Mental and Behavioural Health Clinical Reference Group

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Clair Kronk

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Discussion within Canada Health Infoway (CHI) has focused on removing terms that may be related to conversion therapy. "Counseling for homosexuality" was flagged, but we were having difficulties regarding what an appropriate replacement would be that could not also be misused, but would allow for practicing affirmative psychotherapy.

We had thought that adding "Sexual identity-related affirmative psychotherapy" would work, and then deleting "Counseling for homosexuality". However, we then noticed that "Counseling for sexuality", "Counseling for self-esteem", etc. were all subsumed under "Counseling about disease", which seems highly inappropriate.

I was asked by CHI to get feedback from this working group about how best this structure could be laid out to support affirmative practice and dissuade from practices like conversion therapy, which are illegal in Canada.

Thank you so much!

Contributors (2)

4 Comments

  1. Matt Cordell

    The subsumption by "Counseling about disease" of 737302009|Counselling related to sexuality| and "Counseling for self-esteem" seems to be a recent addition (Feb 2022)..
    (I think Snomed should be moving away from the "Disease/Disorder" concept in general but that's a whole other topic...)

    I agree, 737302009|Counselling related to sexuality| seems a reasonable replacement (ignoring the new disease ancestor).
    But something like "Sexual identity-related affirmative psychotherapy" might be better, especially to explicitly distinguish from "conversion therapy" (which might itself be a valid concept? - to record historical events, trauma, etc).

  2. Piper Allyn Ranallo

    Clair Kronk and Matt Cordell

    Investigating whether anything has happened with this content.  I will make sure review of this content is prioritized.


  3. Matt Cordell

    Hi Piper Allyn Ranallo, I've not looked at this content in some time.
    But I just had a look at and it seems like the issue of the above procedures being subtypes of 171022008|Counseling about disease (procedure)| was just resolved last month (May release).
    (I've no idea if your post on May 6 was a catalyst ?)

    1. Piper Allyn Ranallo

      Hi Matt Cordell, 

      Yes Elaine Wooler and I discussed this request and she made the change. 

      Thanks for bringing this to our attention Clair Kronk.


      Piper