Some Arizona counselors are using ‘sex addiction’ to practice conversion therapy, critics say
Illustration by LOOKOUT
Jeffrey Hansen says he treats “porn addiction.”
It’s not a recognized diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association—nor is any kind of sexual addiction promoted by self-described “sex addiction counselors”—but that hasn’t stopped Hansen, a licensed psychologist in Arizona who works with youth, from promoting it as a way to treat people who have difficulty with sexual compulsions.
This story was published in partnership with LOOKOUT, an independent, nonpartisan news outlet covering Arizona’s LGBTQ+ communities. You can sign up for their free newsletter here.
Hansen believes that pornography can lead people to falsely identify as gay or trans. Hansen authored a paper and a book urging parents to prevent their trans children from transitioning: “Find a counselor or psychologist/psychiatrist who does not follow the gender affirmative paradigm as the sole treatment option,” he wrote.
Gender affirmative care involves listening to trans patients when they share their identity, and supporting their decisions to align their outward appearance with their internal sense of gender. The opposite, to ignore or downplay a trans person’s sense of gender and restrict access to care, has similar outcomes to conversion therapy, medical experts have contended.
In an interview with LOOKOUT, Hansen said the definition of conversion therapy was contested, and denied practicing conversion therapy on LGBTQ+ people: “I’m very pro affirming sexual identity to an extent of people that are gay or whatever. I just struggle with the medical aspect of what this does to kids,” he said, referring to trans youth who receive gender-affirming care. “It’s hard to say how much pornography might push a person to identify as trans when they otherwise wouldn’t.”
Hansen is set to speak at a far-right town hall event in Camp Verde this June, hosted by Turning Point USA, a group run by anti-LGBTQ+ activist Charlie Kirk that works to galvanize students and evangelicals to conservative politics. The event is called the “Protect Our Children Town Hall.”
Hansen isn’t alone in using sex-addiction as a way to justify or even disguise conversion therapy. In Arizona, LOOKOUT identified at least three therapists who previously advertised that they practiced conversion therapy who describe themselves as sex or porn addiction specialists. And some of those are working with teenagers.
According to the APA, conversion therapy—where a mental health professional tries to use counseling to change people’s sexual orientation—increases the risk of depression and suicidal thoughts, especially in young people. AS a result, many states have banned its use, including in Arizona where the Governor enacted a partial ban last year.
When LOOKOUT reached out to the practice that hires some of the therapists identified, Family Strategies Counseling Center, LOOKOUT’s reporter was sent a cease and desist letter to stop contacting them.
What is sex addiction?
The phrases “sex addiction” and “porn addiction” bring to mind stories of celebrities who seek out treatment after being caught cheating. But according to multiple medical experts and sex therapists, the concept of sex addiction is also used by conservative religious groups, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as a cover to enforce their congregants’ stances around sexuality and gender.
The origins of sex addiction date back to 1976, when Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous formed. Modeled after the 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, both groups have Christian underpinnings that ask participants to become ready “to have God remove all these defects of character.” Participants were pushed to believe they were addicted to their sexual desires and come forward for treatment.
Sex addiction is not included in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,” the standard guide for classifying mental health diagnoses in the United States. The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, or AASECT—the primary professional association for sex therapists—also does not consider sex or porn addiction to be mental health disorders backed up by evidence.
AASECT certified sex therapists who LOOKOUT interviewed do believe that sex—just like any behavior—can become compulsive. But treating it as a separate addiction can stigmatize it, sex therapist Roger Libby said.
“I’ve seen it quite a bit, not only with Mormon clients, but others that went to these groups or went to a counselor who was a sex addiction counselor,” he said. ”And what they came out with was all kinds of shame and guilt about sex, which is not positive.”
Additionally, the sex addiction approach often assumes monogamous and heterosexual people are the cultural standard, which makes it easy for any deviation to be considered a problem, according to sociologist Kelsy Burke, the author of a book that attempts to examine and explain porn addiction.
“Conservative Protestant men are much more likely to say that they’re addicted to porn, even when they tend to use it less than their other male counterparts,” Burke said in an interview with LOOKOUT, adding that culture—not pathology—defines normal sexual behavior.
According to Burke, sexologists and sex therapists who study human behavior said that “sex addiction” when it was introduced wasn’t seen favorably, particularly because behavioral addictions are hard to study empirically.
Unlike chemical dependency on substances, which can be observed in animals, behavioral addictions can’t be observed in the same way.
“Things like addictions to food or shopping or pornography or sex—rats don’t respond to those things that have cultural meaning,” she said.
‘In sheep’s clothing’
Looking to legitimize the field of sex addiction, therapist Patrick Carnes founded the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals in the 1980s. The organization offers certification and training for sex addiction therapists. Carnes popularized sex addiction treatment as a therapeutic practice, and he also founded a sex addiction treatment program called the Gentle Path, which is located within the Meadows rehab center in Wickenburg, Arizona.
Joe Kort, a sex therapist who previously described himself as a sex-addiction therapist for 25 years, said he witnessed the training from Carnes’ institute being used for conversion therapy during the 2000s.
“I was listening to therapists say that they would treat men who didn’t want to be homosexual, and they would use the sex addiction model,” Kort said. “And I’d be like, wait a minute, you know, that’s conversion therapy in sheep’s clothing?”
That model included abstinence from sexual activity, including if people experienced same-sex attraction.
Kort said he cut ties with the institute in 2012.
Since then, IITAP has denounced conversion therapy. On its website, it says the organization has a “zero tolerance policy on [conversion therapy] and reserves the right to revoke certification at will if evidence proves a violation has occurred.”
But LOOKOUT and the Arizona Mirror have identified at least two sex addiction therapists certified by the IITAP in Arizona—Floyd Godfrey, founder of Family Strategies Counseling, and John McLean, a camp counselor associated with Family Strategies. While Godfrey no longer has his license, both of them promoted conversion therapy as a practice.
Stephanie Carnes, the current head of IITAP and Patrick Carnes’ daughter, told LOOKOUT that the organization’s current training materials follow guidance from the World Health Organization. Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder was added to the WHO’s diagnostic manual in 2019, and the entry cautions therapists from making a diagnosis based on a patient’s shame. In other words, sexual activity shouldn’t be interpreted as compulsive simply if a patient believes their own behavior is morally wrong or abnormal.
Stephanie Carnes said that the group does not endorse a diagnosis of sex addiction based on shame alone.
She also said the group’s stance against conversion therapy has been in place for at least six years.
“Am I aware that there have been people that have misused sex addiction in the past and historically to pathologize sexual behaviors or to use as a conversion therapy model? Yes, I’m aware of that,” she said. “And that’s why we’ve taken such a zero-tolerance policy on it.”
Carnes said they have not had an ethics complaint submitted about a certified sex addiction therapist actively practicing conversion therapy.
An Arizona trend
The two certified sex addiction therapists the news organizations identified have practiced conversion therapy in Arizona for years.
Family Strategies Counseling Center, a practice whose original website was “healinghomosexuality.com,” advertises sex addiction as one of its specialties, and several of its therapists have sex addiction certification.
Godfrey, the founder of Family Strategies, believed that being gay could be caused by abuse, and that coming to terms with trauma could turn people straight.
A previous LOOKOUT story detailed how Godfrey lost his license to practice counseling in 2023 after multiple sexual harassment claims were filed against him, including a staff member who the state licensing board identified as male. While he was still licensed, Godfrey advertised his certified sex addiction therapist status on the Family Strategies website.
In March, LOOKOUT and the Arizona Mirror also identified John Hinson as a reparative therapist who used to advertise himself as an expert in treating “unwanted same-sex attraction.” Hinson’s page referencing same-sex attraction was changed after LOOKOUT contacted him. Hinson’s current webpage advertises his training in sex addiction, although he lacks certification.
Before coming to work at Family Strategies in 2004, Hinson underwent his clinical training at The Meadows, the same treatment center that hosts Carnes’s Gentle Path program.
Targeting the youth
Sex addiction treatment isn’t a practice limited to adults at Family Strategies; they also run a group therapy treatment program for teenage boys called Band of Brothers that addresses sexual addiction, but does not define what that may look like.
“Good recovery means more than simply NOT slipping,” reads the Band of Brothers web page. “Young men must make changes inside themselves for lasting recovery.”
The website previously claimed the program was based on materials created by LifeStar, a sex-addiction program cofounded by certified sex addiction therapist Dan Gray in Utah in 2006. Currently, the site only mentions attending LifeStar’s annual conference.
Gray was listed as a former counselor for the conversion therapy camp “Journey Into Manhood.” The flier Gray is listed on describes him and the other therapists as being “knowledgeable not only about same-sex attraction issues but are also very familiar with the Journey into Manhood experience, teachings and program.”
When reached for comment, Gray said his only association with the camp was in around 2005 when he was invited to one of the organization’s workshops but had to leave early. “I have worked with many individuals wanting to overcome their unwanted, compulsive sexual-acting-out behaviors that had become problematic in their lives,” he said. “Though some of these clients are gay, most have reported themselves to be heterosexual.”
In an emailed statement, a representative for LifeStar said the organization was not created as a conversion therapy program: “If someone came to a therapist who uses the LifeStar materials, asking to cure them of an addiction to unwanted same-sex attraction, we would hope that the therapist would respond by informing the individual that same-sex orientation and attraction are not considered an addiction.”
LifeSTAR advertises Family Strategies as an official “LifeStar provider” on its website.
Another program at Family Strategies, “Adventures in Manhood,” is touted as a weekend retreat for teenage boys and their guardians. The web page for the camp describes the staff as faith-based and says they “follow conservative standards.”
The camp used to advertise itself as a weekend for teens struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction. It is currently run by John McLean, the camp counselor. He is also a certified sex addiction therapist who formerly described one of his specialties as “treating unwanted same-sex attraction.”
Family Strategies did not respond to requests for comment on this story.
Religion’s influence
When Elena Joy Thurston caught her son watching pornography, she panicked. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had taught her that porn was a stepping stone to other sins.
“If you watch porn, two things will happen,” she said, describing what she heard from church leaders. “One, you’re going to become addicted. And two, because you’re probably a guy watching porn, you’re going to become gay.”
Relaying what she was taught, she told her son that watching porn would make him gay, too.
According to Thurston, who now calls herself an ex-Mormon, the Church’s doctrine goes hand-in-hand with considering all sexual behavior as an addiction.
“Homosexuality and sex addiction are framed as temptations that come from our body,” she said. “And the underlying idea is that our bodies are tempting us to sin. The whole reason why we’re on this planet is to learn how to overcome our body.”
LifeSTAR is still recommended on the website of the Church as a resource to help people struggling with viewing pornography.
Thurston was taught that men are especially susceptible to becoming addicted to porn and masturbation, and that it could eventually turn people gay.
In 2017, Newsweek obtained a copy of a leaked 1981 document from the church that gives credence to what Thurston was taught: it explained masturbation of any kind to pornography could make someone homosexual. The church has since updated its positions on same-sex attraction, but it’s unclear the current position on masturbation or pornography.
This same anxiety, that porn or sex can turn people gay or trans, is touted by Hansen, the licensed sex addiction counselor speaking in Camp Verde next month. He said in a 2021 essay: “A previously defined heterosexual boy might ultimately find himself enjoying homosexual pornography and then begin to question his sexuality.”
Hansen takes this further, writing that trans masculine youth might be persuaded to transition because they see mistreatment of women in porn that they watch, and then seek to avoid that by transitioning.
His essay was endorsed by the American College of Pediatricians, a group originally formed in 2002 to advocate against lesbians and gays from adopting children. Several members of that organization’s leadership also served on the board of the Alliance for Therapeutic Choice and Scientific Integrity, the primary conversion therapy advocacy association in the United States.
The College of Pediatricians currently testifies in support of gender-affirming care bans across the country. Hansen, along with members of the College, filed an amicus brief in support of a gender-affirming care ban in Arkansas in 2021, calling that care “ill-founded.”
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