Treatment of unobserved trichotillomania by attention-reflection and punishment of an apparent covariant.
Frequent but primarily unobserved hairpulling, by a 3-yr-old girl was followed by a differential reinforcement procedure, attention-reflection, and punishment of thumbsucking, a possibly covarying behavior. Initially, attention-reflection reduced the hairpulling, but not to a clinically significant level. Dramatic decreases in hairpulling were achieved when thumbsucking was punished by application of a "bad tasting" substance. A brief reversal supports the contention that the two behaviors were correlated and suggests that behaviors may be controlled by targeting observable covariants.
D001288:Attention; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005386:Fingersucking / Q000628:therapy; D006801:Humans; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000628:therapy*; D011678:Punishment; D014256:Trichotillomania / Q000628:therapy*