Psychology Test - 9

The correct answer is Empathy. 

Key Points

• Empathy is different from sympathy and intellectual understanding of another person’s situation.
• In sympathy, one has compassion and pity towards the suffering of another but is not able to feel like the other person.
• Intellectual understanding is cold in the sense that the person is unable to feel like the other person and does not feel sympathy either.
• On the other hand, empathy is present when one is able to understand the plight of another person, and feel like the other person.
• It means understanding things from the other person’s perspective, i.e. putting oneself in the other person’s shoes.
• Empathy enriches the therapeutic relationship and transforms it into a healing relationship.

The correct answer is Changing the personality.

Key Points

• The human relationship between the client and therapist is central to any sort of psychological therapy and is the vehicle for change.
• All psychotherapies aim at a few or all of the following goals :
  1. Reinforcing client’s resolve for betterment.
  2. Lessening emotional pressure.
  3. Unfolding the potential for positive growth.
  4. Modifying habits.
  5. Changing thinking patterns.
  6. Increasing self-awareness.
  7. Improving interpersonal relations and communication.
  8. Facilitating decision-making.
  9. Becoming aware of one’s choices in life.
  10. Relating to one’s social environment in a more creative and self-aware manner

• Cognitive behavioral therapy is basically a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps person to learn about how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions.
• It mainly focuses on changing the automatic negative thoughts that can contribute to and worsen emotional difficulties, depression, and anxiety. These spontaneous thoughts which  have a influence on mood. OCD is also best managed with Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Hence Option 3 is the Correct Answer.

Cognitive behavioral therapy Techniques:

• Identifying the negative or disturbing thought
• Practicing New Skills
• Goal-Setting
• Problem-Solving
• Self-Monitoring of the final outcome

Additional Information

• Psychodynamic therapy is mainly an approach that involves facilitation a deeper understanding of one's emotions as well as the mental processes. It works to help people gain greater insight into how deep person will feel and think.
• Interpersonal psychotherapy is also a brief,  and attachment-focused psychotherapy that centers on resolving interpersonal problems and symptomatic recovery. It is an fundamentally supported treatment that follows a highly structured and time-limited approach.
• Supportive psychotherapy is also a psychotherapeutic approach that integrates various therapeutic aspects such as psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral, as well as interpersonal conceptual models and techniques.

Russian Psychologist Sigmund Freud developed a popular psychodynamic approach to human personality during his clinical practice. It focuses on the unconscious psychological processes that affect human behaviour and explains how childhood plays a crucial role in shaping adult personality.

•  Sigmund Freud is also known as the Father of Modern Psychology. He developed a therapeutic method called psychoanalysis to gain the unconscious ideas back and make people live with more self-awareness.

Key points

During the research, Freud compared the human mind to an iceberg and divided it into three levels of consciousness as below:

• Conscious: A level under which a person is aware of his thoughts, feelings, and emotions.
• Preconscious: A level under which a person gets awareness about his emotions and feelings if he attends it closely.
• Unconscious: It is a level under which a person is unaware of his mental activities. According to Freud, this level works as the reservoir of all ideas or emotions that are either repressed or hidden from conscious awareness as they might lead to psychological dissension.

Hence, it could be concluded that Freud founded the Psychodynamic approach to understanding human behaviour.

Personality has been defined in terms of body types, constitution, traits, behavior, etc. 

• The concept of ‘psychodynamics’ was developed by Sigmund Freud, who suggested that psychological processes are flows of psychological energy in a complex brain, establishing ‘psychodynamics’ based on psychological energy, referred to as the libido.

Important Points

The personality that the individual will have at this time is the one he will carry throughout life. Freud introduced the concepts of Id, Ego, and Superego whose interplay determines personality development.

• Id: It consists of the many needs, desires, and wishes in the individual. The needs have to be gratified so that the individual survives and is in a state of balance. It works in keeping with the pleasure principle.
• Ego: It is the executive arm of the personality. It is in touch without an outside world and it functions on the principles of Reality in contrast to the Id which functions on the pleasure principle.
• Superego: It is the moral arm of personality that restrains the ego from satisfying the needs of the Id. It incorporates the various do's and don’ts of parents and society and functions as moral authority to the individual.

Key PointsFor balanced personality:

• The id and superego are constantly at odds because the id desires quick fulfilment regardless of the consequences, while the superego insists that we act in socially acceptable ways.
• As a result, the ego's goal is to find a happy medium. It assists us in satisfying the impulses id's in a rational manner that does not result in guilt.
• A healthy personality, according to Freud, is one with a strong ego that can balance the demands of the id and the superego.

Hence, from the above points, it becomes clear that a balanced personality is one in which a strong ego is maintained.

Counselling is an interactive learning process in which the counsellor (sometimes termed therapist), helps the counsellees (be they individuals, families, groups or institutions) to understand the cause(s) of difficulties and guides them to sort out issues and reach decisions. The approach in counselling is holistic, addressing social, cultural, economic and emotional issues. Counselling can be sought at any time in life, although many people reach out only in times of change or crisis.

Important Points

Behavioural Therapy: This therapy focuses on an individual’s learnt, or conditioned, behaviour and how this can be changed. The approach assumes that if behaviour can be learnt, then it can be unlearnt (or reconditioned). So it is useful for dealing with issues such as phobias or addictions. Examples of this therapy are behaviour therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy.

Cognitive behaviour approach of counselling: A cognitive approach to counselling is based on the understanding that human behaviour is influenced by cognition or thought process.

•  It is one of the most widely used forms of counselling therapy. It is a combination of two therapeutic approaches, known as cognitive therapy and behavioural therapy. 
• Therefore, when individuals respond to events or situations they do so depending on their beliefs, attitude, or expectations.
• This means there is a pattern of thinking behind our manifested behaviour. That ineffective behaviour is due to distortion in the thinking process.
• So if maladaptive behaviour has to be unlearnt, modified or a new behaviour has to be learnt, changing the thinking pattern is necessary.
• Thus, the client is helped to examine the rationality of assumptions behind his/her behaviour.
• Most counsellors combine behavioural and cognitive therapy to deal with client dysfunctions or problems
• This type of counselling is concerned with the way people’s beliefs about themselves make them interpret their experiences.
• The objective is to change self-defeating or irrational beliefs and behaviours by altering negative ways of thinking.
• The counsellor may need to interact with people who are close to the counselee so that he can know why the counselee behaves in a particular manner.

Additional Information

• Humanistic Therapies: These focus on self-development, growth and responsibilities. They seek to help individuals recognise their strengths, creativity and choice in the ‘here and now. Person-centred, Gestalt and existential therapies come under this category. 
• Psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapies: These are based on an individual’s unconscious thoughts and perceptions that have developed throughout their childhood, and how these affect their current behaviour and thoughts. Psychoanalytic and psychodynamic are examples of this approach.

NOTE: Conative behaviour approach & Electroconvulsive therapy are not the approaches of counselling.

Hence, we can conclude cognitive behaviour approach that is a widely used approach to counselling.

The correct answer is Differential reinforcement.

Key Points

• Behavioural Techniques :A range of techniques is available for changing behaviour.
• The principles of these techniques are to reduce the arousal level of the client, alter behaviour through classical conditioning or operant conditioning with different contingencies of reinforcements, as well as to use vicarious learning procedures, if necessary.
• Unwanted behaviour can be reduced and wanted behaviour can be increased simultaneously through differential reinforcement.
• Positive reinforcement for the wanted behaviour and negative reinforcement for the unwanted behaviour attempted together may be one such method.

The correct answer is Joseph Wolpe.

Key Points

• Joseph Wolpe was a South African psychiatrist and one of the most influential figures in behavior therapy.
• Systematic desensitisation is a technique introduced by Wolpe for treating phobias or irrationalfears.
• The client is interviewed to elicit fear provoking situations and together with the client, the therapist prepares a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking stimuli with the least anxiety-provoking stimuli at the bottom of the hierarchy.
• The therapist relaxes the client and asks the client to think about the least anxiety-provoking situation. 

The correct answer is Gestalt Therapy.

Key Points

Gestalt Therapy

• The German word gestalt means ‘whole’. This therapy was given by Freiderick (Fritz) Perls together with his wife Laura Perls.
• The goal of gestalt therapy is to increase an individual’s self-awareness and self acceptance.
• The client is taught to recognise the bodily processes and the emotions that are being blocked out from awareness.
• The therapist does this by encouraging the client to act out fantasies about feelings and conflicts. This therapy can also be used in group settings.

The correct answer is Logotherapy. 

Key Points

Existential Therapy

• Victor Frankl, a psychiatrist and neurologist propounded the Logotherapy.
• Logos is the Greek word for soul and Logotherapy means treatment for the soul.
• Frankl calls this process of finding meaning even in life-threatening circumstances as the process of meaning-making.
• In Logotherapy, the therapist is open and shares her/his feelings, values and his/her own existence with the client.
• The emphasis is on here and now. Transference is actively discouraged.
• The therapist reminds the client about the immediacy of the present.
• The goal is to facilitate the client to find the meaning of her/his being.