Sex and Meaning

Summary: On CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, correspondent Deborah Feyerick outlined Parents & Friends of Ex-gays & Gays (PFOX) president Richard Cohen’s efforts to promote a conversion therapy that purportedly “cures” homosexuality. But while noting that Cohen is an “unlicensed therapist,” that conversion therapy is deemed “dangerous,” and that a person counseled by Cohen said he was driven “to the edge of suicide” by the counseling, Feyerick failed to mention that Cohen was “expelled from the American Counseling Association (ACA) for multiple ethical violations,” as The Washington Post has reported.

In a report on the May 23 edition of CNN’s Paula Zahn Now, CNN correspondent Deborah Feyerick outlined Parents & Friends of Ex-gays & Gays (PFOX) president Richard Cohen’s efforts to promote a conversion therapy that purportedly “cures” homosexuality. Feyerick reported on Cohen’s work with a man who, after being counseled by Cohen to give up homosexuality, “seems to have found his own inner peace.” But while noting that Cohen is an “unlicensed therapist,” that conversion therapy is deemed “dangerous” by Dr. Jack Drescher, a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and that another person counseled by Cohen said he was driven “to the edge of suicide” by the counseling, Feyerick failed to mention that Cohen was “expelled from the American Counseling Association (ACA) for multiple ethical violations,” as The Washington Post has reported.

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An interesting piece of information omitted from broadcast. The resurgence of interest in so-called Conversion Therapy is a troubling one. Hopefully the lack of empirical research in support of the claims of the success of Conversion Therapy will come to light. Unfortunately, the media often times focuses more on the scintillating aspects of various topics versus actually educating the population.