Aversion Therapy in Overcoming Opium Addiction
Aversion Therapy in Overcoming Opium Addiction
Aversion therapy is a psychological treatment in which a patient is exposed to some stimulus while at the same time exposed to some degree of discomfort. The discomfort is meant to deter the patient away from a bad habit. Aversion therapy is utilized in rehabilitation of drug and substance users. There are numerous categories of aversion therapy. One of them is the use of hypnotic aversion therapy.
Majid, & Ali, (2012) review the use of hypnotic aversion therapy in the treatment of patients with opium addiction. The article, ‘hypnotherapy in the treatment of opium addiction: a pilot study’ focuses on the effectiveness of hypnotherapy in helping opium addicts overcome their habit. The study conducted a randomized and controlled trial in which there were 22 opium addicts as participants. Out of the 22, 11 participants were assigned to hypnotherapy while the other 11 were part of the control group.
Overall, the study aimed to determine the effectiveness of hypnotic therapy in relation to the risk of relapse after a period of six months. The hypnotic intervention methods included deep relaxation, reducing the withdrawal symptoms, strengthening of the participant’s ego and drug aversion strategies. The Fisher’s Exact Test and the independent sample t-test were sued to compare the findings between the control and hypnotherapy group.
Analysis of findings indicates that the relapse rate for individuals in the hypnotherapy group was 40%, whereas the control group had a relapse rate of 73%. The percentage represented 4 out of 11 and 8 out of 11 participants respectively (Majid, & Ali, 2012). Other than the effectiveness in overcoming relapse, participants in the hypnotherapy group also indicated an improvement in insomnia, restlessness, pain and autonomic disturbances.
In conclusion, the study analyzed in the article above indicates that employing hypnotherapy as an aversion therapy in treatment of opium addiction is promising. Hypnotherapy significantly reduces withdrawal symptoms, which contribute to the relapse of recovering addicts. The researchers, however, recommend that further studies of the effectiveness of hypnotherapy should in the future include a large sample size. This will guarantee that the findings have more power and authority.
The researchers also recommend the definition of the clinical significance prior to the study. It is also recommend that a reliable and more efficient instrument to measure the withdrawal symptoms be utilized. The article also recommends the integration of self hypnosis in the study to help the participants individually overcome withdrawal syndrome (Majid, & Ali, 2012). The article also recommends providing a longer follow-up period to measure the withdrawal chances and the danger of relapse in both the control and hypnotherapy group.
Principles of Conditioning
Hypnotherapy to overcome drug addiction is efficient during the withdrawal phase. This means that the patient must first engage in a series of rehabilitation and detoxification. In the article, the participants of the study only included individuals who had already passed the detoxification stages. With detoxification, there are numerous side effects that may arise (Dickinson, 2010). A patient may experience withdrawal syndrome in which s/he craves for the opium. The hypnotherapy procedure thus strives to encourage the patient to overcome the temptation of withdrawal.
In the treatment of opium addiction, all the participants underwent rapid detoxification. With rapid detoxification, the immediate hurdles to overcome are the withdrawal symptoms. In this case, the withdrawal symptoms are the undesirable effects and discomfort associated with opium addiction. The conditioning process in this instance is to make the addicts associate the uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms to the habits of opium taking. Subsequently, it is expected that the effects of the withdrawal syndrome and the struggles that the addict faces in an effort to overcome the habit will be the driver to totally stopping the habit (Cardwell, & Flanagan, 2003).
Strategies such as total relaxation and strengthening of the patient ego are conditioning principles that are geared towards helping the patient overcome the desire for the drug. Subsequently, these strategies help recovering addicts break from the addiction and adopt positive changes in their lives. The strategies adopted with hypnotherapy also assist recovering addicts to adopt new behavioral responses that will enable him to live without the addiction.
Classical conditioning has also been adopted in the treatment of opium as indicated in the article discussed. Classical conditioning involves adopting involuntary responses by paring stimuli that cause a response with a neutral stimulus. In the article on overcoming addiction to opium, the researcher introduces patients to relaxation training. The hypnotherapist performed progressive relaxation strategies such as eye fixation, deep breathing, counting down and visualization of desired imagery. For instance, the hypnotherapist induced deep relaxation by helping the patient imagine his desired image (Dickinson, 2010). This helps the patient relax and divert his thoughts from the drug and the withdrawal symptoms.
In conclusion, aversion therapy utilizes conditioning as a treatment for alcohol and drug abuse. The research study analyzed in the article above indicates the effectiveness of hypnotic aversion therapy in the treatment of opium addiction. Opium is quite addictive, and the road to total recovery requires reliable intervention strategies. The hypnotic aversion therapy and hypnotic relaxation strategies have proven to be successful in controlling and eventually overcoming withdrawal symptoms.
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