Psychology: Shocks to Stop Sneezes

After June Clark, 17, had sneezed every few seconds of her waking day for five months, experts in half a dozen medical specialties were stymied. Nothing helped, not even a trip to the dry air of Phoenix. The doctors could only conclude that her trouble was psychogenic. Psychologist Malcolm Kushner of Coral Gables VA Hospital volunteered to make an electrical attack on June’s sneezing.

The technique is based on Ivan Pavlov’s famed conditional-reflex experiment, in which a dog was trained to salivate at the sound of a bell. But for June, the conditioning was the dog-bell routine in reverse. Called “aversion therapy,” it was the same stunt researchers use to train laboratory rats.

Dr. Kushner used a relatively simple, low-power electric-shock device, activated by sound—the sound of June’s sneezes. Electrodes were attached to her forearm for 30 minutes, and every time she sneezed she got a mild shock. After a ten-minute break, the electrodes were put on the other arm. In little more than four hours, June’s sneezes, which had been reverberating every 40 seconds, stopped. Since then, she has had only a few ordinary sneezes, none of the dry, racking kind that had been draining her strength for so long. “We hope the absence of sneezes will last,” said Dr. Kushner cautiously. “So do I,” snapped June. “I never want to see that machine again.”