The APA is reputable- almost the definition of reputable when it comes to recognized mental health treatment, NARTH is not and they have supported therapeutic approaches which research has shown to be emotionally damaging to clients. Licensed therapists providing reparative therapeutic efforts are practicing unethically and are subject to professional disciplinary action. As a licensed clinician (LCSW) I would be professionally and ethically obligated to report if I knew that a fellow licensed colleague were attempting such efforts with clients. This is fact.
The APA provides the diagnostic criterion used to code for mental illness, addictions, and developmental, cognitive, and personality disorders. The APA is really all there is when it comes to providing professionally recognized practice that is covered by health insurance agencies. Try to get coverage for “reparative therapy” and see what happens.
What kind of physician would look to NARTH as a valid source of clinical information??? I have certainly never met another licensed therapist who would.
If you support NARTH you can’t disagree that your views as a physician are in the tiny minority within the medical profession. Do you tell your colleagues this? If so, what are their reactions? I don’t really know what kind of doctor you are so. . . . In any case I would advise you take another look at NARTH. It is fringe and does not represent mainstream medical or therapeutic opinion.
Perhaps you can answer if the reputation of APA, that it is more ideology-driven than science-driven, is undeserved. As you know, the Association endorsed same sex ‘marriage’ and gay adoption.
I realize you need to make a living out of your chosen profession, and you rely on the APA to validate your professional license. Do you as a Catholic however not find its policies and ethical guidelines incompatible with Catholic teaching and values? You must know that APA is decidedly gay affirmative. It even directs its member mental health professionals to discount if not effectively dismiss the complaints of ego dystonic homosexual patients who seek management of their unwanted same sex attraction. Do you have an independent thought about this or do you simply support the party line? For instance, the Committee badmouths NARTH; do you feel you also have to badmouth NARTH? NARTH is a group of professionals that has taken an independent stand from the dominant Association (which by the way holds the advantage necessarily in peer reviewing and publication of studies). Small does not mean fringe. Nicolosi and company are not fringe. Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons is not fringe. They just don’t kowtow to the APA.
Since you brought up reparative therapy, or sex orientation change efforts (SOCE), can you provide the empirical evidence by APA or you that SOCE has actually harmed patients, and if so, in what way(s)? I realize that the pervading belief now but not before in your discipline is that homosexuality is a normal variant of sexuality and that there is no ex-gay in reality. Even if it is now known that the homosexual condition, homosexual experience and value systems are not the same across patients.
It appears that APA postured, in effect, to close the door to those who seek SOCE. What happens to those who genuinely seek it because of their value system, those with unwanted homosexuality? They deserve help or therapy, a right to self-directed treatment. If they approach a NARTH or NARTH referred mental health professional, you would align yourself with the naysayers, it would appear.
In this forum alone, there are members who have related or gave accounts that sexual orientation change is possible, or at least can leave the lived out homosexual life. I can not say how much therapy if or where undertaken contributed to the change. There are some that disagree or remain doubtful. It is clear in reading an array of accounts that success of SOCE is tied to setting objectives from the get go and the motivation factor.
Ringil,
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If practitioners do not use the paradigm for the disease model then practitioners can choose to ignore the absence of homosexuality…the entire process is dependent on insurance reimbursement and not best practice, in my opinion. If a therapists believes that a homosexual is mentally ill it is easy enough to slap “situtational depression” or some other label on the patient and continue therapy for reimbursement……
Exactly. In a previous discussion I had with a forum member who said she was a graduate student in psychology, we went down a similar line of argument. I posited that the APA could have just shifted to using NOC, not otherwise classified, but perhaps diagnosing ‘situational depression’ would solve the insurance reimbursement problem after APA removed hiomosexuality as a mental illness in 1973. The APA decided to ride the train of homosexuality is not a mental disorder school of thought, brought about by pressure from homosexual psychiatrists and a vocal and demanding bloc of homosexual(ist)s.
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