So says Peter Toscano, who’s had some experience of the so-called ex-gay therapies that will be discussed at the conference this weekend that we blogged about yesterday.
There’s an interview with him in the online Pink News, in which he says:
When someone elects to go into one of these programs or treatments, typically they have lots of stuff going on in their lives that needs attention – depression, addiction issues, low self-esteem, family problems, unresolved abuse or trauma.
None of these things have to do with being gay, but in our society, and particularly in many churches, they teach that being gay is the cause of all these things. They are wrong, but still this is powerful message to a young impressionable mind.
Overall, I found reparative therapy to be destructive to my psyche, my spirituality, my career, relationships within my family, my finances and even my physical health.
I suspect regular readers of this blog will need no convincing that the “psychologist” and “psychiatrists” who believe in this stuff are in need of some help from saner colleagues in the same profession.
But perhaps these people don’t believe. They know that the world is so fucked up that there are a lot of desperate people who are made to feel so ashamed of themselves for being gay that they’ll part with hard-earned pounds and dollars for this crock of crap.
These charlatans and snake-oil pedlars are probably laughing all the way to the bank.
Andy,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think of this post from over at IBA?
http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-gay-community-being-used-as-trojan.html
Sadly some people are religionists first, practitioners second. Their theology gets in the way of any psychology/psychiatry they learned (if they were taught any at all) and they come at things from a purely "Biblical" perspective. The client is the one who loses because instead of getting appropriate treatment they're given religious nonsense.
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