Homosexuality and Sex Therapy

From Encyclopedia of Sex and Sexuality

Very few sex therapists or psychotherapists still believe that homosexuality can be “treated” with the objective of changing the client’s sexual orientation to a heterosexual one. The few therapists that do believe this are usually associated with fundamentalist religious organizations and their approach is mainly intended to help homosexuals who may, out of religious conviction, want to cease homosexual activity and enter a heterosexual relationship instead. Critics of this type of therapy have argued that such therapists are merely helping clients repress their true, homosexual orientation and act “as if” they were heterosexuals.

Most mainstream therapists accept their clients’ sexual orientations and treat the emotional and sexual problems of homosexuals in the same ways they treat those of heterosexuals. Thus, when a homosexual couple or individual walk into a sex therapist’s office with a relationship problem or a sexual dysfunction, they are treated with the same treatment techniques as heterosexuals. Rather than try and influence homosexual behavior, most reputable sex therapists treat the problem presented.