Freedom to choose

An organisation was launched in October, which supports people who provide standard counselling services to those who want to seek changes to their unwanted relational and sexual behaviours.

The IFTCC, the International Federation for Therapeutic and Counselling Choice, supports people’s freedom to choose how they live their lives using standard counselling and psychotherapeutic approaches. At its launch, academics, paediatricians, psychologists and therapists eloquently and warmly explained the need for access to therapy for individuals who would be labelled ‘LGBT’. Case studies were shared, from years of experience, showing how lives had been transformed by ongoing care and support to address unwanted feelings. Therapists talked in terms of people addressing emotional wounds, and as part of that journey exploring these deep feelings, people felt a decrease in their attraction towards the opposite sex. Sometimes, their attractions and behaviours were transformed so they were able to say they were attracted to the opposite sex, or could live as their birth sex.

This is not ‘conversion therapy’. Firstly, the pathway through therapy for each individual is unique, and no therapist can predetermine the outcome of the therapy for a patient. Secondly, the language of ‘conversion therapy’ conjurs up images of archaic or abusive practices. IFTCC rejects those practices. In addition, these therapists would only talk to people who come along of their own volition; they will not counsel someone who they believe to be being coerced into therapy.