APA Symposium Promotes Perverse Sex to Bring ‘Healing From Past Trauma’

(Caution: This article includes some disturbing content from the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Conference.)

A symposium at the American Psychological Association’s 2025 Convention promotes the idea that involvement in perverse sexual practices can bring “healing from past trauma” and “increase flourishing.”

This year’s convention is titled “Perspective Powers Possibilities.” The workshop is presented under the auspices of APA Division 44, the “Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity,” one of the association’s 56 Divisions.

The symposium is titled “The Kink and Flourishing Study: Impact of Kink Involvement in People’s Personal Growth and Healing,” and the papers presented are based on this idea:

“Past research and anecdotal reports indicate people experience healing from past trauma via kink engagement, and that some kink-involved people intentionally use kink scenes to address past trauma. Many people engage in kink for the purpose of flourishing, growth and well being.”

The researchers, all advocates of “kink” (aberrant sexual behaviors), explain that the traumas supposedly being healed include “sexual assault and other unwanted sexual experiences.”  

The abstracts don’t explain how harmful practices like being physically and emotionally abused – or inflicting this on others – are supposed to heal traumatic experiences.

Nor do they explain how promiscuity, another form of kink the division oxymoronically label “ethical/consensual non-monogamy,” is anything but destructive.

More abuse simply compounds previous abuse.

The Kink and Flourishing Study was produced by The Alternative Sexualities Health Research Alliance (TASHRA) a group that describes itself as “shaping the future of erotic well being.” The group conducts research, trains medical and mental healthcare providers and promotes “consensual and sexually diverse relevant health and social policies.”

TASHRA introduces the study by stating, “Recent research has debunked the notion that kink is inherently pathological, revealing its potential as a catalyst for trauma healing and improved mental well-being. “

The group considers “kinky folk” a “sexual minority,” akin to those who identify as homosexual or transgender, with the concomitant belief that the condition is lifelong, has an early onset, is unlikely to change, and may have a biological component. They believe the group is unjustly stigmatized by society.

Division 44 lists several other twisted subgroups on its website, such as its Taskforce on BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism); a Task Force on Sexism and Cissexism (supposed prejudice stemming from the belief that being male or female is normal and good); and a Committee on “Consensual Non-Monogamy.”

The Daily Citizen covered that last committee in 2019, but Division 44 has descended even further into the abyss since then. The Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity is hosting other problematic symposiums and presentations, including:

• Roadmaps to Bi+ Joy: Advocacy, Activism, and Community Self Care.
• Exploring health and identity development in a sexual minority community: reflections on kink/BDSM.
• Working with Asexual Clients as Individuals and Couples: Biases, Blindspots [sic], and Best Practices.
• Mental Health Implications of Body Mass Index Requirements for Gender Affirming Surgery.

There are many helpful psychologists and mental health practitioners who oppose the practice of deviant fetishes, especially Christian counselors and therapists who bring real healing to people. The APA debases its profession by highlighting debauched ideology.

Such presentations and task forces, with their perverse ideology, explain why many Christian mental health workers have fled the APA to join organizations and networks that bring truth and healing, such as the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the American Association of Christian Counselors, the Sexual Integrity Leadership Summit and Focus on the Family’s Christian Counselors Network.

Still, the APA remains “the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with 172,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members.”

In this case, the inmates really are running the asylum. Sexual sin brings no healing to anyone.

Scripture has a great deal to say about God’s design for marriage and the devastating consequences of sexual sin. The APA’s collusion with darkness is reminiscent of the Apostle Paul’s description in Romans 1 of mankind’s descent into evil.

This downward spiral into sin occurs when a group of people do not acknowledge God, refuse to honor Him and give Him thanks, and reject the truth. In Romans 3, Paul reminds us that this leads to death – something we all deserve as the consequence of our sins.

But thanks be to God, Paul continues on to explain that any of us, including those promoting this evil, “can be justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Romans 3:24-25, ESV). 

Even as we condemn the immorality of the APA as an organization, let us pray that God will have mercy and redeem many of its members from sin. There is forgiveness, redemption, and real healing through Christ.  

Related Articles and Resources

Focus on the Family Broadcast: Finding God’s Healing for Sexual Brokenness, Part 1 and Part 2

Focus on the Family: Counseling Consultation and Referrals

Focus on the Family Resources: Healing From Sexual Abuse

Focus on the Family: Resources for Overcoming Sexual Brokenness

Has the American Psychological Association Lost Its Mind About Healthy Sexuality?

Seeking God’s Wisdom in a World Full of Fools