What Does Effective Therapy Look Like?

Effective counseling and therapy that address unwanted same-sex attraction are not efforts that have homosexual attractions and activity as their exclusive focus, even though the client’s ultimate goal certainly can be to move from homosexuality to heterosexuality. When a client has other objectives, no competent therapist ever will push the goal of heterosexuality on him or her. Yet when client and therapist agree that heterosexuality is the goal, counseling efforts that achieve it, or that help a client move toward it, focus primarily on the underlying causes of same-sex attraction. These causes often involve deep emotional wounds. When the wounds are addressed, healing occurs over time, and homosexual attraction automatically tends to diminish, often with a corresponding increase in heterosexual attraction. It is in this sense that such counseling is pro-heterosexual. Another important point: Effective counseling never, ever shames or coerces a client.

Effective counseling never, ever shames or coerces a client.

Effective therapy that helps clients overcome unwanted same-sex attraction

1. 1. DOES NOT ever shame, coerce, or force a client into anything.
  2. DOES NOT look anything like the “conversion therapy” ban advocates describe.
  3. DOES address homosexuality indirectly, by focusing on its underlying causes.
  4. DOES seek to facilitate healing of emotional, developmental, and relational wounds that may be a part of the client’s past. When these wounds begin to heal, often clients see their attraction to members of the same sex diminish, and their attraction to members of the opposite sex increase.
  5. DOES respect the client’s wishes and autonomy. Therapist and client work together on mutually-agreed-upon goals.
  6. DOES, by its very effectiveness, threaten the LGBT narrative that homosexuals are “born that way” and therefore cannot change.

You can read a slightly more detailed statement about pro-heterosexual change efforts here.

Sources:

- - “What You Need to Know About So-Called “Conversion Therapy” and Efforts to Ban It“
  - “Know and Uphold What the Bible Says About Homosexuality“

A PDF file of this brief article is available here.

top image: Photo by Steve Adams on Unsplash