Analysts' tolerant statements about homosexuality arose from recognition of the difficulty of achieving change. Those forms of homosexuality that were considered perversions were usually held to be incurable. By the 1920s analysts assumed that homosexuality was pathological and that attempts to treat it were appropriate, although psychoanalytic opinion about changing homosexuality was largely pessimistic. ĭuring the earliest parts of psychoanalytic history, analysts granted that homosexuality was non-pathological in certain cases, and the ethical question of whether it ought to be changed was discussed. The history of conversion therapy can be divided broadly into three periods: an early Freudian period a period of mainstream approval of conversion therapy, when the mental health establishment became the "primary superintendent" of sexuality and a post- Stonewall period where the mainstream medical profession disavowed conversion therapy. 4.3.1.2 Australian health organizations.4.3.1.1 Multi-national health organizations.4.3.1 List of health organizations critical of conversion therapy.3.6 "Conversion Therapy and LGBT Youth".3.5 "Family Acceptance in Adolescence and the Health of LGBT Young Adults".3.4 "Changing Sexual Orientation: A Consumer's Report".3.1 Penile-phallometric assessment studies.1.1.6 Vote by European parliament in March 2018.administered simultaneously with the presentation of homoerotic stimuli" and masturbatory reconditioning.
Techniques that were used in the past in the United States and Western Europe have included ice-pick lobotomies chemical castration with hormonal treatment aversive treatments, such as "the application of electric shock to the hands and/or genitals" "nausea-inducing drugs. The term reparative therapy has been used as a synonym for conversion therapy in general, but it has been argued that, strictly speaking, it refers to a specific kind of therapy associated with the psychologists Elizabeth Moberly and Joseph Nicolosi. Most importantly, it may put young people at risk of serious harm." Ĭontemporary clinical techniques used in the United States have been limited to counseling, visualization, social skills training, psychoanalytic therapy, and spiritual interventions such as "prayer and group support and pressure", though there are some reports of aversive treatments through unlicensed practice as late as the early 2000s, sometimes with residential structure. Conversion therapy perpetuates outdated views of gender roles and identities as well as the negative stereotype that being a sexual or gender minority or identifying as LGBTQ is an abnormal aspect of human development. In 2015, the American Psychological Association and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration collaborated on a report stating "conversion therapy-efforts to change an individual's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression-is a practice that is not supported by credible evidence and has been disavowed by behavioral health experts and associations. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) encourages legislation which would prohibit psychiatric treatment "based on the a priori assumption that diverse sexual orientations and gender identities are mentally ill and should change" and describes attempts to change a person's sexual orientation by practitioners as unethical. Various jurisdictions around the world have passed laws against conversion therapy. Medical, scientific, and government organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom have expressed concern over the validity, efficacy and ethics of conversion therapy. There is no reliable evidence that such practices can alter sexual orientation or gender identity, and medical institutions warn that conversion therapy is ineffective and potentially harmful. Conversion therapy is the pseudoscientific practice of attempting to change an individual's sexual orientation from homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual, or their gender identity from transgender to cisgender, using psychological, physical, or spiritual interventions.