Title: Aversion therapy: Punishment as treatment and treatment as cruel and unusual punishment
Author(s): S.N. Leinwand
Citation:
Leinwand, S.N., “Aversion therapy: Punishment as treatment and treatment as cruel and unusual punishment,” Southern California Law Review, vol. 49, no. 4 (May), 1976, pp. 880-983.
…commentators have raised ethical reservations regarding the clinical use of aversion therapy. Because aversion therapy always involves the deliberate infliction of pain or discomfort, therapists should be particularly careful to avoid administering excessive or ineffective therapy. Furthermore, in conformance with currently held ethical standards of the scientific community, coercion should never be employed in attempts to induce participation in aversion therapy programs; participation should be voluntary and based on full knowledge…
In addition to being employed clinically, aversion therapy recently has been introduced into the prison setting…The aversive reinforcers employed in these programs have included electric shock, emetic drugs, paralytic drugs, and response cost exchanges. At least one reason for acceptance of aversion therapy as an appropriate prison procedure may rest in the similarity between the criminal sanction model and the aversion therapy model. Both models assert their purpose to be reducing the incidence of deviant behavior. To serve this purpose, both models use punishment…
As to the rehabilitative potential of aversion therapy, a question arises whether an aversion therapy program within the prison setting can be curative under any circumstance…coerced treatment, as opposed to voluntary treatment, generally has been found ineffectual and may be unethical…current prison programs have used improper techniques, inappropriate in both theory and practice…
Reservations with regard to the clinical use of aversion therapy have been expressed on theoretical, practical, and ethical grounds. Moreover, the prognosis for effective rehabilitation of inmates with aversion conditioning appears to be particularly poor. Therefore, under any circumstances, extremely cautious use of the more intrusive forms of aversion therapy is imperative.