Counseling Freedom Battle Wins and Setbacks

Activists promoting ‘conversion therapy bans’ will not be satisfied until every last counselor, therapist, priest or pastor on planet earth has been silenced, shamed or scared into submission.

By Jennifer Roback Morse, Ph.D. Originally posted at National Catholic Register.

The worldwide battle for counseling freedom for all will have far-reaching consequences for freedom of speech, religion, and association. The ostensible issue at stake is banning “conversion therapy,” which is claimed to be “harmful’ and “ineffective” and even the equivalent of “torture.”

But the ultimate issue at stake is whether sexual revolutionary activists can limit speech inside a counselor’s office, personal prayer and the ability of individual clients to associate with counselors who will assist them in achieving their own therapeutic goals.

I bring good news and bad news from the battlefront. The good news is that one of the leading organizations of therapists in the United Kingdom issued an encouraging statement. The bad news is that the Australian state of Victoria crossed a serious line by claiming the right to regulate private prayers.

In November, the U.K. Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) issued a new “guidance concerning gender critical views.”

“Case law has confirmed that gender-critical beliefs (which include the belief that sex is biological and immutable, people cannot change their sex and sex is distinct from gender-identity) are protected under the Equality Act 2010. Individuals who hold such beliefs must therefore not be discriminated against.

Psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counselors who hold such views are likely to believe that the clinically most appropriate approach to working therapeutically with individuals who present with gender dysphoria, particularly children and young people, is exploratory therapy, rather than medicalized interventions such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or reassignment surgery.

Psychotherapists and psychotherapeutic counselors are free to conduct their professional practice in this way.”

You might think sarcastically, “Isn’t that generous of them to allow people to hold these commonsense beliefs?” But this is a monumental statement, considering that 27 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia have limited or altogether banned client-directed talk therapy under the misleading label of “conversion therapy.” Some of these jurisdictions ban talk therapy to change gender identity, as well as sexual orientation.

While the U.K. organization still holds that “conversion therapy, (which seeks to change or deny a person’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity) is harmful and must not be practiced,” there is a glimmer of hope. What the UKCP calls “exploratory therapy” is in effect, what the Christian therapists’ organizations have been asking for. Therapist groups such as the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice and groups representing those who have journeyed away from an LGBT identity, assert the right to conduct and receive client-directed talk therapy to meet the client’s goals surrounding gender dysphoria and same-sex attraction. The therapy these organizations want would fit broadly under the “exploratory therapy” label.

Keep reading.

About the Ruth Institute

The Ruth Institute is a global non-profit organization, leading an international interfaith coalition to defend the family and build a civilization of love.

Jennifer Roback Morse has a Ph.D. in economics and has taught at Yale and George Mason University. She is the author of The Sexual State and Love and Economics – It Takes a Family to Raise a Village.

To schedule an interview with Dr. Morse, contact media@ruthinstitute.org.

Join us on Locals for exclusive content*!

*Censorship free!

Get all of our video content on Rumble*

*Also censorship free