I believe it's not proven that it can work, not that it's proven not to work at all. I suspect there is a strong motivation to discourage research into its effe

I believe it's not proven that it can work, not that it's proven not to work at all. I suspect there is a strong motivation to discourage research into its effectiveness and discredit that research which has been done, and for understandable reasons, like not wanting people who are homosexuals to see their orientation as a psychopathology. In any case, I suspect that sexual orientation develops and crystalizes long before conversion therapy is generally resorted to. I also wouldn't be surprised if conversion therapy has the opposite effect of that intended, of re-inforcing homosexual orientations, by presenting it as central to the subject's identity.