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."
Saturday 28 March 2009
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