OUT OF HARM'S WAY by Dermot O'Callaghan, Michael Davidson ( 9780957373990 )

Item Details

Title:

OUT OF HARM'S WAY
WORKING ETHICALLY WITH SAME-SEX ATTRACTED PERSONS. QUESTIONS OF HARM, EVIDENCE AND PRACTICE.

By:

Format:

Paperback

List price:	£4.99
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ISBN 10:

0957373996

ISBN 13:

9780957373990

Publisher:

CORE ISSUES TRUST

Pub. date:

26 July, 2013

Pages:

Synopsis:

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. 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. No therapeutic intervention is entirely without risk, and the range of conditions for which therapists offer help may be ranked conceptually in terms of risk of harm, from the least to the most risky. At one end of the spectrum, a man may seek help to overcome his nerves in making a speech at his daughter's wedding.At the other, a man may feel that he is actually a woman 'trapped in a man's body', and may be offered help even to the point of having major surgery and being given hormone treatment to achieve his life goals - with clearly serious potential risks should all not go according to plan. This study highlights the fact that despite consistent efforts by mental health institutions to insist that therapeutic support for individuals seeking to reduce homosexual feelings and fantasies is necessarily harmful, this is not supported in scientific studies - from a range of perspectives. The Shidlo and Schroeder (2002), Spitzer (2001/3) and Jones and Yarhouse (2007/11) studies are examined together with the impression of harmfulness that the APA (2009) Task Force study gives, but fails to substantiate in anything but an ideological perspective that dominates this important question. The book argues that what is needed is an honest admission that the likelihood of harm resulting from ethical therapies to reduce same-sex attractions has been grossly exaggerated, to the detriment of those who have the legitimate life goal of seeking to reduce such attractions, for whatever reason.

Publication:

Imprint:

Core Issues Trust

Returns:

Non-returnable

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