Mr. Godfrey identified three key stages in therapy: education, behavioral modification, and emotiona

The NARTH Conference was held this year in Orlando, Florida, on November 2-3 at the Renaissance Orlando Hotel. The conference theme was entitled " ProtectingSelf-Determination: The 20-year Legacy of NARTH."
There were 25 presentations and two keynote addresses. The first keynote address was given by Matthew Staver, J.D.., the Dean of Liberty University Law School and the President of Liberty Counsel, a charitable legal organization which is representing NARTH and several other plaintiffs in the challenge to California's new law (SB-1172) prohibiting reorientation therapy with minors. The second keynote address was given by Paul Copan, Ph.D. of Palm Beach Atlantic University.
Mr. Staver, founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel spoke on "Critical Threats to Change Therapy and Christian city of los angeles housing department code enforcement Counseling." California Senate Bill 1172 prohibits any counseling for under-18 clients designed to reduce or eliminate same-sex attraction. "Such broad language will prohibit any counseling that does not encourage experimentation with or acceptance of same-sex attractions, regardless of whether those feelings and attractions are unwanted by the counselee," Mr. Staver said.  "This law places the state between the client and the counselor.   It intrudes on a client's fundamental right of self-determination to seek counseling that aligns with his religious and moral values. The law also forces counselors to overrule the will of their clients who choose to prioritize their religious or moral values above their sexual feelings." The counselor will, therefore, be forced to disregard the client's religious beliefs or else encourage the minor client to change them.
"This law and the ethical codes of all of the licensing boards are, however, on an inevitable collision course," Mr. Staver told the audience.  "If counselors obey the law and refuse to help their clients with unwanted homosexuality, they will violate existing mental-health ethical codes because they will be forced to contradict their clients' right to self-determination. On the other hand, if counselors violate the law and do provide counsel (or even referral) to the client seeking city of los angeles housing department code enforcement to diminish or manage his same-sex sexual attractions, they will be in violation of SB-1172." Counselors will therefore be "damned if they do, and damned if they don't."   "Minor clients will suffer irreparable harm," Mr. Staver said, "because they will no longer be able to receive the kind of counseling which they have chosen" and which has been demonstrated city of los angeles housing department code enforcement to helped others, including some of the same plaintiffs who are now challenging the law. "The licenses city of los angeles housing department code enforcement of countless mental-health professionals hang in the balance with the outcome of this legal appeal," city of los angeles housing department code enforcement he added.
The second keynote address featured noted philosopher city of los angeles housing department code enforcement and ethicist Paul Copan, Ph.D., city of los angeles housing department code enforcement who has written more than twenty academic city of los angeles housing department code enforcement books. He spoke on "Truth, Freedom, and Social Constructions: Why Truth-Seeking city of los angeles housing department code enforcement Ought to Guide Scientific city of los angeles housing department code enforcement Research." Dr. Copan told his audience that political considerations now drive much of what is published (or even investigated) by our once-reliable social-science institutions.  Research has become skewed, unscientific, and propagandistic, in part because scientists often fail to define their operational terms and explain their underlying assumptions and worldviews. Researchers ought to have freedom city of los angeles housing department code enforcement to investigate subjects and publish research in the pursuit of truth that is, in the search for what corresponds to reality. This, he said, should be considered commonsensical and self-evident.
"Today the authority of science is somehow taken for granted," he said, "yet we find that the pursuit of scientific truth is being suppressed in the name of science by ideologues who don't like the direction or outcomes of research projects that disagree with their own agendas. Our culture hails the courage of a Galileo or an Einstein who stick their necks out in the name of science, challenging the status quo. Yet when it comes to the question of homosexuality, many within the scientific community
are suppressing or ignoring relevant scientific findings. This isn't to say we don't have our own individual biases or perspectives. But when these override research pursuits and their verifiable results, this becomes an ideology that refuses to change, no matter what the evidence may show. And thus science city of los angeles housing department code enforcement becomes city of los angeles housing department code enforcement corrupted."
In another presentation, accompanied by high-tech visuals, David Pickup, M.A., M.F.T. offered a well-attended workshop entitled, "Therapeutic Threats to Self-Determination: Seven Therapeutic Mistakes Made in SOCE."  Mr. Pickup was able to provoke and engage his audience by challenging many of the assumptions made by uninformed psychotherapists who are relatively new to SOCE.  Most of these errors, Mr. Pickup city of los angeles housing department code enforcement emphasized, are made by well- intended psychotherapists and they include the following: misunderstanding the nature of homosexuality, over-religiosity introduced into the counseling city of los angeles housing department code enforcement process, counter-transference problems, and  lack of technical training.
Mr. Pickup offered a second presentation entitled, "Sexual-Orientation Change Efforts, Seen through the Lens of Pastoral and Parental Care." city of los angeles housing department code enforcement He discussed ways to overcome the client's basic resistance to discussing the issue; counteracting his irrational fears; city of los angeles housing department code enforcement and correcting simple misinformation and misunderstandings.  He then noted the importance of following correct spiritual principles and developing attitudes of patience and forgiveness. city of los angeles housing department code enforcement He discussed city of los angeles housing department code enforcement the common developmental patterns of homosexuality in males, including a history of shame-based experiences, unmet emotional needs such as lack of male approval, and defensive detachment from males starting in the early developmental years. city of los angeles housing department code enforcement He then spoke of the process city of los angeles housing department code enforcement of working through these issues to dissipate the shame and begin to see oneself as equal to other men.  He gave many practical suggestions city of los angeles housing department code enforcement about how others city of los angeles housing department code enforcement can support a struggler.  Social support was noted as valuable, as well as helping the client to see the opposite sex in a new light. He noted that the client's shame, judgmental attitudes toward himself, and failure to assume personal responsibility are often barriers to growth.   Establishing healthy boundaries with family, church city of los angeles housing department code enforcement and friends city of los angeles housing department code enforcement is also a pivotal area of growth. The therapist should consider conducting informative workshop, he said, to appropriate professionals within the church.
Becky Dymond, MS, LMHC presented a speech entitled "Understanding and Assisting SSA Women."  She utilized city of los angeles housing department code enforcement a PowerPoint presentation on the building blocks of SSA for women, referencing Janelle Hallman's city of los angeles housing department code enforcement book, The Heart of Female Same-Sex Attraction . She also drew upon her own personal experience of coming out of SSA. The presentation focused city of los angeles housing department code enforcement on unmet developmental needs, especially parent-child wounds. She cited possible precursors to female city of los angeles housing department code enforcement SSA as the same-sex parent being perceived by the daughter as either "unavailable" or "unsafe" city of los angeles housing department code enforcement as an identification object, as well as the emotional damage following city of los angeles housing department code enforcement early experiences of molestation. city of los angeles housing department code enforcement Other issues included boundary problems, emotional city of los angeles housing department code enforcement dependency, and irrational beliefs. Following the presentation she answered questions, mainly from family members city of los angeles housing department code enforcement dealing with daughters city of los angeles housing department code enforcement or spouses with SSA.
Floyd Godfrey, LPC conducted NARTH's annual half-day workshop for students and therapists who are new to working with SSA clients. Mr. Godfrey presented some guidelines for setting up a clinical city of los angeles housing department code enforcement practice. This was followed by an overview of the development city of los angeles housing department code enforcement of SSA, with an emphasis on working with adolescents. In addition to presenting the classic factors in the development of SSA, such as parental relationship problems, detachment from peers, and self-esteem deficits, Mr. Godfrey discussed his clients' sense of touch deprivation, their misperceptions about abnormal and normal adolescent feelings, city of los angeles housing department code enforcement and their emotional preoccupations.
Mr. Godfrey identified three key stages in therapy: education, behavioral modification, and emotional processing. Recommendations for successful recovery were offered including addressing addictions, developing city of los angeles housing department code enforcement endurance, avoiding SSA cliques, correcting motivations, and eliminating isolation. He also introduced his newly published workbook, A Young Man's Journey: Healing for Young Men with Unwanted Homosexual Feelings (2012), as an adjunct to therapy. He suggested that the book can function both as a workbook for the adolescent male client, and as a treatment planner for clinicians.
Norman Goldwasser, Ph.D. presented a cognitive/behavioral approach to the treatment of SSA along with the use of EMDR Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing) with clients who have trauma histories. Trauma experiences city of los angeles housing department code enforcement can often derail normal psychosocial/psychosexual development and sexual-identity formation, he explained, which at times can result in homosexual arousal patterns and same-sex attractions. Molestation can alter arousal patterns by creating an association with the original stimulus that results in addictive behavioral responses. Research indicates that at least one-third of the homosexual population has experienced sexual abuse as a minor.
In therapy, by identifying full trauma histories in a chronological fashion, the client can take ownership of the narratives he has developed to explain what happened city of los angeles housing department code enforcement to him, including all of the negative self- and other valuations which drive these patterns. city of los angeles housing department code enforcement He evaluates which are the primary self-destructive schemas which govern his thinking/feeling/behaviors and keep him away from paying attention to and internalizing subsequent life experiences. city of los angeles housing department code enforcement This helps the client make the choice to be governed less by the power of the past childhood schemas, and more by his present adult experience.
By placing these schemas, especially the preverbal ones, into an EMDR protocol as the Negative Cognitions, their power is reduced and the client develops the habit of reality testing in order to gr