In recent days there has been vigorous debate about psychiatry and sexual orientation which has misrepresented me as purporting to "cure" homosexuality.
The internationally respected American Psychological Association (APA) does not accept that ho
mosexuality is a mental disorder and opposes any therapy which treats it as such.
The APA also opposes any treatment which assumes that a patient "should" change their homosexual orientation.
In fact the practitioners in this field, myself included, are guilty of neither.
We do not assume homosexuality is a mental disorder nor do we assume that all patients should seek to change their orientation.
We simply treat those who ask for help with unwanted same-sex attraction.
In this debate the Royal College of Psychiatrists stated that the APA does not view homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder.
Strictly speaking this may be true – but it is not the whole story. In fact the Royal College neglects to mention that unwanted homosexuality is still officially classed as a mental disorder.
Gay activists and their allies stand accused by several eminent and respected clinicians of attempting to take away the patients' right of self-determination – especially the right of the client to determine his or her own therapeutic goals.
For example, Rogers H Wright, founding president of the Council for the Advancement of the Psychological Professions and Sciences (CAPPS), and Nicholas A Cummings, past president of the American Psychological Assoc-iation, make it clear that gay groups within the APA deny the reality of results which show psychotherapy can change sexual preferences in patients who wish to change.
The organisation that I work with, ABEO (www.abeo-online.com), seeks to encourage people to know themselves as fully as possible and to be able to identify themselves to the world, according to their own convictions, as a whole person.
We support the right to personal choice in terms of identity and for the right of all people to live their lives as they choose, free of persecution.
ABEO believes that there should be equality in this therapeutic area, with both options being available to people.
Our clients are free to retain their homosexual identity or to change in favour of heterosexual identity. We are pro-choice.
We in ABEO specifically focus on treatments which affirm gender, as there is currently a therapeutic gap in this area.
During the recent media debate one of my clients wrote to assure me that he viewed our work as based more on relationships than orientation per se.
He said he could honestly say he never detected any "agenda" towards orientation change in my treatment.
"I have never felt there was the slightest indication in ANYTHING that you have said to me that would indicate an anti-gay bias," my client wrote.
ABEO supports each individual's right to self-determination and to how they choose to identify themselves.
We believe that no person should be discriminated against. Some individuals choose to identify themselves as 'gay' and we at ABEO support them in their right to do so, free of persecution.
At ABEO we also believe that sexuality is fluid. Recent research by secular professionals of international standing like Robert Spitzer and professionals who express a faith, like Stanton Jones and Mark Yarhouse, proves that change is possible.
George Rekers, Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Behavioural Science Emeritus at the University of Carolina School of Medicine, unequivocally affirms the Jones and Yarhouse research, noting that it meets the universally accepted "high research standards" set by the APA.
So despite what our detractors say, based on sound professional ethics, robust scientific research and clear results with our own clients, we are on very solid ground indeed when we say that we can help those people with unwanted same-sex attraction who wish to change.
And we assert that anyone who says otherwise is clearly and factually incorrect.
