Wikipedia's article on homosexuality and Judaism talks about Jewish organizations which aim to help people change. The article mentions JONAH, an organization which works on "prevention, intervention, and healing of the underlying issues causing same-sex attractions". The article also mentions Atzat Nefesh.
There also exist secular organizations, and Christian organizations, with similar goals.
Are these organizations successful at helping their clients?
I define "successful helping" quite broadly. I define it to be the successful achievement of any of the following.
- Reducing clients' same-sex attractions.
- Curing clients' same-sex attractions.
- Helping bisexual clients with dating-related issues as they work towards marriage. (For example, the issue of when to tell one's date about one's sexual orientation.)
Or helping with other problems that clients may have. For example:
- dysfunctional family relationships;
- trust issues;
- reclusiveness;
- problems dealing with emotions such as sadness.
Please don't answer unless you cite sources.
Answer
I think it's important to shed light on the important issue of whether homosexuals can "change" to become the heterosexuals that Hashem intended them to be. As Co-Director of JONAH, I chose to submit the paragraphs shown below which were written by a therapist who is not associated with JONAH, but who has counseled men and women with unwanted same-sex attractions (SSA) for decades. There is not a shred of evidence that anyone is born gay and those who are unhappy being gay or lesbian have been walking away from homosexuality throughout history. Gay activists, who started out to help those with SSA, have become as irrational and damaging as those who previously discriminated against homosexuals in the past. Although feeling SSA is not a choice, a person has the right to choose whether to attempt to deal with these feelings or not, and those who attempt to ban all counseling for unwanted SSA have become malicious agitators against free choice.
http://drsorotzkin.com/light_on_gay_issue.html:
Shedding Light on the Gay Issue
Many people find it difficult to believe that there is not a shred of credible scientific evidence for the existence of the "gay gene," since it flies in the face of what is presented as fact in our culture. There have been a few attempts by self identified gay scientists to present evidence of genetic contributions to homosexuality, but these endeavors have never withstood scientific scrutiny, a point that gay activist researchers now concede.1 Most people are unaware of the fact that gay rights advocates have often written in their internal documents that it advances their agenda to popularize the concept of a "gay gene" (regardless of the lack of scientific evidence).2
The fact that overcoming SSA is indeed difficult and is often only achieved imperfectly is also cited as evidence of the unchangeable nature of sexual orientation thus making the apparent change not authentic. This claim is absurd! All psychological problems are difficult to change. Is it easy to help someone improve his self-esteem? Or to develop confidence? Or to overcome years of abuse? When the person makes progress, do we belittle his progress because he is still struggling? And if he improves with his issue 90%, do we not see this as a tremendous success even though vestiges of his problem remain? Why is the treatment of SSA held to such ridiculous and illogical and dramatically different standards than other areas of psychotherapy? Only because of a political agenda, it seems.
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