APA Appoint Practicing Homosexuals to Form Task Force to Evaluate Reparative Therapy & Its Connection to “Anti-Gay” Activism

Sure to result in a task force hostile to the idea of reparative therapy (therapy that works to diminish same-sex attraction and potentitally restore a person’s natural heterosexual orientation)…

From the American Psychological Association:

Call for Nominations for the Board of Directors Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation

Nominations are requested by March 19, 2007 for the Task Force on Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation. Nominations should include a statement of interest and a curriculum vitae for each nominee. They should be sent to the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office by E-mail (lgbc@apa.org), by FAX (202-336-6040), or by mail at Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office, American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE , Washington , DC 20002. For any questions about the Task Force or the nomination process, contact the Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns Office at 202-336-6041.

The Board of Directors authorized the five-person Task Force during its February 14-15, 2007, meeting, and allocated $12,500 from its 2007 discretionary fund to support two meetings of the task force in 2007.
The Task Force was given the following charge:

(1) To revise and update the APA resolution Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation (1997);
(2) To generate a report that includes the following:

• (a) The appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for children and adolescents who present a desire to change either their sexual orientation or their behavioral expression of their sexual orientation, or both, or whose guardian expresses a desire for the minor to change;
• (b) The appropriate application of affirmative therapeutic interventions for adults who present a desire to change their sexual orientation or their behavioral expression of their sexual orientation, or both;
• (c) The presence of adolescent inpatient facilities that offer coercive treatment designed to change sexual orientation or the behavioral expression of sexual orientation;
• (d) Education, training, and research issues as they pertain to such therapeutic interventions;
• (e) Recommendations regarding treatment protocols that promote stereotyped gender normative behavior to mitigate behaviors that are perceived to be indicators that a child will develop a homosexual orientation in adolescence and adulthood;

(3) To inform the Association’s response to groups that promote treatments to change sexual orientation or its behavioral expression and to support public policy that furthers affirmative therapeutic interventions.

The Board was asked to establish the Task Force by the Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns (CLGBC) and the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI). CLGBC and BAPPI recommended the Task Force as a mechanism for revising and updating the 1997 APA resolution Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation to reflect the larger body of research and scholarship on sexual orientation conversion therapy, or so-called reparative therapy, that has been published since 1997, as well as to take into account that other professional associations have adopted resolutions since the 1997 APA resolution. Several external organizations have recommended that APA update its policy, because of their concerns about the continued visibility of reparative therapy practitioners and treatment facilities and about the role of advocacy for reparative theory in attempts to shape public opinion about the nature of sexual orientation and to support an anti-gay activist role in legislative and judicial arenas.

The Committee on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Concerns will review the nominations at its March 23-25 meeting and present slates of nominees to BAPPI for review and approval.