🍻 Before treatment
Alcohol is linked with a good feeling, such as relaxing or fitting in with friends. This keeps the person coming back to it.
Treating Addiction » Aversion Therapy
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
AQA spec: 3.2.4.8
- What aversion therapy is and how it works
- How it can improve mental health
- The problems with it: ethics, relapse, drop-out and treating only the behaviour
- Why it is called a reductionist treatment
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Unlock This CourseMaking the habit feel bad
Earlier in this topic you met addiction: a compulsive need for a substance, with cravings, tolerance and withdrawal. Now we look at how addiction can be treated. The first treatment on the AQA spec is aversion therapy.
The idea is simple. An addicted person often links the substance with feeling good. Aversion therapy tries to flip that link. The substance is paired with something unpleasant, so the person learns to link it with feeling bad instead. The word "aversion" means a strong dislike, so the person learns to dislike and avoid the substance.
Key terms:
- Aversion therapy: a treatment that pairs the addictive substance with something unpleasant, so the person learns to link it with bad feelings and avoid it.
- Association: a link in the mind between two things that happen together.
How it works
A common example is treating alcohol addiction. The person takes a drug that does nothing on its own. But if they then drink alcohol, the drug makes them feel very sick. A well-known drug used like this is disulfiram.
Here is how the learning happens:
🤢 During treatment
Alcohol is paired with feeling sick. After this happens a few times, the person links alcohol with feeling sick, so they avoid it.
Worked example
Callum, 17, drinks alcohol every day and cannot stop. He agrees to aversion therapy and takes a drug that makes him ill if alcohol gets into his body. One night he drinks and is sick for hours. Each time this happens, the thought of alcohol makes him feel queasy. Soon he avoids alcohol because he links it with feeling awful. The old link (alcohol equals feeling good) has been replaced.
How it can improve mental health
Aversion therapy aims to stop the addictive behaviour. If it works, the person can gain a lot:
- They stop craving and using the substance, so they are no longer controlled by it.
- Their health and sleep can get better, and money worries can ease.
- They can go back to school, work, friends and hobbies that addiction pushed out.
- They feel more in control of their life, which can lift their mood and self-confidence.
Problems with aversion therapy
⚠️ Ethics
Making someone feel ill on purpose raises questions. The treatment is unpleasant and can cause distress, so the person must fully understand what will happen and agree to it.
🔄 Relapse
After treatment ends, the bad link can fade. If the person starts using again, the addiction can return. This is called relapse.
🚪 Drop-out
Because the treatment feels so unpleasant, some people give up and stop attending, so they never get the benefit.
🧠 Behaviour, not cause
It targets the behaviour (using the substance) but not the reasons behind it, such as stress, low mood or peer pressure. If those remain, the person may turn back to the substance.
A reductionist treatment
Remember, a reductionist approach explains or treats a problem by breaking it down to one simple part. Aversion therapy is reductionist because it reduces addiction to a learned link between the substance and a good feeling, and tries to change only that link. It does not look at the person's whole life, such as their friends, family, feelings or surroundings. A holistic treatment would look at all of these.
Strength of this view: it is simple, clear and focused on the behaviour that needs to stop. Weakness: it can miss the other causes of the addiction, which is why relapse can happen.
Common mistakes
- Saying aversion therapy works by telling the person the substance is bad. It works by pairing the substance with something unpleasant, such as feeling sick.
- Saying it treats the cause of addiction. It treats the behaviour only.
- Mixing it up with self-management programmes. Self-help groups are a different treatment, covered in the next lesson.
Exam-style question
(a) Describe how aversion therapy could be used to treat alcohol addiction. [3 marks]
(b) Explain one problem with using aversion therapy. [2 marks]
(c) Explain why aversion therapy is a reductionist treatment. [2 marks]
Model answer
(a) The person takes a drug (1) which makes them feel sick if they drink alcohol (1). They learn to link alcohol with feeling sick, so they avoid it (1).
(b) Relapse can happen (1) because the bad link may fade after treatment, so the person may start drinking again (1).
(c) It reduces addiction to a learned link between the substance and a good feeling (1). It tries to change only the behaviour and ignores other causes such as stress or friends (1).
Exam tip
In a "describe" question, show the pairing: the substance goes with something unpleasant, which leads to avoiding it. Naming just the drug is not enough.