THERAPY AND PROGNOSIS FOR HOMOSEXUALISM
Therapy
The incidence of homosexuality is sufficiently high that, on the basis of the simple logistics of health-care delivery, it is economically nonsensical to declare all homosexuals in need of therapy. It would be impossible to supply enough therapists or to meet the staggeringly high cost. Moreover, there is no known form of therapy that can guarantee to change or regulate homosexuality, or bisexuality or hetero-sexuality, for that matter.
Pragmatically, it makes good sense to conserve society’s therapeutic resources for those homosexuals who lack a sense of well-being in the practice of consensual homosexuality. These are the people who seek and who are able to respond to services offered. The only known effective form of therapy is some form of counseling or psychotherapy. If behavior modification therapy is used, it is preferable to use not punishment for homosexual response, but reward for heterosexual response. The reward may be a permitted homosexual encounter, but rewards are so programmed in this form of therapy as to be earned only by an ever-expanding amount of heterosexual involvement.
The goal of therapy should be defined pragmatically, not ideologically. For those homosexuals who are actually bisexual, it may be pragmatic to aim for predominant or exclusive heterosexuality. For others, the goal preferably might be to gain a sense of well-being as bisexual and for still others, a sense of well-being as homosexual.
Provided the goal of treatment is pragmatically set, the prognosis is good, as it is also for those individuals who do not require treatment.
Homosexuality is not a debilitating or life-threatening condition, except for secondary symptoms and reactions which may include even suicide and homicide. The severity of secondary symptoms decreases proportionately as family, friends, and society at large decrease their stigmatization and alienation of the homosexual.
In the course of history, homosexuality has been consistent with the highest levels of achievement and creative originality in the professions of science, art, religion, government, law, and business.
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