Aversion Therapy Research Articles

Aversion therapy of cannabis dependence in Nigeria

Cannabis dependence is fast becoming a public health problem in Nigeria. Prevalent studies indicate that up to 9% of secondary school students and 33% of University undergraduates (i.e., one in every three students) abuse cannabis. Cases of cannabis dependence seen in hospital practise in Nigeria are usually associated with psychotic illness and there is a strong feeling among psychiatrists in the country that the cannabis abuse is contributory to the precipitation of the psychosis. If this is true, then abstinence from cannabis abuse is necessary in order to reduce the possibility of relapse of the psychotic illness when this has been treated. The paper to be presented describes a method of treatment which has been developed and tried in an Ife University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. This treatment is a form of behaviour therapy and its cost has been estimated at about US$12, which was found to be within reach of most patients. Patients who have undergone a course of this treatment (one course of 3 treatments) have abstained from cannabis for an average period of 9 months. A single treatment administered within this period further prolongs the period of abstinence. Further work is recommended to explore the range of application of this method of treatment, for example, the personality types for whom it is most suitable and those in whom it would contraindicated.

Treatment outcome and patient characteristics in an aversion therapy program for alcoholism.

Treatment outcome and patient characteristics in an aversion therapy program for alcoholism.

Cyanamide-induced liver injury. A predictable lesion.

Cyanamide, a drug frequently used for aversion therapy in chronic alcoholism, induces a liver-cell lesion consisting of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies, structurally similar to those of Lafora. In order to know how frequently the lesion is associated with the intake of this drug, a prospective study was carried out. A biopsy was performed in ten chronic alcoholic patients who had been treated with Cyanamide. Inclusion bodies were present in all patients (7 cases) whose biopsy was taken when they were on Cyanamide and in two other patients whose biopsies were taken 3 and 7 years after discontinuation of the treatment. Inclusion bodies were absent in one case who was treated for a short time and with a small dose and whose biopsy was performed 3 years after cessation of treatment. On the basis of these findings, the lesion may be considered to be predictable. The absence of inclusions in one patient may be explained by their disappearance after cessation of treatment.

Agoraphobia, compulsive behaviours and behaviour completion mechanisms.

Anxiety is identified with a state of high arousal. Agoraphobia is differentiated from specific phobias which are inherent responses to situations which threatened primitive man. In agoraphobia, attacks of high arousal are produced by situations which delay ongoing activity. It is hypothesised that such delays produce arousal by activating behaviour completion mechanisms. Evidence is reviewed which indicates desensitization has a lasting effect in agoraphobia but not in specific phobias. It is suggested that desensitization reduces the arousal produced by behaviour completion mechanisms. Aversive therapy in homosexuality reduces the subjects' drive to carry out compulsive sexual behaviours but does not alter sexual orientation. It is suggested that compulsive sexual behaviours are not activated by primary sexual drives but by behaviour completion mechanisms which are also responsible for other compulsive behaviours. Aversive therapy acts by reducing the arousal produced by the behaviour completion mechanisms. As both aversive therapy and desensitization reduce such arousal, desensitization should be able to replace aversive therapy in the treatment of compulsive behaviours.

The Use of Behavior Modification in Institutional Drug Programs: Does the End Justify the Means?

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to present an overview of behavior modification, and to discuss ethical misgivings pertaining directly to the use of behavior modification in institutional drug treatment programs. Drug educators and health professionals, in their enthusiasm over the apparent effectiveness of this approach, have sometimes neglected to ask the all important question: Does the end justify the means? More specifically, the paper raises questions about the following issues vis-a-vis the use of behavior modification in institutional treatment programs: definition of problem, danger of social control, and informed consent. It concludes with a reexamination of aversive therapy and a plea for professionalism.

Aversive smoking therapies: A conditioning analysis of therapeutic effectiveness

Rapid smoking (RS) and a less aversive rapid-puffing (RP) treatment were compared on ability to enhance the impact of a behavioral-counseling (BC) procedure on psychophysiological, attitudinal and behavioral response to cigarettes. Data reveal that both aversive smoking treatments resulted in less smoking once treatment began, reduced smoking in post-treatment taste tests, and superior follow-up performance at 6 months and 1 yr. At 1 yr, RS S s achieved the highest number of days abstinent of any group. Regression analyses showed that Ss' confidence ratings of remaining abstinent were highly predictive of follow-up status, and that these ratings were related to number of cigarettes smoked during treatment and amount of smoking during post-treatment taste tests.

Safety training: The elimination of avoidance-motivated aggression in dogs.

This study sought to identify the behavioral characteristics and appropriate treatment of a form of instrumental aggression in companion dogs, herein recognized as avoidance-motivated aggression. In Experiment 1, retrospective data on 92 cases of dangerously aggressive dogs demonstrated the avoidance nature of the aggressive response and its intractability to established counterconditioning treatments. In Experiment 2, safety training, a modified avoidance-learning procedure, resulted in complete and permanent elimination of aggression in all of the 36 dogs tested. In addition, it produced extremely extinction-resistant prosocial avoidance responses, significant increases in the dogs' emotional stability, an avoidance-learning and safety acquisition response set, and improvements in measures of the dog's "carriage." Experiment 3 showed how effective safety training is when compared with other behavior modification techniques that, in theory, should have an impact on avoidance-motivated aggression. Experiment 4 demonstrated the critical importance of using the conditioned safety cue as a positive reinforcement. The relationship of avoidance-motivated aggression to other forms of aggression is discussed. The success of safety training compared with the failure of electrical aversion therapy is analyzed. The theoretical concepts of behavioral balance and an avoidance-learning set are presented. Suggestions to improve the effectiveness of counterconditioning for human avoidance-motivated pathologies are offered. All in all, the data seem to suggest that safety training may create in dogs a sense of control over environmental stressors. By teaching the dogs a behaviorally balanced battery of prosocial "coping" responses, they may be developing the canine counterpart of "self-efficacy" or "courage." It is suggested that this cognitive modification may provide the antithesis of "learned helplessness" and may be of prime importance to the success and stability of the results.

Treatment outcome and patient characteristics in an aversion therapy program for alcoholism.

Treatment outcome and patient characteristics in an aversion therapy program for alcoholism.

Taste aversion proneness: A modulator of conditioned consummatory aversions in rats

Sprague-Dawley-derived rats were sequentially conditioned to avoid both anise- and saccharin-flavored solutions with counterbalanced orders of flavor exposures prior to cyclophosphamide-induced illness. The amounts of saccharin and anise solutions consumed during separate postconditioning single-bottle tests were correlated to determine if aversion strength was consistent across flavors. The saccharin-anise sequence revealed a positive and significant correlation, supporting the hypothesis that conditioned flavor aversions are modulated by some intrasubject factor or factors, a tendency designated as taste aversion proneness. However, a correlational coefficient of marginal significance was obtained from the anise-saccharin sequence, leaving unanswered questions concerning the salience and generality of taste aversion proneness. Despite this limitation, taste aversion proneness is viewed as having important applied implications for aversion therapy approaches to the treatment of human alcoholism.

Emotionally Based Expectancies and Willingness To Use Aversive Therapy

Intellectually based expectancies are beliefs about the world that are subjectively perceived as true. Emotionally based expectancies are beliefs that have an "as if" quality to them. The two types of expectancies derive from different sources and are influenced by different variables. This study examined the relationship between these two types of expectancies and willingness to use aversive therapy. Forty-seven undergraduate subjects were first given a brief lecture on childhood autism and the treatment of self-injurious behavior by aversive therapy. Afterwards, they indicated on a brief questionnaire their intellectually and emotionally based expectancies about how effective aversive therapy would be. Finally, they indicated their willingness to use aversive therapy themselves with autistic children. The partial correlation of emotionally based expectancies with stated intentions was .48, that of intellectually based expectancies with stated intentions was .10. As predicted, the emotionally based expectancy correlation was significantly higher.

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Six- and twelve-month follow-up.

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Six- and twelve-month follow-up.

"Emetic and Electric Shock Alcohol Aversion Therapy: Assessment of Conditioning": Correction to Cannon and Baker.

"Emetic and Electric Shock Alcohol Aversion Therapy: Assessment of Conditioning": Correction to Cannon and Baker.

The ethics of behavior modification.

In 1971 Senator Ervin began an investigation into programs designed to change people's behavior, such as psychosurgery, including prefrontal lobotomy and electrical or chemical brain stimulation, as well as various forms of behavior therapy, including aversive conditioning by electric shock and drugs (such as scoline which can cause a breath-stopping, paralyzing, and generally terrifying experience, and apomorphine, which causes uncontrollable vomiting). Among the incidents investigated were some that occurred in prisons and other institutions, such as hospitals and psychiatric clinics. In some cases, the prisoners were given aversion therapy without their consent and staying in bed, talking, swearing, or lying. One inmate, for example, was selected for treatment because was observed in active fellatio attitude, another because he was uncooperative, disruptive in group. Pacing, negativistic, laughs and grins inappropriately. Muslim who stirs up race hatred (Erwin, p. 196). An American psychiatrist describes how he succeeded in getting his male Vietnamese patients to volunteer for work by subjecting them to electroconvulsive shock therapy, and how he starved his less pliable female patients for three days, after which they too volunteered (p. 187). Practices such as these are disturbing, and they raise difficult moral questions. What kinds of behavior or what physiological/psychological conditions underlying such behavior may or must be modified? Mental illnesses, if there are such, and their behavioral symptoms? Behavior disorders, such as overeating, asociality, bed-wetting? Deviant behavior, such as homosexuality or criminal conduct? By what methods may such behavior be modified? Any that are effective? What about castration? Any that are not too unpleasant? What about aversive conditioning or electroconvulsive shock therapy? Any that do not interfere too much with a person's nature? But what is too much? Prefrontal lobotomy? Brain stimulation? Aversive conditioning? Any form of operant conditioning? For what purpose may such modification be undertaken? Only to cure a patient? Or rid

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Assessment of conditioning.

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Assessment of conditioning.

Controlled comparison of aversive therapy and covert sensitization in compulsive homosexuality

Ethical objections to the use of behaviour therapy in homosexuality are discussed. It is pointed out that these objections were often based on a limited view of the aims of the therapy. The need for evaluating such therapy, as it is currently used, is elaborated. Twenty subjects requesting behaviour therapy to reduce compulsive homosexual urges were randomly allocated, half to receive aversive therapy using electric shocks and half to receive covert sensitization. Both groups were studied for one year. There was no consistent trend for one therapy to be more effective than the other in reducing the strength of compulsive homosexual urges, and the response to both was similar to that reported in previous studies. It was considered that aversive therapies in homosexuality do not act by establishing a conditioned aversion, nor by altering the subjects' sexual orientation. They reduce aversive arousal produced by behaviour completion mechanisms when subjects attempt to refrain from homosexual behaviour in response to stimuli which have repeatedly provoked such behaviour in the past.

Problems Involved in the Use of Ammonia in the Treatment of Self Injurious Behaviour

Ammonia has been suggested as an effective aversive stimulus for the treatment of self injurious behaviour. However, the authors' experience in using ammonia in aversive therapy programmes with two retarded children, who were also able to manipulate social situations to their advantage, suggests that ammonia is neither as easy to use nor as effective in suppressing the behaviour as had been claimed. Not only are there problems in administering ammonia but there is also the possibility of physical side effects. For these reasons ammonia cannot be recommended as an aversive stimulus.

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Six- and twelve-month follow-up.

Emetic and electric shock alcohol aversion therapy: Six- and twelve-month follow-up.

Behavioral treatment of obesity in prader-willi syndrome

The effectiveness of social isolation, aversion-relief treatment, one-to-one monitoring with point earning and point loss contingencies, and no-programmed contingencies were compared in treating a 22-year-old mildly retarded woman with Prader-Willi Syndrome for obesity. While the patient lost some weight during contingent social isolation and aversion therapy, her weight increased rapidly on discontinuing these procedures. The patient lost 44 lb. over 5 months of 1:1 monitoring with immediate point-gain and point-loss contingencies and dropped 8 more pounds over 3 succeeding months in a less rigorously controlled setting.

Biological aspects of homosexuality.

conducted on 73 patients, 30 of whom were selected. Early calculations at the end of the trial confirmed an impression that there were two categories of homosexuals ? primary and secondary ? the former being those who reported that they had never shown any heterosexual interest. A case history of identical twins is highlighted in the control trial between two kinds of aversion therapy and psychotherapy. Dr MacCulloch offers evidence of a biochemical aetiology of primary homosexuality and suggests that if this is upheld it will lead to markedly less hostility in the attitudes of the public and professions to homosexuals and to a different view of society by the homosexuals themselves.

Biofeedback and signaled punishment in the modification of inappropriate sexual age preferences

In the first study, 30 child molesters who had received behavioral treatment designed to modify inappropriate sexual age preferences were followed after their discharge or transfer from a psychiatric institution for an average of 29 months. Posttreatment penile response data in the form of ratio of response to adult stimuli divided by response to child stimuli significantly differentiated the six recidivists from the nonrecidivists, providing support for the external validity of the assessment technique. In the second study, 18 hospitalized child molesters received biofeedback alone or in combination with signaled punishment aversion therapy as methods designed to modify inappropriate sexual age preferences. The biofeedback procedure involved signaling the patient by different colored lights when his penile response to a child or adult slide was above a preset criterion. Signaled punishment was superimposed on the biofeedback procedure and involved programming a mild shock to the arm to occur at intervals when the patient was above criterion during a child slide. The punishment plus biofeedback procedure was more effective in modifying inappropriate sexual arousal both as a first and second treatment type.