What conversion therapy actually means and why it harms
Dr Helen Webberley on TalkTV: the conversion therapy ban, with Julia Hartley-Brewer, TalkTV
Conversion therapy is a neutral or even caring option, one that simply helps someone explore who they are. The concern about banning it is that it might stop legitimate therapy from happening at all.
What I was pointing to there is the thing that makes conversion therapy different from any other kind of support: it starts with a preferred outcome. It already knows, before the first session, that the child should end up not gay, not trans. That is not therapy. Therapy helps someone understand themselves; it does not decide in advance who they should turn out to be. Denying a child's true identity is not a neutral clinical choice, and dressing it up in therapeutic language does not make it safe.
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