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Impossible to Ban: Family, Faith, and Love Continues Despite Political Agendas
Just last week I was in the “kiss and go” line, waiting to pick up my elementary-aged children from their school, when I received a phone call from an unknown caller in New York. While I don’t usually answer unidentified callers, something told me to take the call, even though I was about to welcome an SUV-load of kids in three minutes! Interestingly enough, it was a reporter from USA Today, wanting me to comment on a story that would be published a couple of days later. The title of the article: “Impossible to ban: Conversion therapy for LGBTQ Americans continues despite legislative efforts.” Progressing through the “kiss and go” line, I nodded my head to the school’s principal as he helped my kids into the vehicle, all the while talking to the reporter whose deadline was in two hours! As my kids shuffled in, I explained to the reporter that “conversion therapy” doesn’t really exist, and how the Institute for Healthy Families (IHF) promotes healthy relationships, emotional healing, parent-child connection, and family bonding for young people struggling with sexual and gender identity. Focusing on healthy relationships, I explained to the reporter, prevents harm and promotes healing while keeping families together as they learn how to love the right way! This is the core of our work! While the interview lasted only ten minutes, the reporter seemed genuinely surprised with what I had to say. He remarked in a rather shocked tone: “I have never heard anyone take the perspective (on ‘conversion therapy’) that you have described (in your work)!” One of my quotes in his story explains how IHF works ethically and sensitively to help families, and their teenage children, that are struggling with sexual and gender identity. In 2019, I published The War on Psychotherapy: When Sexual Politics, Gender Identity, and Mental Health Collide. In the 400-page book, I describe exactly how political activists have deceived the general public (and many political bodies) to brand any effort to help individuals with unwanted sexual and gender identity conflicts as harmful “conversion therapy.” Yet, when you dig a little deeper into the stories of those who claim to have been harmed, the vast majority of these individuals have never actually received any licensed counseling. . . and this recent USA Today article confirms this! The “conversion therapy survivor,” a transgender Jew, never received any therapy! Instead, he claims that his family and religious community “ostracized and demonized people like him.” |
| Parent Education and Family Healing is the Key! While political activists continue their efforts to ban so-called “conversion therapy” in cities and states across the United States, IHF is standing strong in our efforts to heal one family at a time and fulfill our mission: Restoring Hope in the Hurting Home. We know it is impossible to ban family, faith, and love! That is why the focus of our work remains on parent education and family therapy as the driving force to healing. I always tell parents when they come to me with a desire for their child to change his sexual orientation or gender identity: “If you want your child to change YOU must first change. You need to change the culture of your family!” In order to accomplish this, IHF continues to offer a year-long online class that helps empower parents by teaching them valuable skills to foster strong relationships within the family, such as unconditional love and healthy boundaries. |
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Changing the Culture of Your Family Means Walking in your Child’s Shoes. After a year where the pandemic forced us all to stay home, dozens of moms and dads traveled to rural Maryland this Autumn for our annual Key to Your Child’s Heart retreats for mothers and fathers of LGBT-identified children. One of the powerful exercises we have mothers participate in is to have them literally walk in the shoes of their child to understand what it is like to struggle with same-sex attractions or gender identity conflicts. As mom’s tearfully walk with each other on a journey of empathy, we ask them to put on heavy coats, scarves, gloves, and oversized-shoes to simulate what it must have been like for their son or daughter to awkwardly negotiate confusing homosexual feelings! Similarly, fathers are challenged to gain valuable skills to emotionally join their child, validate their feelings, and become a safe place in order to form a healthy attachment. Both mothers and fathers leave the retreat with concrete, practical tools to regain influence and rebuild a relationship with their struggling child.
Please partner with IHF to help fulfill our mission: Restoring Hope in the Hurting Home! This year, we were excited to resume all of our in-person retreats! But many of our clients and families cannot afford the full registration fee to attend. This Summer, twenty men attended our Break-Free Your Inner Child healing retreat in New Jersey, and thanks to your generous donations, we were able to provide seventy-five percent of the men with a partial scholarship! We were also blessed to give many partial scholarships to mothers and fathers who attended our Key to Your Child’s Heart retreats in Maryland this Autumn! In 2022, we hope to be able to provide even more scholarships for men, moms, and dads to attend our healing retreats. But we can’t do it without your generous support! |
| Will you partner with us to help Restore Hope in the Hurting Home?
The work of IHF can only expand with your partnership! Please help us Restore Hope in the Hurting Home by giving a generous, tax-deductible donation with the enclosed envelope!
Thank you for partnering with us, and may God bless you and your family! |
| | Christopher Doyle, MA, LPC
Executive Director & Licensed Professional Counselor Institute for Healthy Families |
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Institute for Healthy Families (IHF) specializes in counseling solutions for individuals, couples, families, therapists, and ministry leaders. IHF is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit therapeutic organization located in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. As a Judeo-Christian organization, IHF believes that the family is the foundation for healthy individuals, relationships, communities, and places of worship. While IHF is non-sectarian, we believe that God reveals His truth in both the Bible and Creation and that we can use this wisdom to help facilitate healing. IHF believes that through this synthesis of science and faith, we can help our clients form and maintain healthy families that will be able to help their children become the best versions of themselves and fulfill God’s will for their lives. For more information, visit our website at: www.InstituteforHealthyFamilies.org. |
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