TY - JOUR

T1 - Telling a poor man he can become rich

T2 - Reparative therapy in contemporary Poland

AU - Mikulak, Magdalena

PY - 2020/2/1

Y1 - 2020/2/1

N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

KW - Homosexuality

KW - individualization

KW - Poland

KW - reparative therapy

KW - self-responsibilization

U2 - 10.1177/1363460718797543

DO - 10.1177/1363460718797543

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85058691147

VL - 23

SP - 44

EP - 63

JO - Sexualities

JF - Sexualities

SN - 1363-4607

IS - 1-2

ER -