Covert sensitization was first described in the mid-1960s by psychologist Joseph Cautela as a new treatment for people who engage in undesirable behaviors. In the past 30 decades it has been researched as a treatment for alcoholism, smoking, obesity, and various sexual deviations such as pedophilia and exhibitionism.

Covert sensitization discourages people from engaging in unwanted behaviors by creating an association between those behaviors and an distressing consequence. Because of this, it is classified as a kind of aversion treatment. What is unique about secret sensitization, however, is that the unwanted consequence is never actually existing in treatment. This is best illustrated with an example. If a individual was undergoing secret sensitization to stop using alcohol, for instance, a typical treatment session would involve the therapist instructing the customer to imagine himself drinking and becoming very nauseous. Then the customer would be encouraged to imagine himself becoming so nauseous that he starts vomiting all over himself, the room he is in, and in the beer mug from which he was drinking. By imagining this disgusting scene over and over again, the customer starts associating alcohol with vomit, and drinking becomes much less appealing. Finally, the therapist would instruct the customer to imagine accepting a drink, becoming nauseous again, and then deciding to refuse the drink. In the imagined scene, the nausea (which is an distressing stimulus for almost everyone) goes away as a consequence of the customer's choice not to drink.

The significant advantage secret sensitization has over other methods of aversion treatment is that it works without the presence of the unwanted behavior and the distressing consequence. This has realistic and ethical advantages. For example, when treating exhibitionists, it would be difficult to justify encouraging people to expose themselves to others while a therapist administered a shock or some other distressing stimulus. It is worth noting that aversion treatment is not the only way to break bad habits. Large-scale studies comparing several methods have discovered that other methods, such as behavioral family associates counseling and self-management methods, are also efficient.
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