Ex-Gay Watch

A British psychotherapist was “reckless,” “disrespectful,” “dogmatic” and “unprofessional” in trying to turn a homosexual patient heterosexual, a hearing has concluded.

Last week, the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy found Christian counselor Lesley Pilkington guilty of professional malpractice. after she let her “personal preconceived views about gay lifestyle and sexual orientation … affect her professional relationship in a way that was prejudicial.”

The saga entered the public eye in February, 2010, with an investigative report in The Independent (London), in which gay journalist Patrick Strudwick went undercover to research the world of gay-to-straight therapy. In the article, Strudwick described his visits, in 2009, to two accredited UK counselors to receive reparative treatment.

According to Strudwick’s account, Mrs Pilkington suggested low self-esteem, a family history of Freemasonry and unacknowledged sexual abuse were to blame for his “same-sex attraction,” or “SSA.” He denied any of the three existed, but Pilkington was insistent, he said.

Strudwick has come under fire for deceiving Mrs Pilkington into believing he was an unhappy gay man who wanted to be cured of his homosexuality. Yet even those who support reparative therapy — a practice supported by little scientific evidence — are hard-pressed to justify such dubious practices as linking homosexual orientation to the spiritual influence of Freemasonry and insisting on the presence of sexual abuse. Strudwick’s pretence pales next to this pseudo-scientific charlatanry.

As a result of the hearing, the BACP suspended Pilkington’s licence, and she will have to undergo extensive retraining or risk losing it altogether. With the support of the Christian Legal Centre, however, she is expected to appeal the verdict.

The other psychiatrist in Patrick Strudwick’s investigation was Belfast-based therapist Dr Paul Miller, an associate of Richard Cohen. According to Strudwick, the General Medical Council dismissed his call for a hearing against Miller.

A UK psychotherapist may lose her license if a disciplinary hearing finds she attempted to cure a patient of homosexuality.

It is almost a year since Patrick Strudwick published an article in The Independent (London) detailing his experience of ex-gay reparative therapy in the UK. As part of his investigation, the journalist secretly taped sessions with Christian therapist Lesley Pilkington, whom he met through a NARTH conference.

In Strudwick’s recordings, Mrs Pilkington, 60, told him that homosexuality was “a mental illness, an addiction [and] an antireligious phenomenon.” She agreed to provide SOCE — Sexual Orientation Change Efforts — after he said he was a Christian and wanted to leave the “homosexual lifestyle.”

According to the Sunday Telegraph (London), a letter sent to the therapist by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) accused her of “praying to God to heal [Strudwick] of his homosexuality … [of] having an agenda that homosexuality is wrong and that gay people can change and that [she] allegedly attempted to inflict these views on him.”

Pilkington denied she had forced Strudwick into therapy, saying she only offers the treatment to people who choose it because they are “depressed and unhappy” with their sexual orientation.

An excellent piece by Patrick Strudwick in today’s Independent (London) details the author’s strange and disturbing experiences in ex-gay therapy in the UK.

It’s a refreshing article in that it focuses exclusively on reparative therapy, and tends not to dilute it with other aspects of the ex-gay movement. Strudwick begins his undercover investigation by attending a conference by Dr Joseph Nicolosi of NARTH. (We covered that conference here.) There he heard the usual Nicolosi myths, including the oft-repeated claim that “If you don’t hug your son, some other man will.”

Strudwick met two reparative therapists at the conference, and later consulted with them privately. His experience was shocking:

“Any Freemasonry in the family?” No, I say, again asking her to elaborate. “Because that often encourages it as well. It has a spiritual effect on males and it often comes out as SSA [same-sex attraction].”

Next, she looks for self-esteem wounds. “I think you have some unhelpful thoughts about yourself, about who you are,” she says. “What do you think about yourself? In the deepest part of you, in your stomach.”

“I think I’m a good person,” I reply. She wants more. “I think I am a determined person.” Still not enough. “I think I’ve a lot to give.”

“But do you like yourself?” she asks, becoming impatient.

“I think I’m a good person,” I repeat.

“Yes that’s different though from ‘do you like yourself?’ Deep underneath this there’s other stuff we need to get to. I think you must have had quite a lot of bullying.” No, I say. “There was no sexual abuse?” she asks, leaning in and squinting again. No, I repeat. “I think it will be there,” she replies, dropping her voice to a concerned tone. “It does need to come to the surface.”

And so, she prays for me again. “Father, we give you permission to bring to the surface some of the things that have happened over the years. Father, enable your love to pour into that place of isolation in that little boy, whatever age, we give you permission to go there, with your healing power and your light, go into those parts, open all the doors, and access each one with your light.”

She looks up. I ask her again about this abuse. “I think there is something there,” she says. “You’ve allowed things to be done to you.” In the next session I ask if she thinks the abuse would have taken place within my family, because I can’t remember it. “Yes, very likely,” she replies.

This session with an accredited psychotherapist and counsellor is a strange mixture of psychological mumbo-jumbo, Christian fundamentalist myths and a bizarre guessing game bearing more resemblance to a psychic reading than professional therapy.

Strudwick’s next session is with a married ex-gay psychiatrist, a follower of Richard Cohen. He says he can help men to “reach their full heterosexual potential.” Here things become even more bizarre. The psychiatrist admits he hasn’t entirely escaped same-sex attraction, and still experiences “unhealthy patterns of porn and masturbation, if I’m feeling a bit flat.” As therapy, he encourages Strudwick to experience sexual arousal:

I say that when men compliment me on my appearance it triggers sexual feelings. He probes again, asking me how I’m feeling as he talks about my body. Aroused, I repeat. But rather than moving away from this apparent sexual trigger, he asks if we can do an “exercise” around it. I agree.

“Close your eyes and focus on that arousal you’re feeling down in your genitals,” he says. “I want you to hear, as a man, as I look at your body, I see strong shoulders and a strong chest, I see a man who has an attractive body and I want you just to notice the arousal you feel as you hear me talking about that. Imagine an energy and picture that energy as a colour, and make the brightness of the colour relate to the intensity of the sexual feeling, so you might be starting to get a bit of a hard on, you might be starting to feel an erection and that sexual energy, but I want you to just picture that as a coloured light. What colour would it be?”

Red, I say.

“I want you to imagine that red colour, that energy and listen to the affirmations that I see you as a strong, confident man, and I want you to move that red light from your genitals up into your chest to join that feeling of affirmation as a man, and as you breathe in that affirmation do you notice now what happens to the arousal?”

I tell him it’s still there.

The piece is very revealing. It can be read in its entirety here.