a purposeful righteous life, no one needs to be enslaved to their addiction. Recovery and a normal fully opposite sex attracted life is possible.
David,
LGBT began as a lie, embraces lies as truths in their manifesto, and lie to themselves of their true nature in an attempt to satisfy their Ego.
Id, Ego, Superego is the classic Freudian model to prescribe to these miscreants:
ID: The Primal; your basic needs
Ego: The Want
Super Ego: Used to justify satisfying the Ego
Marriage corruption supporters want to be guiltless, so their Superego is busy constructing what they believe will be the perfect environment; one they believe will appease their sense of guilt.
These miscreants are drowning victims flailing around for anything they can get their hands on that might help them to keep their heads above water. Sadly; society, in some jurisdiction, has afforded these miscreants access to other people’s children for use as floatation devices.
Now hear this; ResistSSA is now OvercameSSA. Previous monicker was to encourage others to resist, not to describe myself. Hope the BLTgers are happy now.
You know you're getting to them when they start focusing on pithies like commenter handles. Go Resist!
This is disgusting, how can u be so bigoted? Leave gay people alone. Homosexual behavior doesn't hurt anyone, y don't u get a life and stop
focusing on other peoples sex lives?
"Ex-gay" therapy has been proven to not actually work and more often than not is just harmful to the people who are supposedly being "treated". It's also terribly harmful to suggest that you can or should change your sexual orientation; it's exactly the wrong message to be sending to (particularly young) LGBT people.
The former president of the American Psychological Association, Dr, Nicholas Cummings, does not agree with you Ellie.
Below is an excerpt from an interview where he addresses the issue.
The full interview is available at http://www.narth.com/docs/cummings.html
People of any sexual orientation can decide to live "chastely". But that's not the same as changing one's sexual orientation. So why is NOM giving us a misleading headline? Oh right, it's NOM.