The professional mental health bodies in the UK permit therapists to assist clients towards achievement of desired life goals whose attendant risks range from relatively minor (a person nervous at having to make a speech) to potentially serious (a person seeking sex-change surgery) – with one exception: …
Efforts to protect vulnerable adults and minors from unscrupulous pseudo- psychotherapeutic interventions are to be welcomed. However, refusal to recognise client autonomy and self-determination in the matter of sexual identity and the right to reorder sexual orientation amounts to discrimination based on ideology.
This illustrates a duplicity of standards in the communication about the choices individuals have in responding to homosexual feelings. Any advertising or information campaign challenging the idea that homosexuality is innate, and immutable, is likely to be banned on the grounds that the fact change of sexual orientation and associated behaviours cannot be proven.
Guidance on the Practice of Psychological Therapies that Pathologise and/or Seek to Eliminate or Reduce Same Sex Attraction. This article expresses concern that the Ethical Principles of the UK Council for Psychotherapy appear to be based on an inadequate scientific foundation, and to contravene the human rights of persons who wish to receive professional help to reduce unwanted same-sex attractions