Richard Cohen (psychotherapist)

Richard Cohen

Richard A. Cohen (* 1952 ) is an American former psychotherapist who, in collaboration with the non-profit International Healing Foundation he founded in 1990, carries out treatments that promise, among other things, a reorientation in the event of unwanted sexual orientation. The American Counseling Association (ACA) banned Richard Cohen from its organization indefinitely in 2003 for several violations of the Code of Ethics, and NARTH expressly distances itself from some of its therapeutic methods.

Career

After Cohen said he had changed from homosexual to heterosexual, he joined the controversial Unification Church in 1975 . After he claims to have been celibate for nearly a decade , Richard Cohen married a Korean woman, Jae Sook, in 1982. He later earned an MA in Psychology from Antioch University and a BA from Boston University . In 1995 he left the Unification Church by his own account to join the Wesleyan Christian Community Church three years later.

Cohen works and lives with his wife and three children near Washington, DC. Today he heads his foundation IHF near Washington, DC, which was founded in 1990 and which is primarily active in the field of family therapy and addiction counseling. His work as a guest lecturer and seminar leader on these topics regularly takes him to Europe and the USA.

His license as a psychotherapist was withdrawn because of multiple violations of the code of ethics .

Reorientation therapy

He calls these treatments sexual reorientation therapy. However, the therapeutic effect of measures aimed at inducing homosexual persons to become heterosexual at their own request is very controversial. Cohen claims to have gone from homosexual to heterosexual and cites his own experiences as evidence that a person's sexuality is changeable.

“I am convinced that homosexuality in no way corresponds to a person's true self, but that everyone who feels homosexual tendencies is latently heterosexual and that homosexuality is a disorder in psychosexual development. If the causes of homosexual development are understood, the emotional wounds are healed [...] and the unfulfilled needs are answered, one's own masculinity or femininity is experienced as so familiar that the erotic desires go to the opposite sex. "

- Richard Cohen : Another Coming Out , Brunnen-Verlag, Giessen 2001, p. 42

However, these methods are rejected by psychological and psychiatric professional associations because of the potential danger to patients. The question of whether homosexual orientation is genetically predisposed or not has not yet been conclusively answered. The evolutionary psychology (s. A. Jens Asendorpf , and twin study Bailey & Pillard , 1991) is currently of the opinion that a complex, varying in weight by gender and personality factors combination of genetic and environmental factors is effective.

He lists several root causes of same-sex attraction , which include origins, temperament, same-sex parent injuries, opposite-sex parent injuries, sibling injuries, family developments, sexual abuse, social injuries, and cultural injuries.

Cohen uses 22 therapeutic methods for his so-called healing process. They include family systems therapy , cognitive therapy , meditation and affirmations , healing the “inner child”, regular reports and bioenergetics . In his 16 years of experience with sexual reorientation therapy, he claims an 85 percent success rate in his patients. NARTH expressly distances itself from some of its methods.

Works

Cohen also presents his theories in books: His book Coming Out Straight , published in 2001, describes homosexuality as same-sex attachment disorder and describes the basics of reparative therapy and his theses for the cause of same-sex attraction , a model for detection this alleged misorientation as well as life reports from people who have successfully followed the path of therapy. His second book is titled Gay Children, Straight Parents: A Plan for Family Healing .

• Alfie's home. Washington, DC: International Healing Foundation, n.d. (1993), ISBN 0-9637058-0-6
• Coming Out Straight: Understanding and Healing Homosexuality , 2000, ISBN 1-886939-41-1
  German: Another Coming-Out , Brunnen-Verlag Giessen, 2nd edition 2001, ISBN 3-7655-1219-2 ; with a foreword by Markus Hoffmann from Wuestenstrom
• Gay Children, Straight Parents: A Plan for Family Healing , 2006, ISBN 0-9637058-2-2

literature

• Wayne Besen: Anything but Straight: Unmasking the Scandals and Lies behind the Ex-Gay Myth. Harrington Park Press, ISBN 1-56023-445-8

Web links

• About Richard Cohen - short autobiography on the International Healing Foundation site
• IHF website
• CNN Report of Unlicensed "Therapist" Controversial Techniques , May 24, 2006

swell

1. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from April 12, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original dated June 16, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Washington Post: A Conversion Therapist's Unusual Odyssey ,
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.