Social + ethical implications of aversion therapy
• P: Aversion therapy as a treatment for addiction raises significant ethical and social concerns, particularly regarding the potential for harm.
• E: Methods like Antabuse can induce severe nausea and illness when alcohol is consumed, and rapid smoking is deliberately unpleasant. While informed consent is typically obtained, the aversive nature of these treatments may lead to poor compliance, with individuals choosing to discontinue therapy - limiting effectiveness and complicating research outcomes.
• E: Ethically, more humane alternatives like covert sensitisation have been proposed, which create the same negative associations through imagination rather than physical discomfort (Kraft, 2005). socially, while the NHS saw a sharp rise in spending on aversive drugs like Antabuse - from £1.08 million in 1998 to £2.25 million in 2008 (Devlin, 2008) - Alcohol Concern argues that…
