BYU participated in electroshock therapy in the 1970s #byu #mormon #lds #lgbtq

The Shock Treatment History BYU Wants Quietly Forgotten

Brigham Young University, the flagship institution of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, participated in electroshock therapy experiments targeting LGBTQ+ students during the 1970s. This is not speculation or a distant rumor. It is documented institutional practice, and the details reveal something uncomfortable about how a major American university approached conversion therapy when such methods were still considered scientifically credible by some practitioners.

The revelation gained renewed attention through the Mormon Stories Podcast, which has documented how BYU's involvement in these aversive therapy techniques fits into a broader pattern of how the LDS Church responded to homosexuality during decades when attitudes were shifting rapidly everywhere except within conservative religious institutions.

Understanding the BYU Electroshock Program in the 1970s

The context matters here. In the early 1970s, major American institutions were beginning to question the ethics of aversive conditioning techniques. The American Psychological Association did not formally remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until 1973. Yet even as mainstream psychology was abandoning these methods, some institutions within religious communities continued the work.

BYU operated an aversive therapy program that used electric shock to condition students away from same-sex attraction. Students were subjected to electric shocks while viewing homoerotic imagery. The premise was behaviorist and crude: associate pain with forbidden desire until the desire extinguishes. The outcome was predictable. It caused psychological trauma, not healing.