What Conversion Therapy Survivors Need to Heal and Move Forward

Nov 11

For many LGBTQIA+ people, “conversion therapy” wasn’t therapy at all—it was a betrayal of trust. Globally, roughly 2–10% of LGBTQIA+ people report exposure to conversion or “change” efforts—with higher rates of exposure among trans and gender-diverse individuals.

“Conversion therapy” is any practice, treatment, or service designed to change, deny, or suppress a person’s felt sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, whether in healthcare, religious, family, or other settings. It also goes by softer-sounding names that obscure its coercive intent—terms like “reparative therapy,” “deliverance prayer,” “inner healing,” “biblical counseling,” “mentorship/accountability,” or “pastoral care,” even when the goal is still to suppress or change identity. Survivors describe conversion attempts as a form of psychological and spiritual abuse that left deep wounds long after the sessions, prayers, or programs ended. Over the past two decades, research from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. has helped clarify what survivors need to recover and rebuild their lives.

As both a survivor of conversion therapy and board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner, I believe healing after conversion practices requires both compassion and precision. Here’s what the evidence—and survivors themselves—tell us helps.

1. Affirming Connection Heals What Isolation Created

Across studies, survivors describe a long process of re-learning trust and belonging. Many had been told that love was conditional, or that affirmation would “enable sin.” Healing begins in spaces that affirm both identity and humanity.

Survivors in Dromer et al., 2022 and Jones et al., 2022 emphasized the importance of LGBTQ-affirming community, whether through peer groups, affirming faith circles, or safe therapy relationships.
Connection isn’t a luxury—it’s the antidote to shame. Survivors said that feeling seen and named accurately for the first time was “as powerful as the original trauma, but in reverse.”

2. Safety and Autonomy Must Come First

Conversion experiences often involved coercion—subtle or overt. Even when people “chose” to participate, that choice was shaped by intense pressure, family or church expectations, and fear of rejection.
To heal, survivors need control restored to them:

The right to define what healing means.
The right to pause or decline spiritual or therapeutic content.
The right to rebuild belief systems on their own terms.

As Jones et al., 2022 found, autonomy is central: recovery succeeds when therapists avoid replacing one ideology with another. The goal isn’t to “deconvert” from faith—it’s to reclaim ownership of one’s story.

3. Specialized, Trauma-Informed Therapy Helps Undo Internalized Harm

Therapists often underestimate how deep conversion experiences go. Survivors may carry complex trauma, moral injury, and physiological stress patterns similar to those seen in survivors of chronic abuse.

Effective therapy integrates:

IFS, EMDR, and somatic approaches to help regulate a body that learned to fear its own impulses.
Narrative and meaning-making work that honors both loss and resilience.
Religious trauma literacy—understanding that faith and harm can coexist in memory.

Research by Dromer et al. and the Community-Based Research Centre (2024) found that affirming therapy reduced suicidality and self-harm, helping survivors “replace the voice of condemnation with compassion.”

4. Time—and Permission—to Reconcile Faith and Identity

Many survivors still value spirituality. For them, rejecting religion entirely can feel like another forced choice.
Healing often involves integrating faith and identity, not discarding either.

Studies from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand (Jennings 2018; Roguski & Atwool 2024) show that survivors who found inclusive or queer-affirming faith communities experienced significant psychological relief and renewed purpose.
Clinicians can support this by exploring how clients’ spiritual needs can coexist with authenticity and safety.

5. Community and Policy Support Matter as Much as Therapy

Individual recovery happens within systems. Survivors benefit when laws, clinicians, and communities affirm that what happened to them was wrong.
Recent national studies—from the U.K. GEO (2020) to Canada’s Bill C-4 review (2024)—highlight the same themes:

Access to low-barrier mental health care that understands SOGICE trauma.
Peer-led and survivor-informed programs that rebuild trust.
Education for healthcare, faith, and community leaders so survivors aren’t retraumatized when seeking help.

When society names these practices as spiritual and psychological abuse, survivors can finally stop questioning whether they were the problem.

6. Healing Is Not Linear—It’s Reclamation

Every survivor’s path is different. Some move from grief to anger to peace. Others return to faith in new ways, or focus on advocacy, art, or rest.
The shared thread is reclamation—of body, voice, and self-definition.

“I stopped trying to become someone else,” one participant said in the Canadian study.
“I started becoming whole.”

Moving Forward

Healing from conversion therapy isn’t about erasing the past. It’s about reclaiming the right to exist fully—emotionally, spiritually, and bodily.
If you or someone you know is healing from conversion experiences, know that support exists. Trauma-informed, affirming therapy works. So does community, connection, and time.

At Leaf Psychiatry, our commitment is to provide care that never asks anyone to choose between their identity and their belonging.

If you’re a survivor seeking support:
You can reach out confidentially through our TherapyPortal, or explore national resources like the Trevor Project, Rainbow Health Ontario, or Brave Network Australia for affirming peer support.

Carter Doyle, MSN, PMHNP-BC, is a board-certified psychiatric nurse practitioner and survivor of conversion practices who provides affirming, trauma-informed care at Leaf Psychiatry in Ann Arbor/Canton, MI. Trained in IFS (Level 1 & 2) and EMDR, Carter integrates evidence-based psychotherapy with medication management and advanced interventions to help patients heal without having to choose between identity and belonging.

References

Blosnich, J. R., Henderson, E. R., Coulter, R. W. S., & Goldbach, J. T. (2020). Sexual orientation change efforts, adverse childhood experiences, and suicide ideation and attempt among sexual minority adults, United States, 2016–2018. American Journal of Public Health, 110(7), 1024–1030. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305637

Community-Based Research Centre. (2024). Understanding experiences of conversion “therapy” among Black, Indigenous, immigrant, newcomer, and refugee 2SLGBTQIA+ people in Canada. Department of Justice Canada. https://www.justice.gc.ca

Dromer, C., Salway, T., & Ferlatte, O. (2022). Overcoming conversion therapy: A qualitative investigation of experiences of survivors. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 858347. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.858347

Fenaughty, J., Tan, K., Ker, A., Veale, J., Saxton, P., & Alansari, M. (2023). Sexual orientation and gender identity change efforts for young people in New Zealand: Demographics, suggesters, and mental health associations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 52(1), 149–164. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-022-01693-3

Jennings, M. (2018). Impossible subjects: LGBTIQ experiences in Australian Pentecostal-charismatic churches. Culture and Religion, 19(5), 445–463. https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2018.1519057

Jones, A., Cook, D., & White, S. (2022). Supporting LGBTQA+ peoples’ recovery from sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts. Sexualities, 25(8), 1025–1043. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607221108691

Roguski, M., & Atwool, N. (2024). Conversion practices in Aotearoa New Zealand: Developing a holistic response to spiritual abuse. PLOS ONE, 19(5), e0302163. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0302163

Salway, T., Taylor, C., Dromer, C., Ferlatte, O., & Gesink, D. (2021). “Conversion therapy” experiences in their social contexts: A qualitative study of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression change efforts in Canada. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 66(7), 648–657. https://doi.org/10.1177/07067437211030498

Shidlo, A., & Schroeder, M. (2002). Changing sexual orientation: A consumer’s report. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 33(3), 249–259. https://doi.org/10.1037/0735-7028.33.3.249

U.K. Government Equalities Office. (2021). Conversion therapy: An evidence assessment and qualitative study.Government Equalities Office, London, UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications

Weiss, J., Morehouse, E., Yeager, C., & Jones, S. (2010). A qualitative study of ex-gay and ex-ex-gay experiences: Narratives of identity development. Journal of Homosexuality, 57(6), 730–764. https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2010.485879