The unscientific roots of bans on ‘conversion therapy’
by Belinda Brown, MercatorNet:
What is the LGBTQ lobby so afraid of?
Previously, I showed how people are not allowed to provide any form of therapy or counselling which might help those who want to move away from their same-sex attraction to do so.
In this piece, I want to explore why this therapy is banned.
It should be noted that professionals do not support the ban.
Research conducted in 2009 in the UK found that 17 percent of mental health professionals had helped a client diminish or change same-sex attraction and 72 percent of them agreed such therapy should be available to the clients. Only 13% thought it should not.
Practising psychologists recently wrote to the BPS to complain that this affirmative approach hindered their efforts to conduct effective therapy.
And indeed, there is no evidence to suggest the affirmative approach is effective (see here, p. 19).
The ostensible reason for the ban is that it is harmful. This is what various mental health bodies argue in their Memorandum of Understanding which lays out the ban.
Yet this conclusion is based on highly inadequate research. The two main pieces of research supporting the ban, the Faith and Sexuality Survey 2018 and the National LGBT Survey, exhibit deeply flawed sampling methods and inadequate questionnaire design. For example, they only asked LGBT people about the effectiveness of therapy. This is a bit like exploring the effectiveness of marriage counselling from those who are divorced. See here and here.
In fact, there is strong evidence to show an absence of harm.
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