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Telling a poor man he can become rich: Reparative therapy in contemporary Poland

Research output: Contribution to Journal/MagazineJournal articlepeer-review

Published
<mark>Journal publication date</mark>1/02/2020
<mark>Journal</mark>Sexualities
Issue number1-2
Volume23
Number of pages20
Pages (from-to)44-63
Publication StatusPublished
<mark>Original language</mark>English

Abstract

This article investigates the practice of sexual reorientation therapy, or reparative therapy (RT), in contemporary Poland. Focusing on three groups – Odwaga (Courage), Pomoc 2002 (Help 2002) and Pascha (Passover) – and informed by interviews with their past participants, it examines the ways in which RT in Poland is gendered, as well as investigating the individualizing and self-responsibilizing understandings of the self it rests on. This article then demonstrates how the neoliberal ideas of selfhood permeate the practice of RT, mobilizing the tropes of individual effort and responsibility for the reorientation of one’s sexual desire, obscuring the inherent inequality on which the practice is based.