What Is Aversion Therapy?

Aversion therapy: Also known as adversarial firing therapy, this is a method of applying punishable aversion stimuli to correct and eliminate certain maladaptive behaviors.

Chinese name: Aversion therapy

Applied discipline: psychology

Aversion therapy concept

Aversion therapy is a method that uses conditioned reflex to combine the target behavior that needs to be waived with unpleasant or punitive stimuli. Through aversive conditioned reflex, the attractive behavior of the target behavior to the patient is eliminated, and the symptoms subside.

Aversion therapy is mainly applicable to exposed yin, voyeurism, fetishism, etc. It also has a certain effect on alcohol addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It can also be applied to children's aggressive behavior, rage attacks, enuresis and neurogenic vomiting. ^[1]

Aversion therapy principle

Aversion therapy has the same theoretical basis as other behavioral therapies. It is Pavlov's classic conditioned reflex theory and Skinner's operating conditioned reflex theory. The target behavior to be abstained is combined with some unpleasant punitive stimulus to form a new conditioned reflex against the antigen that has been formed, and replace the original bad behavior habit with a new behavior habit.

Aversion therapy form

Aversion therapy

The habitual adverse behavior response of the person seeking treatment is connected with the electric shock, and once this behavior response appears in the imagination, the electric shock is given. Take a few minutes rest after one shock, then proceed for a second time. Each treatment time is 20 to 30 minutes, repeated electric shocks multiple times. The number of treatments can be from 6 times a day to once every two weeks. The choice of electric shock intensity should be approved by the seeker.

Aversion therapy

That is to say, when the craving stimulus appears, the person taking the vomiting medicine will have a vomiting reaction, which will gradually disappear the behavioral response. Drug aversion therapy is mostly used to correct eating-related behavioral disorders, such as alcoholism and overeating. The disadvantages are that it takes too long and is easy to soil the environment.

Aversion therapy rubber band therapy

Rubber band therapy is a method to replace electric shock, which can be used in daily life, and can also be controlled by the seeker himself. The specific method is to put a rubber band on the wrist, and immediately use the rubber band to hit the skin when bad behavior occurs.

Aversion therapy

Some of the aversive situations described orally by the applicator are associated with the stimuli imagined by the applicator to produce an aversive response to achieve the therapeutic purpose. This therapy is easy to operate, widely adaptable, and has a good effect on various behavioral disorders.

Aversion therapy steps

Aversion therapy identifies target symptoms

Aversion therapy is highly targeted, so you must first determine what behavior you want to abandon, that is, target symptoms. The helper may have more than one bad behavior or habit, but can only choose one of the most important or the bad behavior that the helper urges to discard.

Aversion therapy

The aversive stimulus must be strong. Because discomfort can often bring some kind of satisfaction and pleasure to the helper, such as the pleasure after peeping at the yin, the comfort after drinking, and the fluttering experience after taking drugs. These gratifications and pleasures continue to reinforce these discomforts. The aversive stimulus must be strong to a certain extent, so that the unpleasantness produced by it will far outweigh the original pleasures, and then it may be replaced, thereby weakening and eliminating bad behavior. Commonly used aversive stimuli are electrical, medical and imaginary stimuli. In general, aversive stimuli are defined in terms of their effect on the behavior that follows them.

Aversion Therapy Takes the Time to Treat

For conditioned reflexes to form as quickly as possible, the aversive experience must be closely linked to discomfort. Before the impulsive behavior of improper behavior or improper behavior occurs, even if the helper experiences an aversion, it is definitely not conducive to the conditional relationship between the two. Similarly, the aversion experience does not occur until the discomfort ceases, and the purpose of establishing conditioned reflexes cannot be achieved. At best, it can only be regarded as a small punishment. The aversive experience should be synchronized with the bad behavior. But not every stimulus can immediately produce an aversion experience, and time must be controlled accurately.

Negative consequences of aversion therapy

1. The aversion therapy will bring a very unpleasant experience to the person seeking treatment. Before deciding to adopt this method, the patient must explain clearly to the person seeking treatment, and only after obtaining the consent of the person seeking treatment can treatment be performed. Moreover, the healer should generally treat aversion as the last option.

2. The predictive effect of the curative effect department is poor. Aversion therapy is often only a short-term depression rather than eliminating bad behavior.

3. Generalization of aversion. Aversion and punishment treatment can cause the person to be disgusted with the person and the treatment place.

4. Ethical issues of aversion therapy. The stimulus presented in aversion stimulation therapy is very strong and may run counter to the purpose of medical and psychological treatment.