Response to APA Claim: Efforts to Change Sexual Orientation Are Harmful and Can Lead to Greater Self-Hatred, Depression, and Other Self-Destructive Behaviors

The Case Against Conversion “Therapy”
(Haldeman, 2022) is as advertised. This compilation of authors on several topics related to sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) and gender identity change efforts (GICE) presents what the book’s publisher, the American Psychological Association (APA), believes is the best case to support the eradication of all change exploring therapies. There is no pretense to supplying readers with any counterarguments or any sense of the complexities surrounding “conversion therapy.” In this review, I will briefly outline the contents of Haldeman’s work and then delve into some more specific topical issues that may be of particular interest to Alliance supporters.

This book is worth the read for clinicians currently providing, or seeking information regarding, clinical therapy with children, adolescents, or young adults, and their families. However, for the experienced therapist (and perhaps instructor at the graduate training level), this positive recommendation is due, in large part, to the excellent introductory Preface and Foreword, both of which I found to be timely, informed, deeply reflective of the reality of clinical practice today, and concisely summarized.