Aversion Therapy - in Homosexuality

In Homosexuality

Aversion therapy was previously considered as a treatment for homosexuality, but since 1994, the American Psychological Association (APA) has declared that it is a dangerous practice that does not work. Since 2006, the use of aversion therapy to treat homosexuality has been in violation of the codes of conduct and professional guidelines of the APA and American Psychiatric Association. The use of aversion therapy to treat homosexuality is illegal in some countries. The standard in psychotherapy in America and Europe is currently gay affirmative psychotherapy. Guidelines for gay affirmative psychotherapy can be found at APA.

Psychologist Martin E.P. Seligman reported that using aversion therapy to try to change homosexual men's sexual orientation to heterosexual was controversial. In some instances, notably a series of 1966 experiments, the process was initially judged to have worked surprisingly well, with up to 50% of men subjected to such therapy not acting on their homosexual urges. These results produced what Seligman described as "a great burst of enthusiasm about changing homosexuality swept over the therapeutic community" after the results were reported in 1966. However, Seligman notes that the findings were later shown to be flawed: most of the men treated with aversion therapy who stopped homosexual behavior were actually bisexual; among men with an exclusive or near-exclusive homosexual orientation, aversion therapy was far less successful.

Dr. Robert Card conducted shock aversion therapy and published papers advocating therapy to eliminate homosexuality from a patient's personality, including "The Empirical Characteristics and Clinical Utility of the Monarch Adolescent Audio Visual PPG Stimulus Materials" and "What is 'Deviant?' An Examination of Three Distinct Groups' Penile Plethysmograph Responses." In one treatment method, gay volunteers had electrodes attached to their genitals and were then shown homosexual pornography. As the pornography played, the patients were injected with emetic drugs and administered electric shocks. The shocks and emetics would then cease and the homosexual imagery would be replaced by heterosexual pornography, during which time the patient would not be abused.

Aversion therapy took place at a number of research universities during the 1970s. Mental illness and suicide have been attributed to be caused by shock aversion therapy by those who have undergone it and their family members.