Ghalia T.

Mahran
November 21, 2021
Dr. J. Crockett & Ms. A. Jolley-Paige
CNS 780: Prof. Ethical, & Legal Issues in Counseling

According to AMHCA (American Mental Health Counselor’s Association) and

counseling.org, conversion therapy is only fully banned in 19 states, even though the practice of

conversion therapy directly goes against the ACA Code of Ethics. When I lived in North

Carolina last year, I was shocked to see that North Carolina is one of the states that doesn’t have

conversion therapy fully banned in the legislature. If I were to write to a state representative I

would talk about and link the various resources and studies that show how damaging conversion

therapy is, along with how it exponentially can increase suicide risk or cause someone who was

not previously suicidal to become suicidal. I would argue that it also puts counselors in a catch-

22 situation. If a counselor was thinking they were meaning well because of their strong religious

beliefs and an LGBTQ person willingly asks the counselor for conversion therapy in a state

where it is legal, the counselor might agree to this, thinking they are doing good rather than harm

and genuinely trying to help. However, according to the ACA Code of Ethics this is unethical,

but according to certain state laws, it is completely legal. Obviously, the counselor should abide

by the ACA code of ethics in this case because it’s not like NC state law requires counselors to

perform conversion therapy, however, this is an extremely simple conundrum to fix, and it

should simply not exist. I am not insinuating that counselors should base their morality and

therapy off of their religion, but we are all human, we all have biases, and conflicting laws/codes

of ethics’ like these can make these moral questions all the more difficult to tackle when they

should simply be uniform. It is illogical and senseless that in 2021 conversion therapy isn’t

illegal in all 50 states, as it can be a lose-lose situation for both counselor and client, and in far

too many cases causes the client to become suicidal and/or take their own life.
 I feel very strongly about this for several reasons. As I mentioned earlier, it is a lose-lose

situation and certainly causes more harm than good overall. It causes many LGBTQ people to

take their own lives, suffer immense mental distress, or become suicidal and physically/mentally

unhealthy. Lastly, these conversion therapy laws that directly conflict with the ACA Code of

Ethics paints a dehumanizing picture of the LGBTQ community and says to them that their lives

do not matter. This is the picture that is painted because no matter how many counselors, studies,

articles published, and people from the LGBTQ community who take their lives, or advocate for

why conversion therapy is fatally harmful, the state legislature remains unchanged. I also find

this to be incredibly disrespectful towards the entire practice of counseling, the ACA code of

ethics, and anything that falls under the umbrella of psychology/counseling. It would be like a

counselor becoming a state official and making new laws about economics despite their being no

shortage of actual financial advisers, bankers, investors etc.

The process I would use to create change in this area would be to contact state

representatives outlining everything I have mentioned here, create rallies, and informational

brochures highlighting the dangers of conversion therapy. I would also create a safe space for

people from the LGBTQ community who have or have not experienced conversion therapy and

are struggling.