Conditioning, as a revolutionary concept in psychology, encouraged various types of behavioral therapies. Some relied on a combination of different techniques to discourage certain behaviors considered undesirable. Among these are aversion therapy, which utilizes the principle of negative reinforcement to encourage the avoidance of an activity or object considered harmful; and operant conditioning, which encourages desirable activities and behaviors through positive reinforcement. These were both initially developed to treat addiction and unwanted habits.
As a gist of it, behavior modification is often used to deal with both behavioral problems and addictions (such as alcohol), by encouraging the patient to substitute behaviors that lead to positive outcomes with behaviors that lead to painful consequences. Negative reinforcement is one of the main principles of operant conditioning; it works by associating the removal of an undesirable stimulus (the punishment) with the presentation of an attractive stimulus. For example, a child may be taught not to hit another child by being given an ice cream reward after every successful avoidance of hitting. Aversive therapies include electric shock, nausea-inducing drugs, and exposure to extreme temperatures, while the ethics here are questionable, today’s aversion therapy is less physical and more focused on ‘covert’ or imaginative aspects.
