Mormon sex therapist faces discipline and possible expulsion from the LDS Church

[danieldemol]

'A sex therapist who has publicly challenged her church’s teachings on sexuality is facing possible expulsion as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Natasha Helfer, 49, who was raised by her parents in the LDS Church since she was 5 years old, has been a national face for mental health advocacy among Mormons. Nearly a decade ago, she wrote a blog post that caused waves across Mormonism where she declared masturbation is not a sin, and since then, she has attracted a wide audience especially among more progressive Mormons and ex-Mormons for her frankness around sex.

She is facing discipline for charges of apostasy, or public dissent from church leaders. Such charges are rare and more common with members who are promoting polygamy, according to Taylor Petrey, a scholar of the history of gender and sexuality in contemporary Mormonism. However, there have been a few other high-profile apostasy cases in recent years...'

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/04/16/mormon-sex-therapist-expulsion-lds/

Do you think a potential expulsion will create a culture of stigma and shame for clients seeking therapy from the LDS Church?

 

[sun rise]

Do you think a potential expulsion will create a culture of stigma and shame for clients seeking therapy from the LDS Church?

Some will avoid needed therapy. Some will seek it elsewhere.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Do you think a potential expulsion will create a culture of stigma and shame for clients seeking therapy from the LDS Church?

Sounds like she is in some fine historic company.
And the Church still hasn't learned they aren't the only ones who can be martyrs.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Do you think a potential expulsion will create a culture of stigma and shame for clients seeking therapy from the LDS Church?

No doubt. None at all. Psychology and psychiatry are not often on friendly terms with dogmatic religions and adherents, as ideas presented in therapy may be at odds with religious teachings. We assure people sex is normal, natural, and healthy, they teach it's often inappropriate, with one of the most influential Christian saints to influence the church and Christian ideology wishing god made another way to reproduce. They say there are demons, we say there are genetic factors and chemical imbalances. They want to pray the gay away, we say its ok to be gay. They say people have to turn for god for strength, we teach people to look within.
But, like Galileo, it is their names and contributions of notable minds we remember, not the embarrassing stains on history who repressed them.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

They say people have to turn for god for strength, we teach people to look within.

Actually, therapists recognize that religion is often a helpful and positive aspect of life for a patient. Any therapist who tried to turn me away from my belief in God will be getting the boot.

We assure people sex is normal, natural, and healthy, they teach it's often inappropriate

A therapist will tell you the same if you're doing something that harms you.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Actually, therapists recognize that religion is often a helpful and positive aspect of life for a patient. Any therapist who tried to turn me away from my belief in God will be getting the boot.

There's a difference in that and insisting it is a must have, up to including you are powerless without. Both claims are without supporting evidence, and I've often seen both as client and clinician. Some of them don't even know how to address it when it's not important to a client and they don't identify with it in anyway. Like a hospital chaplain who told me I have a spiritual side even if I don't acknowledge it, and was very insistent about me partaking of things I have zero interest in. Or an entire organization that doesn't know how to address the question for a needs and strengths assessment when n/a is the only accurate answer but it's not there (they haven't had that conversation yet).

A therapist will tell you the same if you're doing something that harms you.

None of them worth the paper and ink their degree is printed on. Like one client who had many health issues amd concerns and was stubborn about not taking his pills and changing his diet. No one told him it was good for him. The problem was everybody else who worked with him pushed too hard and put too much of their own feelings into it.

 

[Glaurung]

Who cares? If you dislike Mormon teaching then stop being a Mormon.

 

[danieldemol]

Who cares? If you dislike Mormon teaching then stop being a Mormon.

Do you mean to say that you dont care if people seeking therapy are stigmatised by their family and friends?

 

[Deeje]

Actually, therapists recognize that religion is often a helpful and positive aspect of life for a patient. Any therapist who tried to turn me away from my belief in God will be getting the boot.

This is a valid point....a therapist is not there to tell you anything is OK when your religion teaches you that it isn't, and this is your personal belief. A therapist worth their degree will work with what is important to you, not what is important to them. Unless the religious teachings are harmful in a mental or physical way, what a person hold dear is their business.

 

[Glaurung]

Do you mean to say that you dont care if people seeking therapy are stigmatised by their family and friends?

I don't care about anything Mormon to be honest, yet alone the psychosexual plights of the church's members.

The truth is simple. If you dissent from a religion's teachings on sexual ethics then that your business. But you're not a victim if that religious community (or its governing body) no longer considers you to be in good stranding in return.

 

[danieldemol]

I don't care about anything Mormon to be honest, yet alone the psychosexual plights of the church's members.

Do you have a similar lack of compassion for the psychosexual plights of the members of your own church?

 

[Glaurung]

Do you have a similar lack of compassion for the psychosexual plights of the members of your own church?

I have little sympathy for those who insist that a religion (no matter what it is) affirm their sexual choices lest their feelings be upset. If a religion's tenets cause you angst then the only one who can resolve it is you. Either accept that religion and live accordingly, or reject that religion and find a new value system more in line with your views.

 

[Watchmen]

I have little sympathy for those who insist that a religion (no matter what it is) affirm their sexual choices lest their feelings be upset. If a religion's tenets cause you angst then the only one who can resolve it is you. Either accept that religion and live accordingly, or reject that religion and find a new value system more in line with your views.

Easier said than done, friend-o. Many of the people struggling are those who were raised and brainwashed by the Mormon cult.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I have little sympathy for those who insist that a religion (no matter what it is) affirm their sexual choices lest their feelings be upset. If a religion's tenets cause you angst then the only one who can resolve it is you. Either accept that religion and live accordingly, or reject that religion and find a new value system more in line with your views.

Churches and denominations throughout history (including the Mormon Church) have changed stances and positions and "updated" the tenets.

 

[Glaurung]

Easier said than done, friend-o. Many of the people struggling are those who were raised and brainwashed by the Mormon cult.

I understand that. I know what it is like grow up 'indoctrinated' into a religion. Although Mormonism is so blatantly false and Smith was so blatant a con-man that I struggle to see how anyone with access to modern information can fail to see though it. To accept Mormonism is to willfully accept what we know isn't true.

Churches and denominations throughout history (including the Mormon Church) have changed stances and positions and "updated" the tenets.

This is true. Although in terms of sexual ethics the New Testament is pretty unambiguous in its vision. One man and one woman in lifelong monogamy. It is only in the past few decades that this vision has become controversial.

I think the deeper problem for Christian sexual ethics is that the natural law framework much of it is based on isn't credible to the modern world. To tie into the topic of this thread; masturbation was traditionally condemned as a sin against nature because the 'telos' or 'final cause' of sexual activity is procreation. To masturbate is to misuse a God given faculty outside of its intended purpose. But to the modern mind such a view of human sexuality and its purpose is unpersuasive. The idea that each and every expression of human sexuality must be directed at procreation depends on a reductive, creationist teleology. In the modern view, humans are sexual because we are a sexual species. Sexuality is useful to our success as a species. If sexuality is a range of behaviors innate to what we are as humans then masturbation is no less natural a behavior than is coitus.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

This is true. Although in terms of sexual ethics the New Testament is pretty unambiguous in its vision. One man and one woman in lifelong monogamy. It is only in the past few decades has this vision become controversial.

And the Mormon church has not always viewed it that way.

I think the deeper problem for Christian sexual ethics is that the natural law framework much of it is based on isn't credible to the modern world. To tie into the topic of this thread; masturbation was traditionally condemned as a sin against nature because the 'telos' or 'final cause' of sexual activity is procreation. To masturbate is to misuse a God given faculty outside of its intended purpose. But to the modern mind such a view of human sexuality and its 'purpose' is unpersuasive. The idea that each and every expression of human sexuality must be directed at procreation depends on a reductive, creationist teleology. In the modern view, humans are sexual because we are a sexual species. Sexuality is useful to our success as a species. If sexuality is a range of behaviors innate to what we are as humans animals then masturbation is no less natural a behavior than is coitus.

Thank the gods that view has been updated.

 

[Glaurung]

And the Mormon church has not always viewed it that way.

I don't consider Mormonism to be an orthodox Christian tradition. It's a 19th century American cult mostly constrained to a single state.

Thank the gods that view has been updated.

It hasn't. On paper anyway, Catholicism still teaches that masturbation is unnatural and a mortal sin. That is, you will go to Hell for it if you die unrepentant.

But I'm currently in a very tenuous and complicated relationship with Catholicism.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

'A sex therapist who has publicly challenged her church’s teachings on sexuality is facing possible expulsion as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Natasha Helfer, 49, who was raised by her parents in the LDS Church since she was 5 years old, has been a national face for mental health advocacy among Mormons. Nearly a decade ago, she wrote a blog post that caused waves across Mormonism where she declared masturbation is not a sin, and since then, she has attracted a wide audience especially among more progressive Mormons and ex-Mormons for her frankness around sex.

She is facing discipline for charges of apostasy, or public dissent from church leaders. Such charges are rare and more common with members who are promoting polygamy, according to Taylor Petrey, a scholar of the history of gender and sexuality in contemporary Mormonism. However, there have been a few other high-profile apostasy cases in recent years...'

Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2021/04/16/mormon-sex-therapist-expulsion-lds/

Do you think a potential expulsion will create a culture of stigma and shame for clients seeking therapy from the LDS Church?

I don't think that the LDS Church is anti-therapy - just anti- their members speaking publicly against the teachings of their Church.

 

[Fallen Prophet]

I don't consider Mormonism to be an orthodox Christian tradition.

No duh. They go out of their way to tell everyone that they are not an orthodox Christian church. That's kind of a huge part of their messge.

It's a 19th century American cult mostly constrained to a single state.

Most world religions are "cults" and the LDS Church has members all over the world but are primarily found in North, Central and South America.

 

[danieldemol]

I don't think that the LDS Church is anti-therapy - just anti- their members speaking publicly against the teachings of their Church.

If therapy grounded in science and reason is against the teachings of the Church then the church is anti-therapy.
In my opinion