Aversion therapy

Aversion therapy is a form of psychiatric treatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being hurt or made ill.

This conditioningcauses the patient to associate the stimulus with unpleasant sensations.

Aversion therapy can take many forms, a few examples being: Placing unpleasant-tasting chemicals on the nails to discourage nail-chewing, giving alcoholics drugs that make the intake of alcohol unpleasant, or simply scolding a child while they are doing wrong.

Aversion therapy and gay men

In the 1970sand 1980s, suspected gaymen and lesbiansin the South African Defense Forcewere forced to undergo torture and gross maltreatment, including aversion therapy and chemical castration. Aversion therapy sometimes involved applying electric current, via electrodes, to men while they were shown pictures of naked men. The current would be turned off when photographs of naked women were shown.

Historically, in the Western world, injections of apomorphinewere used, resulting in violent illness. At least one person has died as a result. This is now seen as unethical without the patient's informed consent.

Popular culture

Anthony Burgessexplored the concept, and its moral implications, in his 1962novel A Clockwork Orange.

The movie Latter Days includes a scene in which a character is subjected to aversion therapy in an attempt to change his sexual orientation.

A radio commercial in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas refers to the practice of aversion therapy.

References

• "The Aversion Project: Human rights abuses of gays and lesbians in the SADF by health workers during the apartheid era"by Mikki van Zyl, Jeanelle de Gruchy, Sheila Lapinsky, Simon Lewin, and Graeme Reid, Simply Said and Done, Cape Town, October 1999.

See also

• Ex-gay
• Behavior modification

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aversion+therapy Wikipedia article Aversion therapy.