A significant minority of psychiatrists and therapists are still attempting to help lesbian, gay and bisexual clients become heterosexual despite lack of evidence that such treatment is beneficial, safe, or even warranted, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry.

The research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, coincides with the launch of the website treatmentshomosexuality, which gathers together a number of oral histories from lesbian, gay and bisexual people who have undergone treatment as well as from professionals who developed and conducted such treatments.

A research team from UCL (University College London) and St George's, University of London and led by Professor Michael King, questioned over 1,400 mental health professionals on whether they would attempt to change a client's sexual orientation if requested. Although only one in twenty-five (4%) said that they would do so, one in six (17%) reported having assisted at least one client to reduce their gay or lesbian feelings, usually through therapy. Therapists were also asked in what year they had conducted such therapy and there was no sign of a decrease in recent times.

"There is very little evidence to show that attempting to treat a person's homosexual feelings is effective and in fact it can actually be harmful," says Professor Michael King from UCL. "So it is surprising that a significant minority of practitioners still offer this help to their clients."

The researchers found that a number of reasons were given by the psychiatrists and therapists for offering assistance, ranging from the counsellor's own moral and religious views about homosexuality through to a desire to help patients who were stressed by discrimination. There was also a degree of ignorance about the lack of evidence surrounding such the efficacy of such therapies in particular, that no randomized control trials have ever been conducted that show that the therapies are effective.

According to King, "The best approach is to help people adjust to their situation, to value them as people and show them that there is nothing whatever pathological about their sexual orientation," he says. "Both mental health practitioners and society at large must help them to confront prejudice in themselves and in others."

BioMed Central Limited
biomedcentral