During lecture, we have been discussing psychological disorders and different methods and ways that those disorders can be treated. I would like to focus on the aspect of behavioral therapy, but more specifically, aversion therapy. Aversion therapy is the association of an unwanted state with an unwanted behavior. When I was younger, I would bite my nails whenever I got nervous or bored. Since my mom always saw this happening, she used aversion therapy on me so I would stop biting my nails. My mom always said that biting your nails was not publically appropriate and that I needed to stop. Of course I did not listen to her right away. To get me to shop, she painted my nails with clear nail polish so that when I did bite my nails, I would experience a bad taste and not want to bite them. It took a decent amount of time (probably close to 3 months) before I stopped biting my nails. This was a long process because no behaviors change over night. The gross taste of nail polish led me to stop biting my nails and still to this day I do not bite my nails when I am nervous or bored.
My boyfriend, on the other hand, bites his nails constantly, again when he gets nervous. Since this version of aversion therapy led me to stop biting my nails, I kind of want to see if he will make the association between the gross nail polish taste and the control to stop biting his nails. I think I will bring clear nail polish back to school after Thanksgiving break and run my own “mini experiment” on his so he stops biting his nails.
Although this type of psychotherapy worked on me, it might not work on him. Not every type of therapy can help everyone. People learn to make associations in different ways, which leads to different effects of the same therapy on different people.