Conversion therapy

Conversion therapy is treatment aimed at converting lesbians and gay men to heterosexuality. Such treatments are controversial and have been criticized as a form of pseudoscience. Medical, scientific, and government organizations in the United States and Britain have expressed concern over conversion therapy and consider it potentially harmful. The American Psychiatric Association opposes psychiatric treatment "based upon the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that a patient should change his/her sexual homosexual orientation" and describes attempts to change sexual orientation by practitioners as unethical. It also states that debates over the integration of gay and lesbian people have obscured science "by calling into question the motives and even the character of individuals on both sides of the issue" and that the advancement of conversion therapy may cause social harm by disseminating unscientific views about sexual orientation. United States Surgeon General David Satcher in 2001 issued a report stating that "there is no valid scientific evidence that sexual orientation can be changed".