[The Ludovico technique] involved forcing a patient to watch, through the use of specula to hold the eyes open, violent images for long periods, while under the effect of a nausea-, paralysis-, and fear-inducing drug. The aim of the therapy was to condition the patient to experience severe nausea when experiencing or even thinking about violence, thus creating an aversion to violent behaviour.
Was this strictly a creation by Burgess and/or Kubrick for the book/movie, or at the very least did either individual get inspiration from any therapeutic techniques from the time or earlier?
What springs to mind when reading this is Ivan Pavlov and his theory of classical conditioning (for which he used dogs to illustrate this) among other learning theories.
Now who was Ivan Pavlov?
Ivan Pavlov was a Russian Behaviourist who in 1927 conducted an experiment which would (alongside operant conditioning essentially learning by trial and error) form a theory ("Classical/Pavlovian Conditionding" essentially learning by association) and mold part of our understanding on how we learn.
What did this study entail?
Aim/Hypothesis: To demonstrate what animals learn by association.
Method/Procedure: Pavlov placed food in front of dogs, when the food was being brought to the dogs they began salivating. Pavlov would ring a bell every time the dogs ate the food.
Even when there was no food given after the bell was rang, the dogs still salivated. They had learnt to salivate. Ordinarily when the dogs were given food they would salivate, Pavlov called this an unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus (food) as this happened naturally without experimentation.
After a few rings of the bell, the dog began to associate that sound with food, Pavlov called this a conditioned response as it had been learnt (and an association attached) over time. Thus the food now was a conditioned stimulus.
There is more to Pavlov's study (e.g. to do with how long the learning would last and the specific parameters needed or not needed to evoke the response) however that delves more into science than history (But I'm still willing to explain that if you wish).
However the "ludovico technique" involves inducing fear to emit a negative response so they feel adverse to doing that again. When thinking of that it makes me think of two other things:
Watson, Rayner and Little Albert
Aim/Hypothesis: In 1920, Psychologist John B. Watson and his graduate student Rosaline Rayner already knew from studies in classical conditioning that fear to certain noises (e.g. a loud bang) was an unconditioned response in humans. What they wanted to find out was whether you could condition someone to fear a specific thing (e.g. furry toys or animals)
Method/Procedure: Watson & Rayner tested their hypothesis by attempting to scare an 11 month old orphan known as "Little Albert". They presented Albert with a series of items (white rats, rabbits, dogs, furry & non-furry masks, a santa clause mask, cotton wool and burning paper), Albert showed no fear when he saw the items.
Albert was given the white rat which he happily played with. Upon playing with the rat, Watson & Rayner struck a metal bar frightening Albert. Watson & Rayner repeated this several times, upon the 7th time Albert was shown only the rat without the noise. Now Albert became increasingly distressed and began to cry.
W & R had turned a neutral stimulus (the rat) into a conditioned stimulus whilst also changing an unconditioned response (original fear of the loud bar) into a conditioned one (emotional fear). In later experiments W&R would generalise (this is one of the features Pavlov discovered) Albert's responses by showing him similar but different stimuli.
What can we do to remove these conditioned responses (e.g. phobias)?
Well W&R did try to desensitize Albert's conditioned responses but there wasn't time to do this. If one wanted treatment for their phobias, there are two main options:
Flooding essentially does exactly what you'd think it floods the person (all at once) with stimuli that they fear in an attempt to shock them out of it. E.g. If you're scared of spiders they'd get you to be in a room full of spiders.
Systematic Desensitization is a little more thought out and methodical. In SD the person is gradually exposed to their fear (e.g. entering a state of relaxation, touching a picture of a spider, watching a video of a spider, touching a real spider, holding a real spider).
Aversion Therapy
This is similar to classical conditioning and works by getting the person to experience an extremely negative reaction when viewing unwanted stimuli. E.g. an alcoholic would be given an emetic (a drug to make them vomit), they would then be given alcohol and an emetic which would also cause vomiting but condition the person to associate alcohol with being sick.
Aversion therapy was the main form of therapy when people tried to convert people from homosexuality to heterosexuality.
Hopefully this helped :) You can view how Pavlov went about his experiment here and view the footage from the Little Albert experiment here
Sources & Further Reading
Pavlov. I. P. (1927): "Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex"
Asratyan. E. A (1953): "I. P. Pavlov: His Life and Work"
Watson. B. J & Rayner. R (1920): "Conditioned emotional reactions"
Boswell. K et al (2009): "AQA GCSE Psychology"
Billingham. M et al (2008): "AQA Psychology B AS: Student's Book"