Sexual interest latencies in aversion therapy: a preliminary report.

Abstract

Existing physiological, attitudinal, and behavioral measures for assessing the strength of homoerotic interest are briefly reviewed with reference to in-treatment assessment of progress during aversion therapy. Attention is focused on the value of avoidance latencies in anticipatory avoidance aversion therapy; it is suggested that the time which a subject is prepared to look at a given sexual stimulus before voluntarily switching it off (termed “sexual interest latency”) may reflect the interest strength of a particular sexual stimulus (CS1) before, during, and after aversion therapy. Detailed data of sexual interest latencies taken from a single case study are presented, together with attitudinal data from an automatically presented and scored Sexual Orientation Method (S.O.M.). These data suggest that sexual interest latencies may provide a useful measure of a patient's ongoing interest in the particular conditional stimuli being used in treatment. In addition, such data may provide a more sensitive indicator of treatment progress in comparison with present measures of attitudinal change. Although the predictive value of sexual interest latencies requires further verification, the data indicate that this technique could at present assist therapists in the determination of a patient's changing interest hierarchy during treatment by aversion therapy. It is concluded that the sexual interest latency, which is derived from anticipatory avoidance aversion therapy, is a simple and useful measure which could be used in other treatment paradigms to improve treatment efficiency.