from Seen in Journalism
A politican’s graveyard?
Politicians are once again talking about a ‘trans inclusive’ ban on conversion therapy. We’re hosting a piece by Peter Jenkins of Thoughtful Therapists laying out why many mental health professionals believe it’s a weak and dangerous idea. Peter this year left his professional association, the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, over its approach to sex and gender identity. Thoughtful Therapists is made up of counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists campaigning against the imposition of gender identity theory on therapy practice.
It all started back in 2010 with a journalistic sting. An ostensibly troubled gay man goes for therapy from a counsellor, seeking help with his sexual attraction to men. The counsellor seems to rise to the bait, unaware that the session is being taped.
“She says that at the heart of homosexuality is a ‘deep isolation’, which is, she says, ‘where God needs to be’”.
Snap! The trap closes, resulting in a hostile press write-up in The Independent. The journo/’client’ makes a successful professional complaint against the counsellor. The professional association, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) issues a series of stern warnings to members not to practise ‘gay conversion therapy’.
By 2015, BACP joins a host of therapy associations and employers in a policy compact, the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MOU). The MOU closes its grip on most therapy, medical and psychiatric bodies in the UK. Conversion therapy is bad, not to be debated, and needs to be stamped out via a criminal legal ban.
This is despite a worrying lack of hard evidence that conversion therapy really is rife within the world of therapy, as distinct from within faith settings and cults. Then, in a master-stroke, and with very little debate, the MOU was extended overnight to cover conversion therapy for trans ‘gender identity’, as well as for sexual orientation.