News: One in six therapists 'has tried to cure homosexuals' - Telegraph

The Telegraph (25 March 2009), like many other media outlets, jumped on this story about a "significant minority" of mental health professionals who said they had tried to help their clients change their sexual orientation.

The research conducted by Annie Bartlett, Glenn Smith and Michael King is published in the open access journal, BMC Psychiatry (26 March 2009). Surveying 1400 healthcare professionals, 17% reported treating clients to help them reduce or change their homosexual or lesbian feelings.

Quoted in the Telegraph, Professor Michael King, of University College London, said: "There is very little evidence to show that attempting to treat a person's homosexual feelings is effective and in fact it can actually be harmful. So it is surprising that a significant minority of practitioners still offer this help to their clients. The best approach is to help people adjust to their situation, to value them as people and show them that there is nothing whatever pathological about their sexual orientation.

"Both mental health practitioners and society at large must help them to confront prejudice in themselves and in others."

News: Cash for 'recession depression' - BBC News

The UK Government has announced an extra £13million to help people who experience mental health problems during the recession.

The BBC News story (8 March 2009) quotes Paul Farmer, chief executive of mental health charity Mind: "Redundancy and money worries put strain on family relationships, cause sleepless nights, trigger stress and increase the risk of developing depression. When it comes to the scale of the current recession we are in uncharted territory about how many people could be affected.

"We must learn from the mistakes of past recessions where people lost their job, their confidence and their self esteem leaving them unable to return to the workforce."