Democratic Senator Ted Lieu of Torrance said the law was designed to stop children from being psychologically abused. Mainstream mental health organizations have disavowed such therapy. A number of mental health associations in California - including the state's Board of Behavioral Sciences, the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists and the California Psychological Association - supported the legislation.

However, Dr. Nicolosi, a Roman Catholic, heads the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, California, and is one of the nation's leading psychotherapists specializing in dealing with unwanted same sex attractions (SSA), believes reparative therapy can work for those who want to reduce or eliminate such attractions.

He says the new law has not outlawed reparative therapy but it has given patients the right to take action, through the mental health associations, for malpractice if a client UNDER 18 is given therapy aimed at reducing unwanted SSA or changing gender expression (i.e., if a boy is helped to feel more masculine).

"A Christian legal group is filing a lawsuit against the state and we will see where it goes," Nicolosi told VOL in an e-mail. "A fair judge will throw out this law, but then, the last judge in CA who was appointed to vote on the legality of a citizens' vote against gay marriage was himself gay, and he overturned the citizens' vote. California is dominated by the Democratic Party, and their party platform is officially pro-gay. All the Democratic legislators voted against us, all the Republicans voted for us on this law," he said.

"There are things that can be done to help clients under 18 feel more confident in male relationships, and then when they hit 18, therapy can proceed normally. But we shall see how this develops. I doubt that the mental health associations will see harm in a therapist's working with a boy to feel better about his masculinity, and that they will agree to censure a therapist for that."

The Democrat legislator who initiated this bill has made it clear that in the future he would like to outlaw ALL such therapy, not just for minors, in the future.

Nicolosi says that over the years he has seen hundreds of men come to his office for help in changing their sexual orientation. "Homosexuality doesn't work in their lives. It just never feels right or true. To these men, it is clear that gay relationships don't reflect who they are as gendered beings, and that they have been designed--physically and emotionally--for opposite-sex coupling."

Nicolosi admits that reorientation therapy is a long and difficult process, with no guarantee of success. What if the man doesn't change? Will he have gained anything of value?

"People are often surprised to hear that in reparative therapy, typically there is very little discussion about sex. In fact, it is a mistake for any psychotherapy to focus exclusively on one particular symptom. Clients come in with a difficulty that they want removed from their life--an eating disorder, gambling obsession, or unwanted same-sex attraction-- but good therapy addresses the whole person.

"I typically tell my clients in the very first session, 'Rule Number One is never accept anything I say unless it resonates as true for you.'"

The experience of the client, whatever that may be, must always trump any preconceived theory, says Nicolosi. "Reparative theory holds that the origin of SSA is in unmet emotional and identification needs with the same sex, and the client is free to accept or reject that premise. If that doesn't feel true to him, he will usually decide to leave therapy after one or two sessions.

"What we are saying with young people is that they become aware that there are options in life, besides following their unwanted feelings; and we help them identify where their SSA feelings originated, and what they represent, and we give them tools to reduce their power over their lives if they choose."

In England this past week, psychotherapists were warned against offering sexuality "conversion" treatment. Britain's largest professional body of psychotherapists has warned its members against attempting to "convert" gay people after discovering practitioners were still offering the "treatment".

The British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy has notified its 30,000 members of the formal change in policy advising them that being homosexual is not a mental disorder.

Emphasizing World Health Organization policy that states that therapies aimed at "curing" homosexuality can cause severe mental and physical damage, it says there is "no scientific, rational or ethical reason to treat people who identify within a range of human sexualities any differently from those who identify solely as heterosexual".

In a letter sent to members the BACP said it "opposes any psychological treatment such as 'reparative' or 'conversion' therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder, or based on the premise that the client/patient should change his/her sexuality."

The formal statement of policy followed the decision to strike off Lesley Pilkington for offering to "convert" an undercover journalist. An appeal against the decision was rejected in May.

Philip Hodson, a spokesman for the BACP, said it had previously been assumed that the organization's general guidance on equality would prevent practitioners from offering such therapies, but that Ms. Pilkington's case highlighted the need for tighter rules.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey backed the psychotherapist in the "gay conversion" row in January of this year.

The UK Council for Psychotherapy, Britain's second largest psychotherapy association, made a similar change to its policy in 2010, after allegations against Pilkington emerged. It also followed a 2009 survey of 1,300 therapists, psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, in which more than 200 admitted they had attempted to change the sexuality of at least one patient. 55 said they were still making the therapy available.

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