Aversion Therapy

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Mason on January 14, 2010 at 5:29pm

Aversion therapy is not necessarily short term, and not necessarily bad therapy.
Yes, it is often used for smoking therapy and if not reinforced wears off after a few days, but for most smokers, all they need is a few days.
Aversion therapy can also be useful in reframing automatic responses. You can teach people who are near obsessed with a particular food to associate a negative taste, smell or feeling with it. It only needs one or two strongly imagined reactions to that food to change the original associates for ever. I often use it with chocaholics, and get them to imagine eating chocolate and imagine eating roadkill. The attraction to chocolate is gone instantly.
There is nothing wrong with using aversion therapy in the right place. After all a lot of phobia therapy uses the same principles. An aversion therapy that makes the client feel bad about themselves is criminally stupid, but an aversion therapy aimed at adding negative associations to something external that is doing them harm, can be effective and beneficial.

Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on January 14, 2010 at 5:58pm

Thank you, David. Are you saying that this is my own reaction, then, and not necessarily what everyone feels? I am not obsessed with any particular food. Perhaps it just wasn't applicable to me at that moment? Would I have felt differently if the hypnotist had asked permission beforehand? I just felt a wall go up immediately, once she made the suggestion, I doubt it would have made a difference if I had been thinking of another food choice.

David Mason said:

Aversion therapy is not necessarily short term, and not necessarily bad therapy.
Yes, it is often used for smoking therapy and if not reinforced wears off after a few days, but for most smokers, all they need is a few days.
Aversion therapy can also be useful in reframing automatic responses. You can teach people who are near obsessed with a particular food to associate a negative taste, smell or feeling with it. It only needs one or two strongly imagined reactions to that food to change the original associates for ever. I often use it with chocaholics, and get them to imagine eating chocolate and imagine eating roadkill. The attraction to chocolate is gone instantly.
There is nothing wrong with using aversion therapy in the right place. After all a lot of phobia therapy uses the same principles. An aversion therapy that makes the client feel bad about themselves is criminally stupid, but an aversion therapy aimed at adding negative associations to something external that is doing them harm, can be effective and beneficial.

Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com

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Permalink Reply by Richard Nongard - NLPBoard.com on January 14, 2010 at 7:30pm

Aversion therapy- It has it's place. Rarely do I use it as a primary modality, but I have had clients say to me, "The only thing that would work would if you made it so I wanted to vomit when I see a cigarette...." Well, they just told me what will work for them. It is also a tool to be integrated into repalse prevention, not as a suggestion to produce physical responses, but by helping a person identify the "away from motivations" in counseling.

ECT- I have assisted in many ECT sessions in inpatient psychiatric settings. ECT has nothing to do with aversion therapy. It's main use is in treatment of catastrophic and delusional depressions, particularly in the elderly when nothing else has worked. ECT is not like "one flew over the co-coos nest." An anethesiologist administers his sedative, the electrodes are attached, the shock is delivered, and becasue of the muscle relaxants that are given, only a slight tremor under the skin is visible, there is no jerking and shaking, it is NOT a defibrulator... The electordes are removed after a few minutes of treatment, the anethesiologist wakes up the patient, they spend about 15 minutes recovering for the anethesia and reorienting, and they are off to breakfast with the other patients. It is fast, painless, and effective for those patients it is appropriate for.

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Permalink Reply by Roger Moore on January 14, 2010 at 9:26pm

Kelley - I teach NLP techniques to clients so that they can change the modalities of a food they are craving for a food they don't like. But the client is at choice and in control as to if and when they use it. I too have witnessed aversion therapy used without the clients consent and found it disturbing. From the feed back of the client, she was not at all receptive to the suggestions that were given - she was upset that this was done.

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Permalink Reply by James Hazlerig on January 14, 2010 at 11:08pm

I've used aversion therapy on myself. I'll do it for clients, but only if we've discussed it beforehand and the client has agreed that it's the chosen course of action.

It's all well and good to talk about keeping everything positive--but let's face it, many people are motivated away from things more than motivated toward things. It's silly to discard any tool that can work simply because it's not our favorite.

I prefer the carrot, but sometimes the stick is what's needed.

James

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Permalink Reply by John Keith on January 15, 2010 at 12:10am

I used AT on myself to stop smoking 20 years ago (still works), I used it on my wife to stop her chocolate cravings and that worked too, and I use AT as part of my smoking cessation sessions although I always explain to my clients, during the pre-talk that part of what I will be doing will be to suggest an image that will be distasteful but will help them, and I ask them if that's OK, so that I have 'acceptance'. I have heard from previous clients that the effect is still very strong at the six-months later stage. People are either motivated towards something...or away from something and it depends on what sort of person you are, as to whether aversion or positives work best.

Just my opinion though

John K.

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Permalink Reply by Graham Old on January 15, 2010 at 3:37am

I probably use 10% aversion to 90% positive. I see it as almost take a step back to give yourself a run-up.

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Woods on January 15, 2010 at 10:17am

Thank you, everyone! Your comments are helpful to me; I will keep my mind open to the possibilities of using AT with clients as I do see a place for it. It does appear that most of you gain permission to implement it...that probably makes a huge difference to its acceptance and efficacy.

Graham, your words about it feeling like a step back to run up has a good feel to it. Nearly a bit of confusion process, there!

Best wishes,

Kelley

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Permalink Reply by David Mason on January 15, 2010 at 2:09pm

Hi Kelley,

Yes, I do think that this was your individual response, and would not have been felt by others there. I think that the fact that you got that response is quite fascinating, and you could use it to get an insight into your own feelings. I think what you are describing is an automatic defense response to something the speaker said, or some part of the imagery, or even a feeling of betrayal that a speaker you trusted choose to use a technique you believed was inappropriate. Whatever it was you could use that to re-invoke the reaction, and work on the wall metaphor with a metaphor transformation technique. When you transform that metaphor, you will probably find that some major part of your weight issues has been resolved. That type of reaction is always an indicator that a major issue has been identified, and if you were a client of mine that is what I would get to work on immediately.


Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com.

Kelley Woods said:

Thank you, David. Are you saying that this is my own reaction, then, and not necessarily what everyone feels? I am not obsessed with any particular food. Perhaps it just wasn't applicable to me at that moment? Would I have felt differently if the hypnotist had asked permission beforehand? I just felt a wall go up immediately, once she made the suggestion, I doubt it would have made a difference if I had been thinking of another food choice.

David Mason said:

Aversion therapy is not necessarily short term, and not necessarily bad therapy.
Yes, it is often used for smoking therapy and if not reinforced wears off after a few days, but for most smokers, all they need is a few days.
Aversion therapy can also be useful in reframing automatic responses. You can teach people who are near obsessed with a particular food to associate a negative taste, smell or feeling with it. It only needs one or two strongly imagined reactions to that food to change the original associates for ever. I often use it with chocaholics, and get them to imagine eating chocolate and imagine eating roadkill. The attraction to chocolate is gone instantly.
There is nothing wrong with using aversion therapy in the right place. After all a lot of phobia therapy uses the same principles. An aversion therapy that makes the client feel bad about themselves is criminally stupid, but an aversion therapy aimed at adding negative associations to something external that is doing them harm, can be effective and beneficial.

Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on January 15, 2010 at 2:53pm

Hi,

I am with Richard - If a client suggests AT is the way to go - Who am I to disagee-

I would guess 98% of my clients do not believe that AT is the way to go

Michael E.

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Permalink Reply by David Mason on January 15, 2010 at 2:56pm

Hi Ian,

You raise several interesting points.

'studies show no significant effect'... this is something I too have looked into (I have a master's degree in psychology) and I believe the problem is that almost all studies to do with smoking are fundamentally flawed. This is not the place to go into my beliefs in detail, but briefly: Standard smoking studies divide say eighty smokers into two groups. One group gets treated and one group doesn't. Then you look for a difference. Whatever the treatment is, it gets applied identically to every smoker in the treatment group. No notice is taken of how that smoker smokes, or why or when or their history of smoking or their thinking or expectations or anything else. In a hypnosis study typically a bunch of post grads in white coats play the same recording to each person in the same chair in the same room under the same lighting conditions... not a single word can be deviated from... the subject is treated exactly like a very large white rat... and then they are surprised that it doesn't work. In my opinion each smoker is different, each needs a unique therapy that addresses their specific needs. Otherwise the results will be nothing better than random.
The reason that hypnotherapists get results that cannot be replicated in laboratory conditions is because laboratory conditions force the same treatment onto everyone. It is a monumentally stupid way to go about doing research on humans.
You might want to consider what ideas underlie group smoking sessions?

'AT is a battle of wills' AT most definitely is not a battle of wills, at least not the way I do it. If you start having battles of will with your clients, you will lose. In fact, if you even start to get into that situation, you have already lost. As to risks, if you are working with the client, respecting their needs, there are no risks that do not apply equally to any other type of suggestion technique.

'what do use to cause the aversion in smoking cessation?'
When working with smokers I tailor the session to their needs. I do not believe that there is any such thing as a standard smoker. The treatment can be any mixture of visualisation, action metaphor, inner child work, core transformation, direct suggestion.... etc. .. what ever the client needs.
I always ask the client 'and what do you need from me? What do you think would make you stop smoking?' And if they say 'If I felt the damage it was doing to my lungs' or 'If it tasted like camel shit' then that is precisely what I give them. If the client doesn't give anything specific but still says they want to have something that will make the the taste revolting, then I ask them what they think would be the most revolting thing they could put in their mouth, and I use that.

It is always better to use the client's imagery instead of your own.

Dave Mason
www.hypknowsis.com


Ian Jay said:

Hi David
Interesting points. I have never seen any empirical evidence to support a case for AT and smoking cessation, in fact all the studies I have read show no significant effect. That is not to say that there none, but if you have one - I would be interested to read it. I provide group smoking cessation courses that last about 6 hours, and always looking for ways to shorten it.
AT is a battle of wills between client and therapist, and at worse can drive home the wedge of conflict. That something may work is on its own not a good enough reason to use it, if there are such risks. That is not to say that a highly experienced therapist should not use it, but those with less experience should apply caution. I am sure you will agree?

BTW, what do use to cause the aversion in smoking cessation?

Ian

David Mason said:

Aversion therapy is not necessarily short term, and not necessarily bad therapy.
Yes, it is often used for smoking therapy and if not reinforced wears off after a few days, but for most smokers, all they need is a few days. Aversion therapy can also be useful in reframing automatic responses. You can teach people who are near obsessed with a particular food to associate a negative taste, smell or feeling with it. It only needs one or two strongly imagined reactions to that food to change the original associates for ever. I often use it with chocaholics, and get them to imagine eating chocolate and imagine eating roadkill. The attraction to chocolate is gone instantly. There is nothing wrong with using aversion therapy in the right place. After all a lot of phobia therapy uses the same principles. An aversion therapy that makes the client feel bad about themselves is criminally stupid, but an aversion therapy aimed at adding negative associations to something external that is doing them harm, can be effective and beneficial. Dave Mason www.hypknowsis.com

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Permalink Reply by Michael Ellner on January 15, 2010 at 3:14pm

I heard his name is Fable-
=^..^=

Ian Jay said:

There is a God! We appear to have a foundation to share common ground.

Ian

Michael Ellner said:

Hi,
I am with Richard - If a client suggests AT is the way to go - Who am I to disagee- I would guess 98% of my clients do not believe that AT is the way to go

Michael E.

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