Plans to promote medical treatment for homosexuality at a religious conference have been criticised by doctors. The event will hear from prominent American psychologist Dr Joseph Nicolosi who said he had helped many people to become heterosexual.
But the Royal College of Psychiatrists said there was no supporting evidence and such treatment could be damaging. The two-day conference being held in central London has been organised by the church group Anglican Mainstream.
Dr Nicolosi said he had been helping people to “increase their heterosexual potential” for 25 years, and put his success rate among men at about two out of three.
BBC (Thanks Kelly)
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How can a psychologist be promoted as a medical treatment? I reckon this guy will attract the small percentage of gay people who are really unhappy with their sexual orientation. I doubt he would have much success with the people who are happy and comfortable with their choices!
The people who are anti gay are the folks who need to talk to psychologists! I am not gay. So what if other people are??
Why do some folks get all bent out of shape about what other people do in the bedroom?
Jung and shadow spring to mind!
These ex-gay therapists are backed by right wing christian groups, and their evidence is seriously flawed. Most “Ex gays” merely end up asexual, incapable of attraction to either gender, or else they simply lie about the results in the same way a compulsive eater would pretend they’d just eaten salad all week to keep up appearances. In extreme cases, it leads to wrecked self esteem and suicide.
To anyone who thinks the ex-gay movement has all the answers, I’d point you in the direction of Peter Tatchell’s blog.
It’s a right wing religious therapy, not a scientific one.
Grrr, Nuts!…that´s what you get when Religious freaks learn techniques of brainwashing.
Shame they can´t accept ´Natures-way´ as the best, and just let people be!
‘I’ve been having these strange heterosexual feelings lately. Could Dr Joseph Nicolosi help me become gay?
The APA have discreditied Reparative Therapy, this guy is just another loon. Its just a pity that he is given a platform for this rubbish and allowed to continue his ‘work’ in NARTH.
Part of me wants to write some smart alec response about the doc being such an unappealing prat most men would prefer women after spending any time in his presence- hence his success. However, this is serious… this is messing with people’s heads who have already had to overcome so much.
Whatever someone else does with another consenting adult is up to them.. and no one else. ugh. Why do people care who does what to whom. Why don’t they work on fixing actual problems? This sort of nonsense just makes no sense.
Lifestyles choices being presented as deseases by supposed healers who have supposedly taken the hippocratic oath ?
Now THAT’s sick
I must say, I thnk this is truly disgusting. The picture lowered my faith in mankind, really.
Just when you think people can’t get much worse.
BASTARDS
The sad thing is, issues like this would have NEVER got any hateful insights if it wasn’t for the brainwashing by such organisations as the media and religion etc. Nobody would end up believing that homosexuality is wrong any more than they would believe that sleeping after midnight is wrong.
If you have these ingredients:
Passion (by illusion or not)
A vast majority (by illusion or not)
An excuse as to why it fits into one’s life (by illusion or not)
Then you can set up any irrational belief for one to take on board and never question if it is what they really want to believe in.
See, this is why I feel every human on Earth deserves to know the stuff about Psychology that we all do here…
Quite coincidentally I have recently developed a treatment for homosexuals that allows them to reduce and control their Christian tendancies. I’ve observed that a lot of Christian homosexuals seem racked by guilt and self-doubt, so should they feel it necessary, I can, for a modest fee, work towards irradicating their reliance on a religion that seeks to persecute them. I’m not claiming to cure them of Christianity; I am merely offering them the help they need should they choose to follow a different path.
What a load of rhubarb.
good grief whatever next *rolls eyes* why can’t these moronic idiots just get a life & let people be?
there’s nothing wrong with homosexuals at all in my opinion (i like & am friends with many of them
) the only one’s who are in need of “curing” is the small minded tw*ts like them who say homosexuality is wrong!
does it work the other way? could it help someone become gay or more gay?
what a load of w@nk!
There’s going to be a peaceful protest tomorrow, 1pm – 3pm outside the venue (The Emmanuel Centre, 9-23 Marsham Street, London).
Details here: http://zefrog.blogspot.com/2009/04/protest-against-gay-cure-conference-to.html
Things like this instantly angers me.
What gives them the right to say that homosexuals are ‘possessed’. Well, I don’t believe in demons, so who gives a shit.
If this is their opinion, then that’s fine, they should just keep it to themselves.
The thing that gets me with these kind of people, is that they’re not happy with living their own lives with their own beliefs. They have to push their crap onto others.
They should stop preying on vulnerable people, and get on with their own small-minded lives.
At least the Atheist Bus Campaign was tasteful.
Okay, rant over
I was going to say, not every one agrees with homosexuality- and thats their opinion I guess, doesnt mean its right, but its their opinion none the less.
these people protesting need psychological help! lol
I have this internal struggle and conflict about the issue. I wonder if Derren had the same issue, since he was a Christian at one point. I wonder if his sexuality played a role in his decision to become a non-believer.
I’m really confused about gay men who still occasionally have sex with women but still classify themselves as gay NOT Bi. The same applies to Lesbians too. What’s up with that? Shouldn’t a gay man be repulsed with having sex with a woman?
(ok, I’m expecting you all to start throwing rocks at me now…..just be gentle)
Sure, anyone has the right to hold an opinion. You can think gay people are made of cheese and jam if you like. However, this is advocating psychological treatment that can actually cause harm to people. Doctors have a responsibility to consider the welfare of their patients without being blinded by their own religious beliefs. When a psychologist is using their position to push the idea that homosexuality is an illness, it’s an abuse of trust his patients have in him.
shouldn’t it be up to the patient? xx
Barr, it\’s more than an matter of opinion though (that would be fine, I suppose). These quacks are playing with vulnerable people\’s sufferings and ultimately their lives.
barr – I respect privately held opinions, but once they’re out in the public sphere, they’re open to public scrutiny. If Narth wants to legislate against my lifestyle, it’s going to have to come up with something a bit more concrete than the shoddy evidence it’s put forward so far.
There are gay people who suffer because they insist we’re no more than a bunch of perverts who haven’t been ‘cured’ yet, and there’s significant danger in allowing their shoddy evidence to gain ground.
It fosters an expectation amongst the religious right especially that gay cures can be administered to all gay people regardless of whether they want it. I don’t go to their churches and read them chapters from “the God Delusion” from the pulpit so I expect the same repect.
Here’s a little ditty about someone for whom “gay cures” aught to work. He’s still hoping…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZmHC75FDqQ
I personally do not like the term “gay” or “straight”. For me it has always been about love. I feel that although I love my male fiancee with all my heart if he had born a woman everything about him that I love would still have been there.
Does that make me “bisexual” in the eyes of the world. Who knows. But this insistance that being attracted to one sex or the other is wrong in the eyes of some people drives me up the wall.
These people are using their religion as an excuse for their homophobia. It could be argued that the bible advoctes the stoning of women for adultery and severe punishment for relatively minor offences, however I’m sure these people don’t still find these ‘teachings’ to be relevant to our society today. So why do they still take the mention of homosexuality in the Bible as absolute gospel, can’t argue with it, the bible says it so it’s obviously correct? They need to open their eyes and see they world we’re living in today.
The doctors trying to ‘cure’ gay people are on the same level as psychics..they’re both abusing vunerable people who feel in need of help, and they need to be stopped!
Good find, Flapjack!
good point faye – and also i’m ‘straight’ does but there’s plenty of ‘gay’ guys that i think are really hot – especially Derren! so what does that make me – the world is so predjudice. It should only be about love.
SGC – That particular scandal broke just after his head to head with Richard Dawkins. Ted Haggard now claims to be a “straight person struggling with same sex attraction”, which to me sounds like a tetotal person struggling not to pick up the 10 bottles of vodka he put on his shopping list. If anyone should have access to the ‘best’ in gay cures, surely it’s top US evangelist Ted Haggard.
I would have more sympathy with his cognative dissonance if he hadn’t gone out of his way to preach homophobia from the pulpit and lobby the White House against gay equality.
I was amused by the requirement that the patient (victim) has to have a great degree of self-drive and be stong willed for this quackery to work. It’s pretty clear that only those with the strongest desire to change can repress themselves enough for this to apparently ‘work’.
Also ‘increasing heterosexual potential’ is one of the dumbest phrases I’ve heard. Science, eh?