Therapist conversion. (reader forum).I applaud Michelangelo Signorile on another informative article ["Sick Again," December 10]. As a gay psychologist I am embarrassed that there are still a few therapists, usually fundamentalist Christians, who actually believe that so-called conversion therapy is capable of turning gays straight. Our community needs to be warned of these individuals and the psychological damage caused by this form of brainwashing brainwashing Systematic effort to destroy an individual's former loyalties and beliefs and to substitute loyalty to a new ideology or power. It has been used by religious cults as well as by radical political groups. . I want readers of The Advocate to know, however, that the majority of psychologists, the American Counseling Association The American Counseling Association (ACA) is a non-profit, professional organization that is dedicated to the counseling profession. ACA is the world's second largest association exclusively representing professional counselors. , and the American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is a professional organization representing psychology in the US. Description and history The association has around 150,000 members and an annual budget of around $70m. consider conversion therapy to be totally ineffective, if not unethical. Attempting to turn gays straight is no less ludicrous than attempting to turn straights gay. It is important to remember too that Psychology Today is a pulp rag, not a scholarly journal of empirical research. It and its editor in chief hold about as much credibility for those of us practicing psychology as The National Enquirer En`quir´er n. 1. See Inquirer. Noun 1. enquirer - someone who asks a question asker, inquirer, querier, questioner . Frederic Tate, Williamsburg, Va. Perhaps it is a matter of semantics, vis-a-vis a "resolution," but I find Doug Haldeman's statements misleading regarding the American Psychological Association's position on conversion therapies [as being "less definitive" than that of the American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential world-wide. Its some 148,000 members are mainly American but some are international. ]. In 1990 the American Psychological Association stated that the scientific evidence does not show that conversion therapy works and that it can do more harm than good. In 1997 the APA's Council of Representatives passed a resolution reaffirming psychology's opposition to homophobia in treatment and spelling out a client's right to unbiased treatment and self-determination. Any person who enters into therapy to deal with issues of sexual orientation sexual orientation n. The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. has a right to expect that such therapy would take place in a professionally neutral environment absent of any social bias. David S. Bimbi, New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , N.Y. Regarding Michelangelo Signorile's column and the flap over whether Psychology Today can or cannot accept certain advertisements, it's good to see that tolerance is such a deeply cherished value in the homosexual community. What a bunch of hypocrites. Brian K. O'Neel, Sacramento, Calif. |
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