Announcement by SIG Board
ABCT Statement about 'Conversion Therapy'
ABCT Statement about 'Conversion Therapy'
We hope you are having a great start to the summer! You may have seen that ABCT released an official statement earlier this week apologizing for the organization’s and the field of behavior therapy’s role in the development and dissemination of techniques used in sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts (commonly called ‘conversion therapies’). We are pleased to see this statement, and are grateful for the ABCT leadership’s support of its SGM members and SGM people more broadly. We are proud to be ABCT members today.
We have received some questions about how this apology came to be, and so we wanted to share with you a little bit of how our SIG has been involved. We also wanted to highlight some ways that you all can signal your support for more initiatives like this to ABCT leadership.
Some background
Jeff and Ilana were approached by ABCT leadership a few months ago about supporting a screening and panel of the new documentary Conversion, which describes past ABCT president Gerald Davison’s journey from being a conversion therapy practitioner to condemning these practices during his 1974 presidential address at convention. Our initial response was concern about elevating a conversion therapy practitioner (no matter how reformed), given how much these practices continue to harm our SIG members and community, so we asked to watch the documentary before making our decision. After watching the documentary ourselves, it became clear that it was actually the courageous efforts of a member of our own SGM community that was instrumental to these changes in our field and organization. Then-grad student and gay activist, Dr. Charles Silverstein (also featured in the documentary) spoke at the 1972 convention (50 years ago this year!) about the harm behavior therapists were doing to SGM people through ‘conversion’ practices, and this opened up a dialogue with Dr. Davison that then sparked his subsequent presidential address two years later (1974).
Based on our renewed understanding of ABCT’s role in this issue, we felt that any celebration of ABCT’s role in moving away from ‘conversion’ practices needed to first acknowledge the immense harm that our field has caused by creating these practices. Indeed, current ‘conversion therapy’ practitioners continue to reference research conducted by some of ABCT’s past presidents. Additionally, some past presidents of ABCT conducted and published conversion therapy research into the 1980s, over a decade after Silverstein’s 1972 presentation. We proposed the following to current ABCT leadership:
The results
We are so delighted that ABCT leadership elected to proceed with most of these suggestions! You can read more about their specific action plan in their statement. We are particularly pleased about the apology statement, and the disclaimers’ that will be added to any and all articles in ABCT journals that promote so-called ‘conversion therapies.’
We are also so grateful for the support of Dr. Carolyn Becker, who was our greatest ally in presenting these ideas to the leadership. She was incredibly responsive to our input, invested in the outcome, and helped shield us from negative responses to these initiatives.
*An important note about the signatories to the apology statement: We are so pleased to see so many past presidents on this list (36 out of 42 living past presidents), and to see that 6 past-presidents who have previously researched or practiced ‘conversion therapies’ signed on to the apology. This is a meaningful show of support for our community. We did, however, hear that a vocal minority threatened to remove their names from this apology if Dr. Davison was not given an award for being an ally to the SGM community. We want you to have this information so that you can make appropriate estimations of some signatories’ level of SGM allyship in case you plan to send your SGM students in their direction.
Next steps
Now that the apology and related initiatives have been announced, we invite your help spreading the word and showing your support for this statement. By doing so, we will be able to signal to the powers that be that ABCT members care about SGM issues and are invested in ABCT using its power as an organization to advocate for SGM communities. Consider:
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end of this long email, and for your interest in this initiative. We are really pleased about how this turned out, and hope that we represented our SIG well through this advocacy.
Wishing you a happy Pride month and revitalizing summer,
Ilana and Jeff
We have received some questions about how this apology came to be, and so we wanted to share with you a little bit of how our SIG has been involved. We also wanted to highlight some ways that you all can signal your support for more initiatives like this to ABCT leadership.
Some background
Jeff and Ilana were approached by ABCT leadership a few months ago about supporting a screening and panel of the new documentary Conversion, which describes past ABCT president Gerald Davison’s journey from being a conversion therapy practitioner to condemning these practices during his 1974 presidential address at convention. Our initial response was concern about elevating a conversion therapy practitioner (no matter how reformed), given how much these practices continue to harm our SIG members and community, so we asked to watch the documentary before making our decision. After watching the documentary ourselves, it became clear that it was actually the courageous efforts of a member of our own SGM community that was instrumental to these changes in our field and organization. Then-grad student and gay activist, Dr. Charles Silverstein (also featured in the documentary) spoke at the 1972 convention (50 years ago this year!) about the harm behavior therapists were doing to SGM people through ‘conversion’ practices, and this opened up a dialogue with Dr. Davison that then sparked his subsequent presidential address two years later (1974).
Based on our renewed understanding of ABCT’s role in this issue, we felt that any celebration of ABCT’s role in moving away from ‘conversion’ practices needed to first acknowledge the immense harm that our field has caused by creating these practices. Indeed, current ‘conversion therapy’ practitioners continue to reference research conducted by some of ABCT’s past presidents. Additionally, some past presidents of ABCT conducted and published conversion therapy research into the 1980s, over a decade after Silverstein’s 1972 presentation. We proposed the following to current ABCT leadership:
- An apology from ABCT for its role in the creation of behaviorally-based conversion therapies, ideally signed by (at the very least) past ABCT presidents who researched or practiced these ‘conversion’ efforts*
- A disclaimer at the top of any articles in ABCT journals (Behavior Therapy, Cognitive and Behavioral Practice, the Behavior Therapist) that promote so-called ‘conversion therapy’
- An easily accessible, clear statement against so-called ‘conversion therapies’ on the ABCT website (amazingly, we didn’t have that yet)
- Some kind of official recognition (e.g., award) of Dr. Silverstein’s enormous role in changing the field through his brave activism in the 1970s (as a gay, graduate student member no less!).
The results
We are so delighted that ABCT leadership elected to proceed with most of these suggestions! You can read more about their specific action plan in their statement. We are particularly pleased about the apology statement, and the disclaimers’ that will be added to any and all articles in ABCT journals that promote so-called ‘conversion therapies.’
We are also so grateful for the support of Dr. Carolyn Becker, who was our greatest ally in presenting these ideas to the leadership. She was incredibly responsive to our input, invested in the outcome, and helped shield us from negative responses to these initiatives.
*An important note about the signatories to the apology statement: We are so pleased to see so many past presidents on this list (36 out of 42 living past presidents), and to see that 6 past-presidents who have previously researched or practiced ‘conversion therapies’ signed on to the apology. This is a meaningful show of support for our community. We did, however, hear that a vocal minority threatened to remove their names from this apology if Dr. Davison was not given an award for being an ally to the SGM community. We want you to have this information so that you can make appropriate estimations of some signatories’ level of SGM allyship in case you plan to send your SGM students in their direction.
Next steps
Now that the apology and related initiatives have been announced, we invite your help spreading the word and showing your support for this statement. By doing so, we will be able to signal to the powers that be that ABCT members care about SGM issues and are invested in ABCT using its power as an organization to advocate for SGM communities. Consider:
- Sharing a brief statement of support on social media (Dr. Safren posted a beautiful example of this on Twitter) and tag ABCT (they’re on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram)
- Expressing your support through the ABCT listserv and/or forums
- Reaching out directly to current and/or past leaders who signed on to the apology to thank them for their support
- Sharing the statement with friends in other SIGs, the broader ABCT community, and your professional settings, so that everyone is aware of this important work.
- Attending the ABCT watch party of the Conversion documentary next Thursday (June 16, 6-8pm EDT). It will be followed by an interactive discussion with Drs. Silverstein, Davison, and the director Gregory Caruso, facilitated by Jeffand Ilana — you don't want to miss it!
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end of this long email, and for your interest in this initiative. We are really pleased about how this turned out, and hope that we represented our SIG well through this advocacy.
Wishing you a happy Pride month and revitalizing summer,
Ilana and Jeff
