Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

Post by _I have a question »

What a shame that he subjected other men to such terrible mental anguish simply to quell his own feelings of insecurity about his own sexuality. It seems a bit like Kimball and his Miracle Of Forgiveness - lots of personal issues being projected onto others in both cases.

His subsequent unrepentant stance is disappointing.

David Matheson is an author and psychotherapist who runs the Center for Gender Wholeness in Holladay, Utah. David has worked with gay male clients for 20 years on the East and West Coasts, and more recently Utah.

His clients are those — mostly from a wide range of religious backgrounds (but some non-religious) — who no longer wish to be attracted to the same sex and no longer want the gay lifestyle.

David provides therapy to SSA men whose goal is to shift in attraction toward females. His approach is ethical. He knows he can’t help those who don’t want to change. Many change. Some don’t. He always leaves on good terms with his clients, no matter the outcome. No shaming.

http://whytheldschurchistrue.com/tag/david-matheson/
Last edited by Guest on Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

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Our Stories of Change

DAVID MATHESON
breaking free

David is the co-creator, with Rich Wyler, of People Can Change's powerful Journey Into Manhood weekend experience. A Clinical Mental Health Counselor in private practice, he is married and the father of a daughter and two sons.

David Matheson admitted to himself that he was attracted to men when he was 22 and married to a woman. Following seven years of therapy, he said he had changed his sexual orientation.[21] He has since become a licensed professional counselor and has made his clinical focus to be "helping men who want to diminish unwanted homosexuality and feel whole as men."[22] He is the clinical director of the Center for Gender Wholeness, co-creator of the Journey into Manhood weekend,[23] and a director of People Can Change.[24] He has written the Evergreen International Workbook for Men, Four Principles of Growth,[25] and has made several media appearances talking about overcoming homosexual attractions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_Morm ... anizations

David's testimony from "People Can Change"
I aspired to manliness, but I was certain that was impossible. I didn't look like a man. I didn't feel like a man. And I didn't behave like a man. Furthermore, I didn't fit in with men. I was scared of men. I was suspicious of men. And I couldn't stop looking at men!

On the other hand, I liked girls, and I'd even been "turned on" by them on a few occasions. But if the girl was attractive, I felt weak and inadequate. And if she wasn't attractive, I liked her friendship but discounted her romantic interest in me. All of this was such a conundrum to me. I wondered about myself, knowing something was wrong.

In the spring of 1984, I resolved the conflict. I finally confessed to myself that my attractions to other men were sexual - something I had denied for years. I was 22 years old. Solemnly and grimly, I explained to myself that -- if I permitted myself to -- I could be homosexual.

My values and beliefs ran completely counter to homosexuality.
But I remained physically -- though not mentally -- faithful to my marriage. My first line of defense against homosexual behavior was fear and ignorance. (Imagine those two traits as a blessing!) I didn't know how to find a homosexual partner, and I was too scared to find out. But my second line of defense was probably more significant. My values and beliefs ran completely counter to homosexuality. I believed in God. I believed in the sanctity of my marriage. I loved my wife and our child. How could homosexuality fit into that?

Even so, I was pretty close to the edge when I met Dan Gray, a clinical social worker who had made a specialty of working with homosexual men. Dan was manly but also gentle, which meant he was attractive but not scary. I could tolerate being open with him. Within a few weeks, my whole vision of myself changed completely.

We worked together for two years, focusing on my building relationships with other men, getting past my incapacitating shame over my body, and developing a strong masculine identity. My first male friendships were with other men I met in Evergreen, a support group for men who wanted to resolve homosexual feelings in a way that was consistent with their religious faith. There were men at work also. A dozen engineers. And to my utter astonishment, they were tolerable, even likeable. And they liked me too. The "great divide" in my life between me and other men began to close.

I took up the three cardinal sports of American boys: basketball, baseball and football. I'd missed these on my first through adolescence. I began weight lifting with greater earnestness. And I talked almost incessantly with my friends from Evergreen about our lives, our feelings and our relationships. I talked with my wife also quite honestly about what I was doing, thinking and feeling. I began to change.

fear had crippled my life
Yet erasing the distance between me and the rest of the male world was only part of what I needed to complete my transition into mature heterosexuality. I also had to face my fear of things like anger, intimacy, self-disclosure -- and bombing down-hill on a mountain bike! I had not realized how fear had crippled my life. Years after my therapy was complete, I entered "intensive psychotherapy" to resolve this.

When I think carefully about the therapeutic work I did in those years, I see clearly that it wasn't about switching the gender of my sexual preference. It was about escaping the bondage of some deeper problems -- anxiety, shame and fear. For most of my life, I had been overwhelmed by anxiety when I was in the presence of strong and intelligent men. I had been oppressed by intense shame because I felt my body was so inadequate. And I had been crippled by a fear of exposing my deepest emotions.

My struggle...has been about getting free.
The work I did in those seven years was to make choices that gradually freed me from the bondage of these deeper problems. Tremendous rewards followed - fulfilling friendships with other men, better health and greater confidence with my body and emotional freedom and power. Yes, my sexual orientation changed too. But in my life today, heterosexuality is like salt in the cookie dough -- it's an important element, but it's not the main ingredient. You see, my struggle hasn't really been about going "straight." It has been about getting free.

- David Matheson, 2000

https://web.archive.org/web/20160312161 ... /david.php
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

Post by _I have a question »

Consider what Matheson's family now have to deal with, all because the Church drives faithful gay Mormons to believe they are somehow simply weak and sinful and that they either be celibate their whole life, or marry someone of the opposite gender and try to fake it till they make it, or be authentic and get excommunicated. It really is a disgraceful mind “F” of a religion.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

Post by _I have a question »

He does offer some apology...

'MY FAITH PUT ME IN AN IDEOLOGICAL PRISON'

In his coming out post, the "newly out gay man" was critical of his profession but did not renounce his religious faith nor the entirety of his work.

He said his profession was keeping him trapped in an "ideological prison" and that his marriage to wife Peggy crumbled last year.

He said: "I know my work helped many, many people because they’ve told me so. But I’m sure I’ve hurt some people too.

"Not that I would excuse myself, but any shortcomings I had as a therapist came from too narrow a view of what 'emotionally healthy' can look like.

"They came from my own homophobia and narrow mindedness. I am truly sorry for those flaws and the harm they have surely caused some people.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8272005/m ... omophobia/
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

Post by _DrW »

David Hume: "---Mistakes in philosophy are merely ridiculous, those in religion are dangerous."

DrW: "Mistakes in science are learning opportunities and are eventually corrected."
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Re: Mormon gay conversion expert now wants to date men

Post by _I have a question »

DrW wrote:Still more mainstream media coverage: conversion therapist Bro. David Matheson comes out as gay.


One assumes his kids, if they are under 8, have to disavow him if they want to be baptised.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
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