by Stella O’Malley, spiked
Conversion therapy is already prohibited in the UK. Every recognised professional body governing psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors already bans coercive, unethical or abusive attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or identity. Accredited therapists can already lose their registration for unethical practice. Assault, false imprisonment, rape, harassment and coercive control are already crimes.
If the Labour government genuinely wanted to improve therapeutic practices, it would start by introducing statutory regulation of the profession. In Britain, almost anyone can call themselves a psychotherapist or counsellor without belonging to an accredited professional body. Yet instead of addressing this glaring problem, ministers have chosen to introduce activist-pandering, rainbow-waving LGBTQIA2S+ legislation in the form of the Conversion Practices Bill.
Politicians have no expertise in psychotherapy. Therapy has always existed to help people change – to reduce anxiety, recover from trauma, overcome addiction, challenge distorted thinking, repair relationships and sometimes reconsider deeply held beliefs about themselves. Change is very often the purpose of therapy. The idea that politicians can legislate which psychological changes are permissible reveals a profound misunderstanding of psychotherapy, the unconscious and the extraordinary ways people use defence mechanisms to protect themselves from emotional pain.