Filenews 5 June 2022 - by Marios Demetriou
"So-called conversion therapies are nothing more than mental surgeries that take away vital parts of yourself and are carried out by people we consider to be scientists, experts or people of... God upon whom we project wisdom that... they don't have!" said in an interview with "F" the psychoanalytic psychotherapist Sotos Michael, president of the Pancyprian Association of Psychotherapists (PSPSTH).
The reason for the interview is the submission to Parliament of a law proposal by AKEL MP George Koukoumas in January 2022 for the criminalization of "conversion therapies" against LGBTQI people. The proposal provides for the addition of a new article in the Penal Code under which "the implementation of any such 'treatment' will be punishable by a prison sentence of up to 2 years. The sentence will be up to 3 years when it applies "to a minor or a person who is in a vulnerable position due to illness, disability, mental state or a relationship of dependence or influence", but also when a person refers to such a practice by another person of whom he exercises legal guardianship".
The issue was discussed in two sessions at the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs in March and May 2022, where it was made clear that "conversion therapies" are characterized by the UN as torture and are the various practices, techniques and pseudotherapies (from psychotherapies and medication to physical violence and psychological coercion) aimed at changing sexual orientation, of a person's gender identity or gender expression. Such practices can be carried out from health professionals to priests and usually have children or adolescents as victims," the explanatory note to the proposal states, the discussion of which will continue at subsequent meetings of the Committee of Jurists. During the two sessions there were complaints that parents send their children to psychiatrists from whom they ask to "change" their sexual orientation, that priests even make... exorcisms or advise LGBTQ+ people to do hormone therapies and that some young people have made suicide attempts because of the pressure exerted on them by their immediate environment to... correct their sexual preference.
-I am aware, Mr. Michael, that the Pancyprian Association of Psychotherapists in a memorandum to the Committee of Lawyers of the Parliament characterizes the practice of "conversion therapies" as abusive, immoral and harmful and agrees with its criminalization. How do you see the problem?
-The problem in its geometry is no different from the many problems of people who come to psychotherapy. In other words, they are forced to be something other than they are.
-Others create the problems they come to solve through psychotherapy?
-Exactly. The issue is the projection of internal disorders of parents, to the child. In Cyprus we have a situation where many young people grow up with the "should" to do this or the other, regardless of what they themselves want to do. There is the opinion of the parents that something wrong is happening with their baby and they go to find the so-called specialist to correct it. It is important for clients to hear from the psychotherapist that they are not to blame for anything, since they usually grow up with the feeling that they are problematic, exaggerated in their needs and desires and unacceptable. Yes, our theme in the more general context is the oppression and rejection of who is the child. If we concentrate on the specific issue that has to do with the most important self of the person, his sexual preference and the orientation of his gender, we see the parent wanting to impose another form of sexuality and racial identification that is not the child's desire, but is the desire of the parent. In the last 50 years, many young people have left abroad in their desire to find an environment where they are more acceptable for their sexual identity, since in Cyprus they experienced only rejection and mockery.
-Do you think that every young parent today should have the issues of sexuality and gender cleared in them?
-"He needs to have his own internal dialogue and at least recognize that he needs to solve some of his own unresolved issues in order to properly address the possibility that his son is gay or his lesbian daughter. From my own experience there are signs from early on which were ignored. The child growing up feels what will be and what will not be acceptable to the parents. It can be said that it is usually expressed in adolescence, but when people come to psychotherapy, they will say that they have always felt that they are different – since they were young children. In adolescence, sexual desires begin to be expressed more strongly than in the previous period of life, and sexual orientation begins to take shape. There are also the physical changes, the effect of hormones that begin to fall on you like atomic bombs and "shout" that you are ready for the next phase, sexual intercourse. Which is not differentiated from love, but is the realization of the desire for intimacy and for a two-way love and care."
Steps forward and back
-On a social level the issues of sexuality and its expression have now improved haven't they?
-"To a large extent yes. In a group of men and women you can now see straight people, gays and lesbians, and there is no question. It is now natural and acceptable for my 40-year-old daughter to talk to her friends about her husband and for the girl next to her to talk about her partner. And that's very encouraging. There are certain things that we who grew up in... primitive situations can never be completely overcome. We internalized them within ourselves and we can only have a dialogue with them. Let me give you an example. When my two daughters were growing up in London, they decided to invite a new friend of theirs from primary school to the house. The bell rang, I opened the door and saw a small black face facing me. And I was in shock... I asked them why they didn't tell me that their girlfriend is black... For them it was nothing special, but I had to get used to it and manage my own "primitiveness" that still existed in me after so many years of psychotherapy..."
ACHIEVEMENT THE DIALOGUE
-Despite all the improvement of course, we also have the "conversion therapies". That is, as a society, are we taking steps forward and other steps back?
-In personal therapy this is how it is done – you can go three steps forward and five steps back... and you go back to go forward again... The same with collective evolution, we need to go back in order to move forward, since in order to move forward we need to better understand what happened back. It is a dynamic process with constant returns and repetitions.
-So it's time to have this debate in the House on "conversion therapies?"
-It is an achievement of all this dialogue in the House because it is part of the moment that came to manage this issue in a more comprehensive legislative way.
