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Article: Aversion therapy
- Article from:
- Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders
- Author:
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Aversion therapy
Definition
Aversion therapy is a form of behavior therapy in which an aversive (causing a strong feeling of dislike or disgust) stimulus is paired with an undesirable behavior in order to reduce or eliminate that behavior.
Purpose
As with other behavior therapies, aversion therapy is a treatment grounded in learning theory
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one of its basic principles being that all behavior is learned and that undesirable behaviors can be unlearned under the right circumstances. Aversion therapy is an application of the branch of learning theory called classical conditioning. Within this model of learning, an undesirable behavior, such as a deviant sexual act, is matched with ...