Joe N. is well documented…how does Joe Kort, do?

What about all advocacy groups…?

We could get a posting on Pro…Con…org.

The “overselling” of psychology is directly related to the marketing of psychological services and requires the “pathologization” of the general public through “education.”

Are you aware that at one point or another 50% of the population will meet the criteria for a mental illness in their lifetime?

Does that make “mental illness” as a diagnostic category about as useful as “allergy?”

“troublesome interpersonal behaviors are, in part, due to poor developmental relationships which resulted in immature development.”

It is theoretically sound on many levels, but unprovable.

Furthermore, it oversimplifies the client, restricts the number of treatment interventions available and focuses the client in the past….

However, I came to see that those who assumed therapy to be non-effective because its results are not scientifically measurable, were illogically assuming that everything worthwhile and effective can be assessed via science. I came to a different conclusion: that people cannot be reduced to variables that can be scientifically manipulated as one can manipulate drug dosages to determine their efficacy. If people cannot be reduced to variables in a laboratory setting then it follows that they cannot be studied using the scientific method, as manipulation of variables under controlled conditions is the very basis of that methodology.

Taking this line of reasoning further, it occurred to me that assigning people to DSM categories is also a flawed methodology, as there is no objective testing method that can back up the categorical assignment. Assessment itself is subjective, one human being assessing another. I became disillusioned with science as applied to the therapeutic or the diagnostic process. It became clear to me that therapy and assessment is an art, rather than a science.

It is equally clear that true consensus among APA members is a rare thing. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the task force.

concerned…. people being hurt by gay affirming therapy as well, we just do not focus on these because it is not political correct to do so. The hurt that is created by saying no one can change is enormous.

Enormous? What, why, how? Because parental units won’t accept their son is gay? Or any other relatives for that matter. I lived with that fear for much of my life only to come out to some when I was nearing 50 including my 90+ year old mother. It was somewhat anticlimatical. The rest I could care less about. Before that bit of affirmation my faith in religion tanked and isn’t ever coming back.
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If homosexuality is the problem that takes one to a therapist, I would assume the therapist should take a neutral stance, even while affirming the existing science to the patient – to wit, that a homosexual orientation does not generally have a psychological basis unless there is something in the person’s past which is eminently apparent. The idea that one goes snooping around one’s background for all the times a father might have disappointed a child and voila! there’s why your gay, now the gay will go away! – is crazy, itself. I did not go gay because my father promised to play catch with my new rubber ball, but instead, suddenly had to go pull my uncle’s bulldozer out of a ditch/pond/mud-hole that he got stuck in. Rather I got pissed.

Seriously, I am skeptical of it due to the premise that if trauma are addressed via affect focused therapy then SSA is reduced. If addressing trauma reduces SSA then I am not going to quarrel with it and indeed if that result fits the clients desires then that is a good outcome.

I am much more certain that the criticism of the global application is warranted as you suggest.

Ethical guidelines require that a therapist regularly assess the effectiveness of an intervention and discontinue it, or the therapeutic relationship when it is clear that the intervention is not effective.

We don’t need to criticize Reparative Therapy globally, we need to criticize its global application.

Get it?