Our Values
Our primary goal is to provide clients with a safe and caring environment, free from pressure to conform to political ideologies or religious indoctrination.
The client’s right to determine their own life choices are central to our approach, as we seek to offer people a place where they can explore their feelings and determine how they want to live their lives.
Below are our core guidelines for practitioners operating in this area.
Attitudes Toward Clients in Counselling or Therapy
Guideline 1. Practitioners are encouraged to respect the dignity and self-determination of all their clients and to respect their choices.
Guideline 2. Practitioners are encouraged to recognize the complexity and limitations in understanding the etiology of unwanted sexual behaviours, attractions, and patterns.
Guideline 3. Practitioners are encouraged to understand how their values, attitudes and knowledge about identity and sexuality affect their assessment of and intervention with clients who present with unwanted attractions and behaviors.
Guideline 4. Practitioners are encouraged to respect the value of clients’ religious faith and refrain from making disparaging assumptions about their motivations for pursuing change-oriented interventions.
Guideline 5. At the outset of support or treatment, practitioners are encouraged to provide clients with information on change-oriented processes and intervention outcomes that is both accurate and sufficient for informed consent.
Guideline 6. Practitioners are encouraged to consider and understand the pressures from culture, religion, and family that are confronted by clients who struggle with unwanted sexual attractions or want to explore their identity.
Guideline 7. Practitioners are encouraged to recognize the special difficulties and risks that exist for youth who experience unwanted sexual feelings including same-sex attractions. They should also appreciate the greater fluidity of sexual orientation and identity that appears to exist among young people.
Treatment and Support Considerations for Therapists
Guideline 8. Practitioners are encouraged to utilize accepted psychological approaches to therapeutic interventions.
Guideline 9. Practitioners are encouraged to be knowledgeable about the psychological and behavioral conditions that often accompany gender identity problems and unwanted relational or sexual behaviours, attractions and patterns.
Guideline 10. Practitioners are encouraged to offer or refer clients for relevant treatment services to help them manage their issues.
Continuing Education
Guideline 11. Practitioners are encouraged to make reasonable efforts to familiarize themselves with relevant medical, mental health, spiritual, and religious resources that can support clients in their pursuit of change.
Guideline 12. Practitioners are encouraged to increase their knowledge and understanding of the literature relevant to clients who seek change, and to seek continuing education, training, supervision, and consultation that will improve their work in this area.
These above guidelines were adapted from the NARTH Institute Guidelines:
Practice Guidelines for the Treatment of Unwanted Same-Sex Attractions and Behavior (2008). www.scribd.com/doc/115508811/NARTH-Institute-Practice-Guidelines
