British Psychotherapist Claims Homosexuality Can Be Cured: “Nobody Is Born Gay. It Is Environmental; It Is In The Upbringing”

The Sunday Telegraph on 60 year old Lesley Pilkington, a psychotherapist for 20 years, who stands to lose her accreditation to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy after treating a patient who told her he wanted to be cured of his homosexuality. That patient was in fact Patrick Strudwick, a prominent gay rights activist and journalist, who secretly recorded two sessions with Mrs. Pilkington before reporting her to the BACP. On that tape, Strudwick asks if Pilkington believes homosexuality to be “a mental disorder, an addiction, or an antireligious phenomenon” to which she answers “It is all of that.” She says that the method of therapy practiced – Sexual Orientation Change Efforts – is legitimate and effective. She says that she was motivated to employ that reparative therapy because of her son, who is gay, although Pilkington says “He is heterosexual. He just has a homosexual problem.” She estimates that in the past decade, she has offered the SOCE method to an estimated one patient per year, the treatment generally lasting about a year. “We don’t use the word ‘cure’ because it makes it (homosexuality) sound like a disease. We are helping people move out of that lifestyle because they are depressed and unhappy. We say everybody is heterosexual but some people have a homosexual problem. Nobody is born gay. it is environmental; it is in the upbringing.” She explains that the SOCE method involves behavioural, psychoanalytical, and religious techniques, and that homosexual men are sent on weekends with heterosexual men to “encourage their masculinity” and “in time to develop healthy relationships with women.” Pilkington adds that she became involved “in this lifestyle treatment” because of her son and that “I am not in this because I am judging people. I am in it because I understand what the issues are. I have been able to help my son. We have gone through a process in my family. I want to help others who are in a similar place. [My son] is still gay ... we are developing a relationship that was quite difficult for many years but is now coming back in a very nice way. I am confident he will come through this and he will resolve his issues and that he will change.”