Do You Have a Gay 'Cure,' Doctor?

A study of 1,400 British psychiatrists turned up some strange results: 222 of them (17 percent) said they'd treated a client to change their homosexual feelings in 400 to 500 cases that were evenly distributed across the decades, the Independent reports. Yet therapists didn't like to admit it—when asked if they would attempt to change someone's sexual orientation if requested, only four percent said they'd help. The idea that homosexuality can be "cured" has a dubious history that involves Clockwork Orange-style electroshock treatments and the mainstream medical opinion is that it's impossible. Nor do the American Psychological Association and other leading organizations consider homosexuality a disorder in the first place, raising the question of why psychiatrists would bother to treat it as one.