aversion therapy

aversion therapy   n.  A type of behavior therapy designed to modify undesirable or antisocial habits or addictions by creating a strong association with a disagreeable or painful stimulus.

Main Entry: aversion therapy
Function: noun
: therapy intended to suppress an undesirable habit or behavior (as smoking or overeating) by associating the habit orbehavior with a noxious or punishing stimulus (as an electric shock)

aversion therapy n.
A type of behavior therapy designed to modify antisocial habits or addictions by creating a strong association with a disagreeable or painful stimulus.

aversion therapy

psychotherapy designed to cause a patient to reduce or avoid an undesirable behaviour pattern by conditioning the person to associate the behaviour with an undesirable stimulus. The chief stimuli used in the therapy are electrical, chemical, or imagined aversive situations. In the electrical therapy, the patient is given a lightly painful shock whenever the undesirable behaviour is displayed. This method has been used in the treatment of sexual deviations. In the chemical therapy, the patient is given a drug that produces unpleasant effects, such as nausea, when combined with the undesirable behaviour; this method has been common in the treatment of alcoholism, in which the therapeutic drug and the alcohol together cause the nausea. In covert conditioning, developed by American psychologist Joseph Cautela, images of undesirable behaviour (e.g., smoking) are paired with images of aversive stimuli (e.g., nausea and vomiting) in a systematic sequence designed to reduce the positive cues that had been associated with the behaviour. (See conditioning.)

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