Sometimes people close to us, who want our well-being and have good intentions, direct us to conversion 'treatments' without our knowledge. It is not enough that the therapist I went to has certificates and has psychological, psychiatric, or social training! Unfortunately, even people who understand the harm of the treatment use their title to perform conversion 'treatment'. So, if the good intentions of those around us are not enough and if an official certificate is also not a sufficient guarantee, what are the indications that I am in conversion treatment

First, conversion therapy is goal-oriented. In such therapy, the problem is sexual orientation and its external expression, and the goal of the therapy is to deal with them. Therefore, the first question to ask is Why am I in therapy, what is the problem I am trying to solve. If the answer is to change your sexual orientation, then you are in conversion therapy. Good therapy, even when it treats orientation as a difficulty, sets as its goal finding your peace and normal functioning. This is not cosmetic therapy in which a person removes an orientation or behavior from their path, but paving the way, together with the therapist, towards a good future for the patient. Indeed, sometimes there is tension between the patient's lifestyle and their sexual or gender orientation, but good therapy aims to bridge the tension, not to erase the patient's sexual orientation and lifestyle.

Remember! Your sexual orientation is not rebellious behavior. 'Treatment' of the tendency by methods borrowed from pathological fields (pathological treatment is treatment that deals with behavior that harms human functioning) such as addiction, a tendency to crime, or a serious disability, is not the way to work on the gap between the heart's tendency and life itself, but rather a more clever way to postpone the solution and, on the way, harm the patient, that is, you.