Piers Morgan Tears Into Him For Leaving Gay Lifestyle: Dr. Mike Davidson Testimony

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Hey guys, welcome to the show, today I have a special guest, Dr. Michael Davidson.

He has an amazing story, he's coming to us from the UK and he was same-sex attracted,

but then ended up getting married to a woman and had two kids.

He later got a degree in psychotherapy to help people with this same-sex attraction and

he appeared on the BBC and peers Morgan and was basically cancelled in the UK completely.

And so we're going to talk about that and also what he's doing now and how he's helping

tons of people in the UK, but first a word from our sponsor.

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it today.

Please welcome Dr. Michael Davidson.

Thank you, Beckett.

Very good to meet you.

It's always enjoyed your work.

Oh, good.

I'm glad it's good to meet you and you are in Belfast right now and what before we get

to the Belfast, okay, so you were born in Zambia, raised in Zimbabwe and then you spent

some time in New Zealand.

So what's going on?

Or your parents' missionaries, like what's happening?

No, my mother was from Yorkshire and after World War II went out to Africa.

I think she was looking for a different kind of life and that's where she met my father

who was coming out of the army.

He'd been in Italy during the war and they married in Northern Rhodesia and that's where

I was born just near Victoria Falls.

Later on they emigrated to southern Rhodesia as it was then but now Zimbabwe and that's

where I did most of my schooling.

Then they emigrated to New Zealand in the 60s and I stayed in New Zealand with them for

a while, went to school there, then they decided they missed Africa too much.

So they went back.

I can go on.

Okay, so what is your accent?

Your accent kind of sounds kiwi but it also sounds sort of South African but it also

sounds British.

So what is your accent?

Confused.

That's right, I've lived in New Zealand and I actually went to college in Nashville, Tennessee

and Kansas City, Missouri for a while.

I married a South African and I live in Ireland so your guess is mine.

Well, it's a great balance.

It's a great balance.

So what was it like growing up in Africa?

Did you enjoy that or was it, what did you feel about that?

Well, I loved Africa and I loved the warmth of the sun but all the children's books that

I read and all the things that interested me came from overseas.

So I had this kind of UK orientation in terms of everything that I read.

So I guess there was a natural gravitation towards the UK.

My father's parents were from Scotland and from Ireland and my mother's parents were

from Yorkshire.

So there's always been that orientation and I note when I did my heritage genealogy

thing that that indeed is where everything is based.

And so when you were growing up, would you visit the UK as a child?

No, but you know, you didn't travel as much then, if you were going to emigrate that

kind of thing.

Well, we certainly didn't have the resources to do that but I was in touch with grandparents

and aunts and uncles.

So there was just a lot of interest and basic gravitation towards UK culture, I would

say.

What was how old were you when you first went to the UK?

Oh, I think it was on my way to study in the States for the first time that, so that

would have been, I guess in the early 70s.

That was the first time I won.

Well, I think I was there as a baby but obviously I don't remember that.

And what did you think about it when you saw it as an adult?

Well, I'd always been told how green England is and I don't know if you remember, they

had the most horrendous drought in the 70s, around 50, I'm not mistaken.

So when I was coming into land at Heathrow, I could not reconcile what I'd been told

about this place and what I was seeing.

There were two completely different things.

Yes.

I'm sure.

So you say that when you were 18 and tell us how this happened, you had a very dramatic

life-changing conversion to Christianity.

What were your parents' Christians, how did this happen?

My mother had been converted and I'd seen the changes that had come into her life.

And I was also influenced by a Canadian teacher in my high school.

And I had joined what we call the Scripture Union, which is a Christian club.

And at some point I had been invited to go to a kind of weekend retreat and I went.

And one of the speakers there was Nigel Goodwin, which maybe doesn't mean anything to your

viewers.

But he starred with Cliff Richard in a film called To a Penny.

Cliff Richard had, by that time, come out as a Christian and Nigel Goodwin similarly

had a Christian testimony.

And at this camp, he, I don't know, there was something really different about him.

He did actually speak a bit about homosexuality, which kind of terrified me because at that

time I knew there was something going on in my life.

But at the end of the camp to cut a long story short, in a very kind of typically beautiful

way, I went to say goodbye and thank you very much for having me.

And when I did that, he hugged me.

And this just floored me.

I had, I don't think I had ever experienced that in my life before.

There was a, you know, there was just a genuine connection that he made.

I think probably the only connection that I made with him because I was just too shy

to speak to him during the whole time.

But that profoundly affected me.

Not long after that, I went home and I was outside and looking up at the sky.

And I don't know what happened, but the Lord very definitely came into my life in a remarkable

way in the sense that I, I just knew things would never be the same again.

And I felt so clean and so renewed and so different and I carried on in that way.

I think for months and months, um, and what did you, what was your, the reaction of your

parents?

Well, they, you know, they definitely saw that there was something going on in my life.

I don't think I was ever a very extroverted person.

But there was a quiet change in my life and a, and a focus that turned towards the Lord

that certainly my mother noticed.

I'm not sure my father had a lot to say about it, but they were supportive.

Both of them were supportive of what was happening to me.

I just seemed to find myself in a completely new way that I, that I hadn't experienced

before.

And so did you, did you get involved with the church right away or what happened with

that?

Well, I grew up in the church of England or church of the province as it was known.

Although I was an altar boy and a choir boy, I was head choir boy, all of those things.

And I was around Christianity a lot.

I saw the change in my mother.

That kind of encouraged me to go in that direction.

I went to scripture union, but that conversion experience was something I had never, uh, had

before.

So that now radically took hold of my life and, uh, really did become the center of who

I was.

Um, eventually I would, you know, sense a call to serve the Lord.

Um, and did go towards pastoral ministry and preparation in that, in that direction.

We'll be right back after this short break.

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it today.

And so you say that, um, you dealt with same-sex attraction.

When did that start in your life?

Um, I remember on our way to New Zealand, recognizing that I will, I had attractions to, uh,

to men, basically, to older men.

And um, I guess I just felt curious about it.

I didn't really understand it, I didn't know what to do with it.

How old were you?

I would have been nine or ten, but I have to say there were many instances where I was

attracted to girls and reached out to girls.

It wasn't that I had no attraction to the opposite sex.

I definitely did, but it's like there was just this, this side of me that was, um, demanding

more attention as I was going on and, and that I began to recognize as a reality, even

though I, frankly, I didn't have the vocabulary or the perspective to be able to articulate

exactly what it was.

By the way, you mentioned the, the speaker, uh, that hugged you, the guy who hugged you.

Why, why did he, because that was such a, I, what, what year was that when, when that

happened?

So I, I would have been about 16 or 17, 17 probably.

And it was just before my conversion.

So it was in my last years of, of high school.

So was it in the seventies?

Yeah.

Cause it seems odd that he would, in the seventies, people really didn't talk about homosexuality.

Cause you, you mentioned that he mentioned homosexuality in some way.

Why did he do that?

He showed a film and I can't, you know what it was?

Isn't this amazing that I only remember this now?

He had been involved in the Billy Graham campaign.

And he was showing a film of one of Billy Graham's campaigns in London.

And the camera's focused on two, I guess, transgender folk who were, you know, dressed

in female clothing.

And, and as the camera's focused on this in his documentary, I remember him saying

in something about, and, and of course, our friends were also there.

And he was, you know, it wasn't being unkind in any way.

He was just offering commentary on what we were seeing.

And it's, and it's, wow, okay.

So, and then it's interesting you say that about when you were nine years old, you started

to feel this attraction towards older men.

It could be because the same thing happened with me.

I was attracted to women, my, when I was a young boy, my first attractions were to women.

But then somehow, and of course, if you know my story, I was molested when I was nine.

So that might have something to do with it.

But then through a series of events, it shifted towards men.

But as you said, it was kind of like, you said it was like dominant.

I think you were used that word.

But it was weird because in my life, it was dominant that attraction towards the same

sex was dominant.

But I remember in high school, you know, I dated three girls, Syria, I went, you know,

we went steady.

We dated seriously and I remember enjoying dating them a lot.

Like I enjoyed kissing them.

I mean, it was like, it was a strange dichotomy of like on the one hand, I was attracted

to the girls, but on the other, I was attracted to, I was confusing.

Anyway, so how did you deal with this same sex attraction?

Once you were converted at 18, how did you handle this?

Well, the first thing I would have to say is I was bitterly disappointed that after this

very high, I guess, emotional experience that came with conversion, I then, the penny dropped

that actually I was still attracted in this way.

And I was therefore somewhat disappointed to the point where I said, well, you know, maybe

I wasn't really converted because my understanding was that this should have gone.

And so I was disappointed about that.

And I think there was even a sense of depression that began to be in my mind because I felt

like a failure then.

But I was determined to serve the Lord and confident that He had called me and that He

would go before me.

You know, what you said earlier on kind of triggers something in me because I began

to be aware of some instances in my childhood that I think really did influence me.

One of which was my sister and I visiting a farm in the country and my parents weren't

there.

They allowed us to stay with this family.

And this family had a completely different attitude in terms of nudity.

And this kind of showed itself in different ways and I remember that marked me.

And that was probably one of the earliest things that then connected with other things.

And I think that's what happens in this template that begins to develop and certain random

experiences seem to connect and before you know where you are, you know, you're seeing

different possibilities and ideas that maybe you wouldn't have been there if you hadn't

been exposed in the way you were.

And were your parents aware of your struggles?

No.

Even after you were converted to Christianity, were they aware?

No, because I was never open about any of it.

I mean, these were the days when you know, gay was not even a word really gay.

Something completely different.

So no, I mean, the last thing I would ever have done is spoken about this issue especially

in a church context.

What began to happen with me was every time anybody came anywhere near Romans chapter

one, I would be under the pew.

I would feel so convicted and so hopeless.

And so, you know, beyond help or redemption, I really struggled in that way and never shared

it with anyone actually until I met my wife.

And you know, we had to be honest about some things and I was honest with her, but maybe

one other person before you should have skipped to 1 Corinthians 6 where it says, but such

were some of you, but you were a wash, you were sanctified, you were, you know, etc, etc.

So it's okay.

You mentioned your wife.

How did this happen?

How, so you got converted at 18, you are struggling with this issue, you know, you're kind

of disappointed.

And then when do you meet your wife?

Well, I went to Bible college because by that time I believed the call of the Lord was

on my life and that he wanted me to prepare for pastoral ministry.

So I went to Bible college, got involved in a local church and she was there.

She had a beautiful singing voice and I also liked to sing, but I kind of thought, you

know, compared to her, I wouldn't give up the day job kind of thing.

So that relationship grew and there was no other thought, Beckett.

I was going to be a pastor.

I needed to be married.

I wanted to have children and that's what I was going to do.

And when I started to go in that direction, then of course there were things I had to

deal with and Lenore and I had to, you know, speak things through very candidly and talk

about how things had been in our lives.

And it was at that point that all of that came out.

And how old were you when you got married?

I was 24.

And was this in New Zealand or some other country?

That was in South Africa because that's where I, you know, my parents came back from Zimbabwe.

I finished high from New Zealand, I beg your pardon.

And I finished high school in Zimbabwe then went down to South Africa, which was a real

culture shock.

I have to say, budding.

Okay.

So and then you have two kids, right?

Yes.

How did that affect you in terms of the struggle of what you, like did that just kind of alleviate

a lot of that struggle, having kids?

Well, it certainly filled my days, but, you know, we have a fantasy life and we have desires.

All of us probably have desires.

We have to keep in check.

So as far as I was concerned, this was something I, you know, I could never go there.

I could only make sure that that didn't get a hold of my life.

But as we all know, white knuckling these things is not the answer.

And I had to find a different answer.

And it was really only when we as a family emigrated to the, to the UK.

And I guess the pressure was really on because, you know, emigration is not for the faint

hearted as far as I'm concerned, especially when you have the responsibility of two children.

So there was a lot of pressure on me.

I had a high powered or high pressure job in the university system in the UK.

It wasn't easy to kind of slide into that context.

And I realized, okay, um, temptations in my life are at a level that I really need to

get some help about this.

And that's what pushed me into seeking help at that time.

And you say that when you first in the UK, when you first shared your struggles, um, when

in the UK, they, the pastor thinks, the pastor thanked you, but asked you not to tell others.

Is that what happened?

Yeah, I went and I started talking to an organization and I think in many ways they helped

me.

And it was like, uh, there was a kind of integration within myself that now I was recognizing

that this was an issue in my life.

Whereas before I'd kind of pushed it away and never dealt it dealt with it.

Now I, I saw that it was a reality and it was something I need to recognize and work

with and deal with it.

I'd come that far.

Now, for me, you know, that reflected honesty and I felt there was some, there was greater

integrity in my life when I had that recognition.

And I thought the church would rejoice that naively, but I think actually what happened

was the church was afraid of that.

And the pastor said to me, well, thank you so much for sharing.

You're so brave, but please don't tell anybody else.

Gosh, oh, God, I was flawed.

I could not understand what he was saying and, and, you know, I don't have a big, um, I'm

not angry with that fact.

That was just his reaction, but it did crush me and it pushed me right back where I was.

And in fact, I felt so angry that obviously I had to work through that as well.

And I think that's one of the things that made me determined to deal with this because

I felt a, I felt a bit let down at that time.

Hmm.

I, it's funny because I just had a guest on who experienced the same thing, um, Tia,

you know, her, um, and it's funny because when I got saved at my church in 2009, it was

the opposite reaction.

Everyone was celebrating like the pastor, everyone was excited for me.

They all knew like, so it's, it's, it's sad to me that that happened to you and to Tia.

So what, um, so you started seeking professional counseling and how did that help you?

I think what happened was, um, those counselors came across to me as being very, very present.

What I had experienced with Nigel Goodwin in that hug was a different kind of masculinity

and male.

There was a sensitivity and a godliness.

And with the counselors, that, that salience, that connection was there.

And I think in, in my case, that is what made the difference.

I could connect with these individuals and I'm sure in a sense I was drawn to the emotional

security that that represented and I felt, I just felt held and I felt as though I could

be honest and I felt I was, I could be safe and that they understood where I was coming

from.

They gave that impression, you know, they were welcoming enough that I felt that this

was the right place for me to be.

And how long did this go on?

A period of three years, there were, you know, different psychotherapists.

The first one went back to Iceland.

So he went.

I was sorry to see that and I had another one and he was pretty good.

And then I had a Freudian, which was a completely different kind of experience because there

was not the emotional connection that I felt with the other two.

There was a kind of a distance thing.

So it taught me, you know, it's not just anybody who can do this.

You have to be comfortable with the approach and the background and the person you're dealing

with.

And that's not to say that Freudian didn't help me.

I'm sure he did.

He helped me in a different way.

But I guess all three of them provided a safe context that I felt nourished in and I

was drawn back to and because of that, I felt I could really respect, you know, the work

that was being done in those contexts.

And so and then you went, did you go on to become, because you went on to train for three

years in psychotherapy.

So you went, did you become a psychotherapist?

So part of my, you know, exploration in therapy was connecting with psychodrama.

And if you know what psychodrama is, it's essentially working in action rather than just

talking therapy, it's, it's learning how to put yourself in a role context and and in

that context, you can do a lot of other things.

And it felt very helpful to me.

And so I was drawn to psychodrama, psychotherapy and decided, okay, this has really helped

me.

I want to know more about this.

So I began training part time because I had a full-time job still in the university sector.

So I began part time training, traveled over to England from Ireland and did that for three

years.

And then about that time, the professional organizations started to make an issue of the

whole idea of, I guess, change allowing therapy.

Or like conversion, what they would call conversion therapy kind of thing.

It's not conversion therapy.

And so I was having none of this and I decided to raise it with my trainers because I could

see, you know, I was heading in the wrong direction in terms of what they were saying.

They were saying that it was an ethical offense to help anybody in these circumstances.

And that was the whole reason why I was training.

I wanted to be there for people who wanted to work in this area.

So I raised it with the trainers.

I think they were very nervous about accreditation for what they were building.

So it led to direct conversations with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy.

The chairman was a gay man who clearly had a political agenda.

About that time I was being interviewed on the BBC in terms of my own story and the work

I was doing in the community.

Before I left the studio, I got a message to say that I was suspended because they had

kind of put me on the spot and asked me who my professional body was.

So I told them, and before I left the studio, I was told that I was suspended and a week

later that was confirmed.

And that, you know, that just, that was devastating actually.

I was three years into my studies.

It basically prevented me from returning to my studies and refused that I should be

allowed to continue because I would not support what the professional body was saying in this

area.

So that's crazy.

And you, well, I saw a clip of you on Pierce Morgan, Pierce Morgan was interviewing you

on ITV.

Was that, that wasn't the same interview?

No, no, that was years later, that was, you know, by that time I thought, well, you

know, I'm just going to be what I, what I am and I'm going to talk about the issues.

And that kind of pushed me into this place where when they wanted to talk about this issue,

they would call me and that's what happened in, in that particular interview that you

are referring to with Pierce Morgan.

That was the most complained about interview in the UK in that year.

We have a, it was complained about because of what you were saying.

It was, I think it was probably 50, 50, half of the complaints were that I had been given,

you know, this platform to say that what I was saying.

And the other half was how, you know, Pierce chose to interview me.

Yeah, I mean, if, maybe we'll put a link below, but I mean, he, in the interview, he is

so aggressive.

It's insane how, how he interviews you.

I hope he's repented of that and apologize to you because it's, it was just so out.

It was beyond the pale, like the way, the way he was interrogating you and he wouldn't

even let you speak.

No, so, but I spoke anyway, you did a good for you.

Good on you, so.

And then they, this, what is it, the memorandum of understanding on conversion therapy?

They told you that you could not return unless you changed your beliefs.

Yeah, so, you know, once I had been thrown out of the British Psychodrama Association,

of course, I appealed that, but they, they upheld the complaint against me, but they

said I could return if I changed my beliefs.

And of course, I couldn't do that.

There's no way I could, I mean, I'm, I'm sure there were many lessons I could learn.

I, I think what really frustrated me was they would not enter, enter any discussion

that I had.

So, obviously I defended myself, put everything together that I knew to put together,

but they didn't write back saying, look, your research is flawed or your perspective is

unbalanced, you know, they just ignored it.

And I, I had, by that time, become, I mean, my PhD thesis was basically about the whole

idea of indoctrination and, you know, the dangers of not allowing minority Christian voices

to be, to be heard.

And so, this was very challenging for me, and it just kind of pushed me into trying to

find defenses for, you know, the right and freedom of people to choose the direction that

they want to go in, not to criticize anybody else who had a different point of view.

It was at that time that the UK put together what we call the memorandum of understanding

on conversion therapy.

And I had applied, by that time, I had, you know, formed an organization that began to

have some recognition in the country.

I had applied on the organization's behalf to participate in discussion.

And I have the letter from the Minister associated with that, the Minister of State, who, you

know, basically told me my views were too extreme, I couldn't be a part of it.

So they only had people who agreed with them.

And this is the kind of thing that just, I think, is very disturbing in the whole history

of this process.

So they put this document together, they know it's not a scientific document.

I think it has three quotations from the American literature, not even based on anything in

the UK.

And this document has become what we refer to as the de facto ban on conversion therapy

in the UK.

So all the mental health bodies are signed up to a document that is ideological.

It's a consensus document that everybody agrees to.

But there is no science attached to it.

And it's one point of view that is being held to.

And I think that's what has really exercised me, that we talk about equality and we talk

about pluralism.

But there is no pluralism, there is the whole thing depends on whether or not you support

state-owned ideology.

And if you do, you're fine, you're home in a boat, as the Irish would say.

But if you don't support that, you've had it, you will be cancelled and you will be excluded.

And that is exactly what we are seeing increasingly in the UK.

Well, what's ironic about all of this, of course, is the whole LGBTQ plus ideology says

that gender is fluid, you can change your sexuality from one day to the next, you can

be too spirit, you could be all kinds of things, you can change and go back and forth.

But somehow seeking out help to deal with same-sex struggles or same-sex attraction or trauma

from that is banned, it just seems like it's so absurd.

Well, exactly, you can go one way but you can't go the other.

And even though we know that the majority of people who, or probably the largest group

of people are mixed attracted, there's a huge number of people who are mixed attracted.

Are we really saying that they can only go in one direction?

How can that be right?

Surely we have to allow people to go in either direction, but that's exactly the point

that around which there is no agreement, certainly in the UK or anywhere else that I can see.

So in the UK, currently, conversion therapy is completely banned, is that the case?

No, that's what I'm saying, that this memorandum of understanding is a de facto ban.

So they never banned it.

They just made it impossible for anybody to work in this way because they would be out

of order in terms of ethical practice if they did it because the memorandum of understanding

was in place.

But there was no legislation to back it up and that's been the difficulty.

So now they are trying to introduce legislation and we're still waiting for this parliament.

They say before the end of this current parliament, this bill will be tabled and that will be

an attempt to bring in legislation that finally confirms this.

But you'll note that this was first suggested by Theresa May, then Boris Johnson came and

this is what four or five Prime Ministers ago, no political party yet has succeeded in bringing

this forward because there is an enormous amount of opposition from all sorts of people,

not only Christians and not only religious people, but people who have got a different

perspective on all of this.

So I think it's going to be very challenging for the government to do this.

And what happened in 2012 with the London bus campaign during the Olympics?

So at that time there were a thousand double-decker buses in London that carried the advert.

Some people are gay, get over it.

Oh right, I remember that.

Yeah, and this was during the time of the Olympics.

So we thought, well it would be good to have a counter advert, so that's what we did.

We put a counter advert on twenty buses.

That was the plan, because we didn't have the resources to do a thousand buses.

We got permission to do it and everything was done, it was designed in a way that kind

of paridied this advert.

So it looked like the same, but it said the opposite.

In other words, some people were gay, get over it.

And that's what we went with, but the night before this was all to hit the streets, Boris

Johnson banned the advert.

I claimed to be one who really pushed him forward, because I think he got a tremendous

amount of support by doing that, and shortly after was reelected as Mayor of London, sadly.

Wow, okay, so there's no free speech in England and the UK.

Talk about core issues, trust.

What is core issues, trust?

So in 2007, I wanted to start a Christian organization that would work on these issues.

So to cut a long story short, it was started, I began working with individuals.

This was before I had started training as a psychotherapist.

I just wanted to be there for people who struggled, as I had struggled.

And eventually it became registered as a charity in Northern Ireland, much to the concern

of the national humanist society and the British humanists and everybody who was appalled

by the London bus case, they were dead against us, but we were registered and have been since

then and continue to do our work.

And what core issues, trust is there to support the church as it supports individuals who struggle

in this area.

And out of core issues, trust has come ex out loud.

I think you will obviously you know tier and Liam and of course Matthew, Matthew Greg.

We all worked together on ex out loud and it's it's a community of Christians who have

experienced these issues, but have now found help and contentment and a way forward because

of our relationship with the Lord Jesus.

So core kind of looks after that and seeks to support it.

We also have another project called the International Foundation for Therapeutic and Counseling

Choice, which has been an attempt to build up Christian professionals.

And a lot of work has gone into that.

We are currently seeking accreditation in the UK, talk about swimming upstream, that's

I guess that's what what we do, but we believe that you know we should have our place in

the sun, we believe that we should be professional.

And you know we've had enough of the accusations that anybody who works in this area is you know

a snake oil merchant, okay.

So let us accredite ourselves, let us put ourselves out there and compete on the same basis

as everybody else who seeks registration.

And that's the process that we're going through at the moment.

And what happened with Barclays Bank?

Well, in I think it was July 2013, 14 forgive me, I can't remember exactly, I just received

a letter in the post saying Barclays was closing, Courishous Trusts account and also the

account of the International Federation for Therapeutic and Counseling Choice, that's

what it was first called.

And I thought what, this was crazy, so I phoned them up and they said no no you have three

months but we're closing your accounts, finished.

And about that time I started receiving like, I have the record somewhere but probably

50 or 60 calls, nuisance calls, threats of the most, you know, awful kind from all over

the world but especially from the UK.

And apparently there had been a decision that okay, let's do something about this, let's

get Courishous Trust and he's the one you need to go after.

So that's exactly what they did.

They also went after my legal friends who were supporting me, jamming our phones, phoning

us all hours of the night, sending the most horrendous links and, you know, opportunities

to participate in this, that and sideways, it was horrendous to the point where we had

to report it to the police but sadly the police, you know, they have a very close relationship

to LGBT organisations, certainly in Northern Ireland so that didn't go very far.

And they closed the accounts and nobody, no other bank would look at us.

We tried five or six different banking organisations, including Christian banking organisations,

nobody would have anything to do with us.

It all went to court and it eventually, it got to the point where Barclays paid us out,

not a huge amount but would not admit liability or guilt in any way and would not restore

our bank accounts.

Eventually we persuaded a bank and they have thankfully given us access to an account,

we have one account for all of these organisations and that's how we've operated but it's been

horrendous.

Wow.

I mean, a lot of that is happening here too but things are shifting in the current political

climate.

So, what are you still practicing psychotherapy, psychodrama therapy today?

Well, I can't call myself a psychodrama psychotherapist because I was never allowed to qualify.

So what I am is a man with experience and some perspective and understanding and it's

on that basis that I work with people, I tell them what my limitations are that way.

I am able to refer them to people who are qualified in a way that I was not allowed to be when

I need to do that.

But I'm very actively involved in supporting ex out loud and the IFTC and continuing to

do the work that basically says individual should have the right and the freedom to go

in the direction that they want to go in.

And the way I'm using my time is to try to make sure that those rights are entrenched

and that the system recognises the arguments that do exist and the literature that is

clear that backs up this minority point of view.

We're not trying to change everybody's point of view but we want our place in the sun

and we don't think that's unreasonable to ask that and we are willing to professionalise

ourselves and there are increasing numbers of therapists who have had enough of the

memorandum of understanding, want out of their professional body and want the freedom

to support individuals in this area and that's the direction we would like to go in.

Well, there's a, I'm sure you know about this but there's a Supreme Court case here concerning

minors and this, the idea of conversion therapy or reintegrative therapy, whatever it is,

whatever you want to call it, but that's great and the ISTC has done an amicus brief

if you go on to their site, you'll see that we've submitted something towards that case.

Oh, okay, I didn't know that.

Wow, well, I don't know when that case will be officially decided.

I think maybe this summer, but I, but let's leave it there.

Thank you so much, Mike, for coming on the show and sharing all of this.

I hope that things do shift in the UK on this and that people are able to get the help

they want.

I mean, we should all be able to get the help we want, there shouldn't be any obstacles

in the way.

I hope that changes in the UK.

Thank you for having me, Beckett, I really appreciate it.

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