Aversion therapy

Originally deriving from behaviour therapy, aversion therapy aims to produce a negative association between an undesirable behaviour pattern and some unpleasant stimulation or to make the unpleasant stimulation a consequence of the undesirable behaviour. This tends to lead to a reduction in the undesirable behaviour and the substitution of alternative behaviour patterns fostered by the therapeutic process. Aversion therapy is mainly used for the treatment of such disorders as alcoholism and sexual deviation. The unpleasant (averse) stimuli used in this therapy include electric shock, nausea-producing chemical drugs, drugs which induce disorders as alcoholism and sexual deviation.

Aversion therapy is based on the Pavlovian conditioning process, in the same way as people are and have been trained out of undesirable traits through corporal punishment, taboos, feelings of guilt, and so on. New forms of this therapy are increasingly based on cognitive manipulations. For example, [covert sensitization]

attempts to build up, entirely at the level of imagination, an association between the undesirable activity and an unpleasant effect.