Author : Oliver Than
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3640685768
Total Pages : 29 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (46 download)
Book Synopsis Homosexuality and Pathology in the Us by : Oliver Than
Download or read book Homosexuality and Pathology in the Us written by Oliver Than and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2010-08 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1.0, University of Duisburg-Essen (Institut für Anglophone Kulturen), course: Gay, Lesbian and Queer Literature from the 19th century to the present, language: English, abstract: For almost four decades now organized mental health has declassified homosexuality as a mental illness in the United States of America. After several years of bitter dispute, the American Psychiatric Association decided to remove homosexuality as a mental disorder from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, its official list of mental diseases. Nevertheless it is remarkable that a demise of therapies designed to change homosexual orientation seems improbable at least, given that some religious political activists and marginalized health professionals are apparently seeking to reinstate the disease-model of homosexuality by presenting stories of presumably cured homosexuals to the American public. Aside the professional media, especially religious groups promoting sexual orientation change therapies recently experienced unwanted popular media coverage.The treatment of homosexualityby medical practitioners is of relatively recent origin. Before 1800, homosexuality was essentially conceived as a merely theological-moral phenomenon. From then onward however, legislative declared it a legal matter until medical professionals declared it a sickness. While at it's time of origin, the medical practitioners' concept of homosexuality as a sickness may have been a liberal and humaneadvance over the conception and punishment of homosexuality as a crime, at the latest since the post World-War II years, psychiatrists andpsychologists can be regarded among the major ideologues of homosexual oppression. Sexual conversion therapies or reparative therapies derive from this disease model portraying homosexuality as a mental disorder and a social evil. Since these terms in my opinio