Description of Treatment:
Aversion Therapy is a form of psychological treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort. Aversion therapy includes a variety of specific techniques based on both classical and operant conditioning. This conditioning is done to cause the patient to associate the stimulus with something unpleasant.
This behavioural therapy/technique ‘s aim is reduction of unwanted and undesirable behaviours by pairing with something unpleasant. For example- a person who is undergoing aversion therapy wants to stop smoking, this person may receive an electrical shock (experiencing discomfort) when he views the image of a cigarette. This is how aversion therapy adds a negative or unpleasant experience to the situation.
Goals of Aversion therapy:
- To discourage or reduce undesirable behaviours by associating them with something unpleasant.
- It creates a negative association between a maladaptive behaviour and something aversive.
- This form of therapy helps individuals to avoid returning to old behaviour patterns.
- It is commonly used to treat addictive behaviours such as substance abuse and compulsive behavioural disorders.
- Helping people realise how bad their behaviours are and how can these behaviours lead to disturbance of emotions and actions if not treated properly.
Types of aversion therapy:
There are many different ways in which therapists use this technique:
- Medication-based aversion therapy: Specific medications are rarely used as aversive stimuli in treatment of addiction related disorders. For example: Antabuse (disulfiram) is a medication that leads to nausea if a person drinks too much alcohol after taking this medicine.Some other drugs such as emetine and lithium can also be used.
- Electrical Aversion Therapy: This technique involves a painful electrical shock as an aversive stimulus. For example: a patient may be provided a shock when he/she consumes alcohol or is exposed to alcohol related cues.
- Conditioned taste aversion: Many experiments have shown that laboratory rats will develop a conditioned taste aversion for any liquid or food they swallow up to 6 hours before becoming nauseated. In a similar manner, alcoholics who are given a drug to make them nauseated when they drink alcohol may learn to avoid drinking any alcoholic beverage.
Overt Sensitization ( Electrical Aversion) :
Contingent shock is the administration of highly painful electrical shock to patients immediately following their self-injurious behaviours to others as well as themselves. For example- finger biting. The aim of overt sensitisation is to produce immediate removal of the harmful behaviour and prevent it from taking place in future.
Covert Sensitization:
This is a behavioural modification technique in which a behaviour and it’s precipitative events are paired with some aversive stimuli in order to promote avoidance of such events and reduction of undesirable behaviours. Here, the aversive stimuli includes an anxiety inducing or nausea inducing image that is presented verbally by the therapies or is imagined by the client.
Evaluation:
Aversion therapy treats a number of problematic behaviours such as bad habits, substance abuse, addictions,smoking, gambling, aggression and many more. The client is exposed to something unpleasant and unpleasant feelings become associated with the undesirable behaviour and this is how unwanted behaviours begin to reduce or are completely removed.
This therapy lacks rigorous scientific evidence and there are ethical issues over the use of punishment in therapy which is a significant concern.
References:
Baron, R. & Misra, G. (2018). Psychology, Indian subcontinent edition (5th edition), Pearson. 9789332558540
Ciccarelli, S. ,White, N. & Misra, G. (2015). Psychology (6th Edition) , Pearson. 784 pp: 978129205985.
Blog By : Chahat Kapoor
