Subscribe That is the patient may claim he's not being turned on but his body would beg to differ
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That is, the patient may claim he's not being turned on, but his body would beg to differ.The medical profession is still split on whether aversion therapy could work in altering something as fundamental as a person's sexual orientation. The AMA paper found that no definitive conclusions could be drawn about its efficacy. While positive results had been achieved (for all conditions, from people wanting to give up smoking to sexual disorders), similar results were achieved using non-aversive techniques and placebos.There is no suggestion that the practitioners who administered aversion therapy did not act in good faith, in what they believed was their patients' best interests They thought the treatment worked. Valerie Mellor, the psychologist who treated Colin Fox, told Gay Times in its report on the issue: "I've never done anything to any patient I wouldn't have done to myself and to my children." Now a consultant child psychologist in psychosexual problems at Booth Hall Hospital, and director of the Jubilee Centre for the Diagnosis of Child Abuse, she defends the treatment to this day. In her present field she believes it could work where patients undergo it willingly: to raise the age range or change the gender of the children who arouse a sex-offender, for example.The Royal College of Psychiatrists says it is impossible to know how many men underwent aversion therapy for gender reorientation in the UK, because records have been destroyed or lost during computerisation, and hospitals have been closed down. Nor can we know how many men were "cured", or how many continue to suffer in silence from the after-effects. The former presumably don't wish to come forward and shatter the heterosexual life they've worked so hard to build.The Department of Health says that aversion therapy has not been banned because it may be effective in the treatment of alcohol misuse.
There is, however, little demand in Britain for treatment for homosexuality. "Homosexuality is not regarded as an illness or disorder and does not need correcting," said a spokesman. "It is not inconceivable that in rare cases, for example where a persistent child sex offender insisted that they receive therapy to curb their behaviour, that a clinician might, following careful consideration and discussion, be prepared to administer some form of aversion therapy."NOW 50, Peter Price pours all the anxiety and anger he attributes to the treatment into his work. He broadcasts his own show five nights a week on Radio City 1548am, in Liverpool; a faithful following tune in to be regaled by helium-high bursts of camp humour, his trademark.
Most weekends he works the cabaret circuit, doing stand-up in northern clubs or out on the Spanish costas That non-stop cheerfulness is, of course, a front. He's been a master of facade since realising that he was gay at 12 At 14, he summoned every ounce of courage to tell his GP The doctor laughed in his face and then offered him Valium "As if that would make it all better," Peter says bitterly. By the time he was 18, his liaisons with men had been confined to "just messing around, not proper sex", but had left him with insufferable guilt - and terror of being found out. His adoptive mother persuaded him to go back to the GP for treatment. He adored her and did it to please her, even though he was doubtful that it would work. This time he was referred to a psychiatric hospital in Chester.Peter will never forget his first interview with the psychiatrist. "He asked me if I realised how revolting homosexuality was, how vile and revolting anal and oral sex were He used the grossest terms.