"reparative therapy". makes me so mad

Actually, if you explain the situation, you should be able to find a therapist who will see you for very cheap, maybe $25 a session. And EC isn't a substitute for therapy, but the peer support here, and the advisor team are all available to you to help out.

I pretty much concur that going through the reparative therapy charade is probably the most sensible choice at the moment.

Is your quack therapist reporting back to your parents? If so, is there a way you can stop that? As far as I know, it is a violation of the ethical code for a therapist to disclose any information about treatment to anyone other than the client if the client is of legal age. If no reporting of what goes on in sessions is happening, then you can use the sessions for whatever you want.

Even if reporting is happening, another route is to simply (assuming the therapist is even marginally competent in other areas) redirect all the discussion to issues that have nothing to do with your sexual orientation, and if your therapist brings it back, just keep redirecting. If s/he calls you on it, just say that these other issues are more pressing right now and it's important to you to discuss them. There isn't much a therapist can do, within ethical guidelines, if a client doesn't want to talk about a given topic. I can give you a ginormous list of topics you could talk about that might actually be helpful to you and conveniently avoid talking about how sexual orientation can('t) be reprogrammed.

I feel bad that your dad is throwing money away that could be used for a good purpose, but you might as well try and make use of it. Who knows? If the therapist has an ounce of integrity, s/he will eventually figure out you're happy and well adjusted as you are and maybe s/he will STFU about your orientation. I've seen it happen.

 

They don't have to care about it, but they care about getting their licenses revoked. So most will stay within the lines of what they can and cannot do as licensed therapists. And with the exception of one or two states, there's no provision that prohibits reparative therapy... yet... so that's allowed, but violating confidentiality, for example, would not be.

 

Unfortunately, it isn't that cut-and-dried. The APA did a very exhaustive meta-study a few years ago looking at every published study from the last 50 years on the topic. It was pretty unequivocal that reparative therapy doesn't work, and that in some cases, it can be harmful.

However, they tapdanced on the issue of whether some people might find "some benefit" in it even if it didn't actually work. This was largely a political game; they wanted to try and appease the religious bigot contingent of APA a little bit.

A couple of states (NJ and California, if memory serves) have banned it entirely for people under 18, and those bills have much stronger language that pretty much condemns it. Unfortunately, most other states have nothing in their code of ethics that specifically speaks about it, so therapists are free to screw people up.

I would suggest simply out-tapdancing him. It would be entirely appropriate and reasonable to respond to something like the above with something like

"My understanding is that therapy is not supposed to be directive, and that therapists don't have the answers. I don't agree that these issues tie back to my insecurities as a male, and as the therapy client, I'd like to focus on other causes or factors that could be contributing to this."

There isn't much he can say to that... if he has any training at all, he has to know that it is not the therapist's role to shove an ideology down a client's throat.

If you are comfortable getting slightly more confrontational, you could say "My interest and focus in therapy is on bettering myself. I am not interested in talking about sexual orientation, attraction, or anything related to that, and as the client, I get to determine what will be discussed during the therapy hour. I would like to spend this hour talking about ________________ and I would like your agreement that we can do that, that you will not attempt to bring it back around to sexuality and sexual orientation, so that I can actually get some benefit out of these sessions. It is your ethical obligation as a psychotherapist to work within the framework of the work that I want to do. Can I have your agreement on that?

Again, there isn't much he can say. He won't like it, but my guess is he'd rather collect his $100 an hour (or whatever) than tell your father you're being uncooperative.

 

Therapists who practice unethically do get their licenses revoked, and more and more reports come from other professionals -- school counselors, other therapists, social workers, CPS workers, and the like.

Most people who do reparative therapy do other types of therapy as well, and losing your license is losing your livelihood, so most therapists, reparative or otherwise, do in fact care about their licensure, at least in the US. I can't speak for the Netherlands.