Mental health bodies warn of 'horrendous effects' of conversion therapy on people

Dr Lorcan Martin, president of the College of Psychiatrists of Ireland: Conversion therapy 'is still going on and still causing harm to people'.

Three Irish healthcare bodies have signed an agreement renouncing conversion therapy as harmful and not supported by evidence, while warning of "horrendous effects" on people, at an event at Trinity College Dublin.

Conversion therapy is an umbrella term for therapies which assume some sexual orientations or gender identities are inferior to others and try to change or suppress them.

The College of Psychiatrists of Ireland (CPI), Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday in Dublin.

Other organisations have now been invited to also sign up.

Dr Lorcan Martin, president of the CPI and a consultant in general adult psychiatry, said: “It’s not that it’s very common, but it is widespread and still happening in the country.” 

There has been an assumption conversion therapy has died out, but Dr Martin said "it is still going on and still causing harm to people".

Patients who attend these sessions are “generally quite vulnerable and unsure of themselves” he said. They could be pressured by family or peers to attend.

“Oftentimes the damage is quite significant,” he warned.

However this is not illegal, and he would like to see legislation on this to follow the memorandum signing.

“All members of the three organisations will agree not to engage in it or promote it and will discourage it every chance they get,” he said.

PSI representative and senior clinical psychologist in adult mental health Dr Ger McNamara agreed it was still happening here. 

“If we think about the person who’s sitting in a chair being told who they are or how they identify is wrong, then that’s just horrendous, it’s not right,” she said.

Research, including a Trinity College Dublin study published just last year, has shown “this is actually quite harmful to people”, Dr McNamara said. 

She added: “I work with a person myself who said it brought him to the brink of suicide and he did in fact end up an in-patient.

“What saved his life, and this was only in the 90s, was a psychiatric nurse who told him it was okay to be gay.” 

She echoed Dr Martin’s view legislation to make this practice illegal was the next step.

Equality Minister Roderic O' Gorman also attended the event, hosted by TCD.