Symptom Substitution Research Paper

Symptom Substitution- Useful or Not? Behavior modification has been a successful therapy since its upbringing in the early 1920’s. The professionals in the field of psychology seem to be split in whether symptom substitution is useful, or if it even exists. In the article The System Substitution Hypothesis and the Evidence, Montgomery and Crowder make both arguments while justifying each one. They begin by defining symptom in two ways- the medical model and the behavior modification position. They go on to state the evidence for and against symptom substitution, and conclude with their definitive answer for the question, “Is symptom substitution useful?” The medical model states that the maladaptive or behavior in question must be treated as a fever. In other words, one doesn’t treat fever as just a fever, there is always an underlying cause to the fever such as an infection. Once the underlying problem is fixed then the fever will in turn also be fixed, or in this case the behavior. “According to Freud (1920), if the overt symptom is successfully treated and the underlying conflict not, then the patient is likely to either suffer a relapse of the prior symptom, or develop another …show more content…
They claimed above a 90% success rate when using a loud buzzing noise to stop the bed wetting. It was also reported there were only a few children that relapsed within the two year time frame, and there was no reports of any undesirable behaviors showing up during this therapy. The evidence for the symptom substitution was more extreme. In the example they gave the target behavior was overeating. The girl that was overeating was hypnotized and was told to substitute her overeating behavior with sucking her thumb. Every time she felt the need to overeat she was to stick her thumb in her mouth. After two weeks she reported losing 16 pounds but also reported a badly chewed and bitten