Leaving Homosexuality: The Right to Try: Ethics, Evidence and Practice - Softcover

Davidson, Michael R.

9780992638009: Leaving Homosexuality: The Right to Try: Ethics, Evidence and Practice

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0992638003 ISBN 13: 9780992638009

Publisher: Core Issues Trust, 2013

In "The Right to Decide", (Davidson 2012) the right of individuals to seek professional help for reducing unwanted same sex attractions, through assistance from psychological and psychotherapeutic professionals, is upheld. Thus a married man wanting help to reduce these feelings, in favour of remaining in his marriage, may not be helped in his goals. Proponents of these measures, along with the advocates for gay marriage, often appeal to the personal accounts of individuals denied the right to identify as gay and to live as homosexuals. This booklet contributes to the debate by highlighting a range of circumstances, evidenced in the lives of the individual contributors, where it is appropriate that professional help is accessed to achieve the personal goal of walking away from homosexual practice and feelings. In "Beyond Critique" (Ocallaghan, D and May, P., 2nd Edition) O'Callaghan is concerned about the research data of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' submission to the Church of England's 'Listening Exercise' on human sexuality have been expanded by an additional contributor. Dr Peter May addresses the College's submission to the Government's Consultation on Equal Civil Marriage, which recommends same-sex marriage as a Public Health strategy. However, the evidential basis for this is greatly overblown, while wider public health issues are ignored, concerning both same-sex partnering and parenting. The authors accuse the College of misleading both Church and State by using bad science to propagate gay ideology. In the third booklet, the fact that any therapist in the UK offering to help a client to reduce unwanted same-sex attraction can now expect to be struck off the register of their professional body, is considered. Why should this be? The primary reason is that all therapies geared to such a goal are now alleged to be 'harmful'. Why should therapy for this one condition - unwanted same-sex attraction - be singled out as being unethical? Could it be a matter of ideology rather than science? O'Callaghan and Davidson investigate issues of harm, the attendant ethical considerations, the use of evidence in assessing these questions and several practice issues in working ethically with this group.

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About the Author:

Michael Davidson, PhD (Rhodes) is co-director of Core Issues Trust, a Christian initiative supporting individuals with unwanted same-sex attractions (SAA) and those who support them. He has worked in higher education for most of his life. He trained for the pastoral ministry, as a secondary school teacher, and until recently was in training as a psychotherapist. Having himself moved away from homosexual practice, he advocates the right of individuals to access professional help to minimise such feelings where possible. Dermot O'Callaghan, MA (Cantab) Studied Mechanical Sciences at Cambridge University and, after five years in industry, spent his working career as a management consultant in a variety of sectors, including mental health. In his retirement he has taken an interest in the way that science in recent decades has sought to understand the causes and consequences of same-sex attraction, together with the ways in which science has been used (and sometimes misused) in society's debates and in the shaping of social policy, including the increasingly robust actions of mental health professional bodies to prevent even a married man from being helped to reduce his unwanted same-sex attractions in order to save his marriage. Peter G. May, MRCGP studied Medicine at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine in London. He subsequently trained in General Practice in Southampton, before becoming a Partner at the Grove Medical Practice, Southampton. He has had a particular interest in exposing the claims of fraudulent healers, whether New Age Therapists or religious 'miracle' workers. His study, "Claimed Contemporary Miracles" was published in the Medico-Legal Journal in 2003. Now retired, he concentrates on various writing projects.

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