Expectancy, covert sensitization and imaginal desensitization in compulsive sexuality

Abstract

Twenty subjects were randomly allocated to receive either imaginal desensitization (ID) or covert sensitization (CS) to reduce compulsive anomalous sexual behaviours. It was predicted from a behavioural completion model of compulsive urges, that patients' response to ID would be at least as good as their response to CS and would correlate with reduction in their general levels of tension following treatment. These predictions were supported. Correlations between patients' expectancies of treatment success and their response were of moderate strength for expectancy measures taken following the first session of both treatments, but much stronger for expectancy measures following the last session of ID. It was suggested that patients experienced a specific response during the further sessions of ID, which enabled them to improve their prediction of response. As aversive therapies remain the standard behavioural therapy for sexual paraphilias, the finding of the present study that imaginal desensitization without traumatic imagery or aversive physical stimuli is at least as effective would seem to require urgent replication, if only on ethical grounds.