Can Christian counseling Change Sexual Preference?

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Personally I am afraid to click on links to often with the internet being the way it is. I have read much on this topic though because I have experienced same-sex attraction in my life, though minimal. I chose, and continue to choose abstinence but see no need to get counseling for the sole reason of ridding myself of ssa. I already understand the dangers in homosexual lifestyle but think we can do it in a more compassionate way than we have in the past. There are those out there who function completely well with ssa and nothing else while remaining celibate. Should they have to expend money on therapy for this alone? I feel they should be spared the burden.
 
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goofyjim:
Personally I am afraid to click on links to often with the internet being the way it is. I have read much on this topic though because I have experienced same-sex attraction in my life, though minimal. I chose, and continue to choose abstinence but see no need to get counseling for the sole reason of ridding myself of ssa. I already understand the dangers in homosexual lifestyle but think we can do it in a more compassionate way than we have in the past. There are those out there who function completely well with ssa and nothing else while remaining celibate. Should they have to expend money on therapy for this alone? I feel they should be spared the burden.
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Well said, and completely within the teaching of the Church. SSA can range from
1.) psychological gender self-concepts that are actually pretty non-sexual, to
2.) physiological impulse reactions, to
3.) both, to
4.) both with sexual behavior…and the list goes on.
Any of these can be quantified as minimal to obsessive. Calling this "gay’ or “homosexual orientation” is often far too labeling, and sometimes I worry that the labeling is what reduces the holistic functioning of otherwise functional, moral people who are our brothers and sisters in Christ.
 
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goofyjim:
Personally I am afraid to click on links to often with the internet being the way it is. I have read much on this topic though because I have experienced same-sex attraction in my life, though minimal. I chose, and continue to choose abstinence but see no need to get counseling for the sole reason of ridding myself of ssa. I already understand the dangers in homosexual lifestyle but think we can do it in a more compassionate way than we have in the past. There are those out there who function completely well with ssa and nothing else while remaining celibate. Should they have to expend money on therapy for this alone? I feel they should be spared the burden.
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I do nont agree. SAA is both a moral and psychological disorder. But God does not want us to be disordered. He wants us to be whole healty people. Therefore, I believe that if a person is struggling with SSA, he or she should try to rid themselves of it in oreder to be a fully healthy person.
 
A person I know in “Courage”, the Catholic apostolate for those with same sex attraction disorder, told me that they never promise to change a person’s sexual orientation. Their work is to help the person to bring their sexuality under God, through the virtue of chastity. He told me that some do change and even marry, some do not, but they never promise that will happen.

Blessings,

Gerry
 
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Topher:
I do nont agree. SAA is both a moral and psychological disorder. But God does not want us to be disordered. He wants us to be whole healty people. Therefore, I believe that if a person is struggling with SSA, he or she should try to rid themselves of it in oreder to be a fully healthy person.
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To say “should” in the sense of a moral requirement is not at all the teaching of the Church.
 
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Topher:
I do nont agree. SAA is both a moral and psychological disorder. But God does not want us to be disordered. He wants us to be whole healty people. Therefore, I believe that if a person is struggling with SSA, he or she should try to rid themselves of it in oreder to be a fully healthy person.
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A little of my story and you decide who has the moral obligation to change. Like many others here who admit to ssa I struggled to just repress it until 1986. I never acted out and never desired to. I went to my parish priest first and the next day after Sunday Mass the infamous group from Bayside, New York happened to have put a newsletter on my windshield with a headline that stated AIDS is a punishment for homosexuality. This is what disturbs me because to this day there is no way I could contract the disease since I have never come in contact with it through abstinence. I believe I can earn enough grace by remaining abstinent but do not need to spend money to change and magically become completely heterosexual. I am a healthy person, much more so than those who keep falling in and out of heterosexual relationships repeatedly.
 
Being of the opinion that sexuality is inborn but sexual orientation is inculcated, I would have to answer,“Yes,” to the thread title, noting only that counselling could change orientation in any direction.
 
One could argue that counseling “should” only try to change sexual preference if it can demonstrate reasonable long-term success, and I’m afraid that does not seem to be the case. I worry that by the time someone says, “I’m gay, I have a homosexual orientation,” it’s a little late. Buying into the label is one effect of the message of the world, and a passive “find a cure” mentality might be another effect.
 
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