Explain conversion therapy and discuss its effectiveness.
What will be an ideal response?
Conversion therapy or reparative therapy-treatments designed to change lesbian-gay-bisexual (LGB) individuals into heterosexuals-have been around for more than 100 years. The latest versions come not from trained psychologists but from far-right religious groups. Many earlier techniques were downright inhumane. They included crude behavior therapy that involved giving gay men electrical shocks while they viewed slides of nude men, as well as surgeries ranging from castration to brain surgery. All these treatments rested on the assumption that homosexuality was an illness that could and should be cured. The consequences of reparative therapy can be ugly, because they do not actually change people's sexual orientation but they do make them feel awfully guilty about it. In fact, some psychotherapists have developed a specialty in helping gay and bisexual men recover from conversion therapies. In sum, it is probably about as easy to change a homosexual person into a happy heterosexual as it is to change a heterosexual person into a happy homosexual-that is, not very.
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