Policies - individ

• Psychoanalysis was develop by Freud.
• psychoanalysis is a lengthy treatment that involves bringing unconscious conflicts and repressed emotions into the conscious mind to be resolved.
• to access the unconscious mind, Freud used free association, dream analysis and slip of the tongue.
• free association - the patient responds with the first word that comes to mind when they are given a word
• dream analysis - the interpretation of dreams to reveal hidden thoughts and feelings
• slip of the tongue - when a person uses one word but means another. Freud analyses the wrong word
• is psychoanalysis effective?

  • not very effective
  • Eysenck found only 44% of psychoanalysis patients showed improvement, against 72% of patients that were treated by hospitals and GPs.
  • costly and time-consuming
• Operant learning theory states that behaviour is learned through reinforcement and punishment. Has been applied to offenders via token economy which is a behaviour modification programme
• how token economy works

  • institution draws up a list of desirable characteristics e.g obeying rules
  • when offender behaves in desired way, they earn a token
  • tokens can be exchanged for rewards such as phone calls
  • through selective reinforcement, good behaviour becomes more likely
• is token economy effective?

  • studies show an improvement in behaviour, but once reinforcement stops, the behaviour tends to disappear.
  • however, offenders return to crime more slowly than offenders who didn’t undergo the programme
  • makes prisoners more manageable.
  • Some cases in USA of food and drink being withheld and used as rewards. Critics argue that these are a human right, not a privilege to be earned
• Aversion therapy applies Eysenck's personality theory to the treatment of sex offenders.
• Eysenck states that criminals tend to be strongly neurotic and extravert. his makes them harder to condition because they are resistant to learning through punishment. So punishment needs to be ‘stronger’.
• conditioning to change sex offenders behaviour is as follows:

  • offenders asked to think about an unacceptable sexual fantasy until they are aroused.
  • a strongly aversive stimulus is then administered, such as an eclectic shock
  • procedure is repeated until offender comes to associate deviant arousal and stimulus.
• is aversion therapy effective?

  • very limited success
  • only short-term results
  • its use in attempting to ‘cure’ gay people ha also been criticised as human rights abuse.