Is it About That Boy?: The Shocking Trauma of Aversion Therapy

In a mental hospital in England in 1972, there is a battle of wills taking place between a psychiatrist and Jeremy, a gay teenager. The doctor is administering electric shocks to the body of his naked patient with the aim to cure him of his ‘gay disease’ and break Jeremy’s attachment to his boyfriend, Stephen. Jeremy tries to control the pain but as the pain of the shocks increase, and there seems to be no way out of this impasse, Jeremy has a breakdown.

Is it about that boy? is a story of how a loveless childhood was changed, for the better and worse, by falling in love. This book is many things: a love story with dramatic twists; another example of the child abuse carried out by the Catholic Church; a book about the rejection of one religion and a search for a more spiritual one; a book about therapies, good and bad; a book explaining to the lay person the psychological concepts of Dissociation, Post Traumatic Stress, and Body Memories. And ultimately, one man’s triumph over adversity, although it took over 45 years to come about.