When the Self Becomes the Problem: On Conversion Therapy, Required Misrecognition, and the Architecture of Imposed Correction

Conversion therapy is not defined by its techniques. It is defined by its premise: that a feature of a person's self-organization requires correction. This essay examines the psychological mechanism at the center of that premise, arguing that the primary harm of conversion therapy is architectural rather than episodic. The analysis identifies three preparatory operations: the installation of pathological salience, the concealment of harm through therapeutic form, and the foreclosure of genuine consent. These converge on a central mechanism designated here as required misrecognition: the systematic requirement that a person hold an account of their interior life that is not derived from their interior life. The essay distinguishes between internal conflict, which does not damage the structural integrity of the self, and falsification of the self, which does, and argues that the damage produced by required misrecognition is located in the disruption of the correspondence between interior experience and self-account that governs psychological coherence. The essay concludes by examining why legal frameworks, while necessary, cannot reach the level at which the harm occurs.