Aversion therapy in conversion practices

Domain XVI · Historical, discredited & harmful · Kurt Freund · 1950 · Czechoslovakia and Britain

What it is

What it was. From the 1950s to the 1970s, clinicians in several countries used aversion therapy (pairing same-sex attraction with an unpleasant stimulus, most often electric shock or induced nausea) in an attempt to change gay men's, and some women's, sexual orientation. Wellcome Collection…

Format

• Phases of the psychotherapist's work; session number and length follow the client's needs and the setting:
• Recognition and assessment. Goal: learn whether the client was subjected to (or is drawn to, or administered) aversion treatment, in what setting and under what coercion; assess current risk. Format: individual sessions, paced by the client. Move on when risk is assessed and a safety plan exists…

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Advocacy, redress and follow-up. Goal: support any wish to testify, complain, seek redress, join oral-history or survivor work, or reconnect with community; agree follow-up. End by the client's choice, with the door left open.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Czechoslovakia, 1950s. Psychiatrist Kurt Freund used aversion-based treatment with gay men who sought it; he also developed a physiological measure of arousal that the army used to screen conscription cases. Finding that treatment failed, he abandoned the idea that sexual preference could be…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• distrust of any official body; working: the client separates their worth from the institution's verdict.
• secrecy, injuries, escalating self-punishment; working: the client stops and engages with the underlying conflict.
• any suggestion that the work aims at a particular sexual outcome (avoid it); working: less fear and avoidance, more choice.
• retraumatisation, dropout after early sessions; slow down, return to stabilisation. Working: fewer intrusions and less avoidance.
• blame turning into rupture within the family; safeguarding concerns about a child (4.15). Working: the family can speak about it.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.