I notice my home city council is in the process of making so-called conversion therapy illegal. While I'm not a big supporter of such “therapeutics,” I'm radically opposed to the notion that any representative of cultural normalcy does well by intruding on the privacy of therapeutic space. Cultural norms are intimately involved as causes in the pathologies I help people heal. Solutions to these pathologies typically lie outside the norm.
Seems to me what transpires between healers and their adult clients is at best (and even by definition) a cooperation conducted in private. When people assume authority to invade that privacy (be they authoritarian family members with a religious or moral axe to grind, elected authorities whose axes are more political or social in flavor, or third party payers whose axes are generally fiscal, ) the result is a compromise of the extraordinary nature of the therapeutic space. The majority has no say in a private diad; in fact, a majority in a group of two is mathematically impossible. Authorities have no say in a private diad. Diad decisions are made through both parties to that diad reaching an agreement, reaching consensus.
Any apt therapist knows that taking on an agenda from a third party that is not principally involved in the process and subsequently inflicting that agenda upon an unwilling client is not therapy at all. I cannot see how any therapeutic good could emerge from the obviously flawed process that would ensue. This applies not only to conversion “therapy.” It applies to many more prevalent instances where for example third party payers insist on particular methods such as CBT or medical model diagnostics, spiritually based total abstinence models of recovery and the like. I’m not opposed to any of these methods or models. Where appropriate, they’re effective and good. I’m opposed to their being imposed by outside parties.
I'm saying that in therapy, the goal to work towards is properly a client's decision, meaning the client independently volunteers for it; and whether and how to join in facilitating the client’s work towards that goal is a therapist's decision. Through a process of mutual volunteering and inviting, therapist and client reach agreements that apply within their unique and extraordinary interpersonal space. In that space where there is agreement between client and therapist, therapeutic interaction is possible, growth is possible, healing is possible. Failing that agreement nothing good or therapeutic is likely, and the process is probably pointless and should probably stop.
As a therapist working with clients I have learned that it is important to accept my client's initial goals if at all possible. Even if I believe their pursuit is unlikely to succeed, the client usually needs to learn that for themselves by pursuing it. Enlightenment comes to mind: Enlightenment is a state that transcends desire, but every seeker desires it. A seeker must seek until they give up. The sutras and the Bible both tell us this story. I'm certain more immediate examples exist: How many times have you heard of a couple trying to get pregnant and failing, only to succeed after they gave up on it? Discouraging the pursuit from the outside interferes with the pursuit's coming ultimately to discourage itself. The only client goals I find impossible to agree with would be goals that by definition are dehumanizing or goals that present an immediate physical danger to clients themselves or others.
Given a therapist is professionally licensed, effective channels exist through which dissatisfied clients can seek assistance. Professional regulatory bodies come to mind. City council is not the best or most effective channel to seek redress. Making a bylaw against "Conversion Therapy" cannot constitutionally prohibit people from having a private dialogue toward its purpose. A by-law may make it unsafe to employ that specific term. People will just go ahead and call it something else. Until someone comes up with a way to define "Therapy" in a way that legally distinguishes it from talking (and no one has succeeded in doing that to date) no law that respects freedom of speech can prevent it from happening. It can't even stop unqualified self-proclaimed "professionals" from calling themselves "therapists" and describing what they do as "therapy."
Maybe that's for the best. If a reasonable person believes their own sexual preferences are not right and, driven by that belief of theirs, seeks professional help to change them, I think that's nobody's business but their own. Anyone else who either thinks that such a goal is impossible to achieve and/or that such a person does better to instead change their beliefs does well to stay in their own lane. No one who believes that a client's goals are unachievable or improper ought to be involved in a therapeutic process involving that client and those goals. Motivation aside, their intrusion into the extraordinary interpersonal space that exists between therapist and client is as inappropriate as it can possibly be. It makes no difference whether it's a parent interfering with their gay child's coming to terms with their homosexuality because they believe it to be sinful, or a well-intended politician interfering with a a client's efforts to redirect their own sexual desires because they believe it to be impossible, or an insurance company that won't support anything other than cognitive-behavioral approaches to therapeutics because they believe it is more cost effective. Whether they're trying to save a soul, or an heartfelt idea about the nature of human sexual orientation, or a buck; or even whether they are correct or incorrect in what they believe: these concerns are irrelevant unless the client shares them. They need to stay out of it; it's frankly none of their business.
In sum, any major problem with "Conversion Therapy" generally results from third parties imposing from outside methods and/or objectives upon therapists and clients. When these third parties are parents in custody of, and inflicting processes on minor child(ren) against their child(ren)'s wishes, changing the laws surrounding child custody and welfare might prove helpful, but that is beyond the reach of city council. Changing bylaws won't solve the problem.