Psychology Class 12 Chapter 5 question answers Therapeutic Approaches

Therapeutic Approaches class 12 questions and answers: Class 12 Psychology chapter 5 ncert solutions

Textbook	NCERT
Class	Class 12
Subject	Psychology
Chapter	Chapter 5
Chapter Name	Therapeutic Approaches class 12 ncert solutions
Category	Ncert Solutions
Medium	English

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Question 1: Describe the nature and scope of psychotherapy. Highlight the importance of therapeutic relationship in psychotherapy

Answer 1: The Nature and Scope of Psychotherapy: Psychotherapy is a treatment for emotional, psychological, and behavioral issues, typically involving talk therapy between a trained therapist and a client. Its primary purpose is to alleviate distress, resolve psychological problems, and promote emotional well-being. Psychotherapy can be applied to individuals, couples, families, or groups. The therapeutic process often involves identifying negative thought patterns, behaviors, and emotional responses, then working to change them through various techniques.

Psychotherapy is effective for a wide range of issues, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship problems, addiction, and more. The scope of psychotherapy encompasses treating mental health disorders, helping individuals understand themselves better, improving communication skills, enhancing emotional regulation, and fostering personal development.

Importance of the Therapeutic Relationship: The therapeutic relationship (often called the therapeutic alliance) is a critical element in psychotherapy and significantly impacts the effectiveness of the treatment. It refers to the collaborative and trusting relationship between the therapist and client. Several factors contribute to the importance of this relationship:

1. Trust and Safety – A strong therapeutic relationship creates a safe and confidential environment where the client feels comfortable sharing vulnerable thoughts and emotions without fear of judgment. This safety is essential for deep emotional work and healing.
2. Collaboration and Active Engagement – The therapeutic process is most effective when both the therapist and client are actively engaged. The therapist serves as a guide, but the client must also be motivated to change and work towards their goals. A strong relationship fosters this collaboration.
3. Empathy and Understanding – A therapist who is empathetic, nonjudgmental, and genuinely concerned for the client’s well-being helps the client feel heard and understood, which can be immensely healing. This empathy helps the client explore difficult feelings and situations.
4. Client’s Self-Esteem and Confidence – A positive relationship with the therapist can bolster a client’s self-esteem, encouraging them to confront difficult issues and build their confidence in their ability to change.
5. Modeling Healthy Relationships – The therapeutic relationship itself serves as a model for other relationships. Clients can learn healthy communication, boundary-setting, and trust-building through their interactions with the therapist, which can be applied to their personal lives.
6. Emotional Support – In times of distress or during challenging therapeutic work, the therapist’s emotional support can provide comfort and encouragement, which is crucial for the client’s progress.
7. Consistency and Stability – A stable and consistent relationship with the therapist can provide a sense of security, especially for individuals who have experienced instability or trauma in other areas of their lives.

Question 2: What are the different types of psychotherapy? On what basis are they classified?

Answer 2: Types of Psychotherapy:

1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Focuses on changing negative thought patterns and behaviors.
2. Psychodynamic Therapy: Explores unconscious motivations and early life experiences.
3. Humanistic-Existential Therapy: Emphasizes personal growth, self-actualization, and exploring meaning in life. This includes therapies like client-centered therapy (Carl Rogers) and Gestalt therapy.
4. Behavioral Therapy: Focuses on modifying harmful behaviors through conditioning.
5. Interpersonal Therapy (IPT): Addresses interpersonal relationships and social functioning.
6. Family and Couples Therapy: Focuses on improving communication and dynamics within relationships.
7. Mindfulness-Based Therapies: Incorporates mindfulness and meditation to manage stress and emotions.
8. Group Therapy: Provides therapy in a group setting for shared experiences and support.

Also, there are are many alternative therapies such as yoga, meditation, acupuncture, herbal remedies etc.

Basis of classification of psychotherapy :-

1. Theoretical Basis (or Approach):
   • Psychodynamic (focusing on unconscious processes and early life experiences).
   • Behavioral (based on principles of learning and conditioning).
   • Cognitive (focused on changing negative thinking patterns).
   • Humanistic (focuses on personal growth, self-actualization, and present experiences).
   • Integrative or Eclectic (combining elements from different therapeutic approaches).
2. Focus on the Cause: Some therapies focus on uncovering unconscious causes (like psychodynamic therapy), while others focus on changing current behaviors or thought patterns (like CBT or behavioral therapy).
3. Treatment Techniques:
   • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Techniques involve cognitive restructuring, behavior modification, and mindfulness.
   • Psychodynamic Therapy: Uses techniques like free association, dream analysis, and transference.
   • Behavioral Therapy: Employs reinforcement, punishment, and other behavior modification techniques.
4. Therapeutic Relationship:
   • In psychodynamic therapy, the therapist may take an interpretative role to uncover unconscious conflicts.
   • In CBT, the relationship is often more collaborative, with the therapist helping the client to identify and change thought patterns.
   • In humanistic therapies, like client-centered therapy, the relationship is based on empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence.
5. Duration of Treatment:
   • Psychodynamic therapy can be long-term (years in classical psychoanalysis).
   • CBT and some humanistic therapies are often shorter-term, typically 10-20 sessions.

Question 3: Discuss the various techniques used in behaviour therapy.

Answer 3: Here are the various techniques used in behavior therapy, summarized in short paragraph points:

1. Classical Conditioning: This technique involves pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response. Systematic desensitization is an example, where a person is gradually exposed to a feared stimulus while practicing relaxation techniques to reduce anxiety.
2. Operant Conditioning: This technique uses reinforcement and punishment to shape behavior. Positive reinforcement rewards desirable behaviors, while negative reinforcement removes unpleasant stimuli. Token economies and contingency management are examples.
3. Modeling (Observational Learning): Involves demonstrating desired behaviors for the client to observe and imitate. This can be done in person or through video demonstrations. It is commonly used to teach new skills or reduce fears (e.g., showing someone how to interact socially).
4. Aversion Therapy: A technique where an unpleasant stimulus is paired with an unwanted behavior to reduce that behavior. For example, using mild electric shocks or unpleasant smells when a person engages in harmful behaviors like smoking.
5. Flooding: A form of exposure therapy where a person is exposed to their feared object or situation in a safe and controlled environment, without gradual steps. The goal is to reduce the anxiety response through prolonged exposure.
6. Shaping: This involves reinforcing successive approximations of a target behavior. Initially, any behavior that is close to the desired behavior is reinforced, gradually moving closer to the final goal.
7. Behavioral Activation: Used primarily for depression, this technique encourages clients to increase engagement in positive activities to counteract negative behaviors and thought patterns.

These techniques focus on changing maladaptive behaviors through conditioning and reinforcement methods, making them practical and goal-oriented in behavior therapy.

Question 4: Explain with the help of an example how cognitive distortions take place.

Answer 4: Cognitive distortions are ways of thinking which are general in nature but which distort the reality in a negative manner. These patterns of thought are called dysfunctional cognitive structures. They lead to errors of cognition about the social reality.

Aaron Beck’s theory of psychological distress states that childhood experiences provided by the family and society develop core schemas or systems, which include beliefs and action patterns in the individual. Thus, a client, who was neglected by the parents as a child, develops the core schema of “I am not wanted”. During the course of life, a critical incident occurs in her/his life. S/he is publicly ridiculed by the teacher in school.

This critical incident triggers the core schema of “I am not wanted” leading to the development of negative automatic thoughts. Negative thoughts are persistent irrational thoughts such as “nobody loves me”, “I am ugly”, “I am stupid”, “I will not succeed”, etc. Such negative automatic thoughts are characterised by cognitive distortions.

Repeated occurrence of these thoughts leads to the development of feelings of anxiety and depression. The therapist uses questioning, which is gentle, non-threatening disputation of the client’s beliefs and thoughts. Examples of such question would be, “Why should everyone love you?”, “What does it mean to you to succeed?” etc.

Question 5: Which therapy encourages the client to seek personal growth and actualise their potential? Write about the therapies which are based on this principle.

Answer 5: Humanistic-existential therapy encourages the client to seek personal growth and actualise their potential. It states that psychological distress arises from feelings of loneliness, alienation, and an inability to find meaning and genuine fulfilment in life.

The therapies which are based on this principle are :-

Existential therapy :- There is a spiritual unconscious, which is the storehouse of love, aesthetic awareness, and values of life. Neurotic anxieties arise when the problems of life are attached to the physical, psychological or spiritual aspects of one’s existence. Frankl emphasised the role of spiritual anxieties in leading to meaninglessness and hence it may be called an existential anxiety, i.e. neurotic anxiety of spiritual origin.

Client-centred therapy :- Client-centred therapy was given by Carl Rogers. He combined scientific rigour with the individualised practice of client-centred psychotherapy. Rogers brought into psychotherapy the concept of self, with freedom and choice as the core of one’s being. The therapy provides a warm relationship in which the client can reconnect with her/his disintegrated feelings. The therapist shows empathy, i.e. understanding the client’s experience as if it were her/his own, is warm and has unconditional positive regard, i.e. total acceptance of the client as s/he is. Empathy sets up an emotional resonance between the therapist and the client.

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.

Question 6: What are the factors that contribute to healing in psychotherapy? Enumerate some of the alternative therapies

Answer 6: Factors Contributing to Healing in Psychotherapy are :-

1. A major factor in the healing is the techniques adopted by the therapist and the implementation of the same with the patient/client. If the behavioural system and the CBT school are adopted to heal an anxious client, the relaxation procedures and the cognitive  restructuring  largely contribute to the healing.
2. The therapeutic alliance, which is formed between the therapist and the patient/client, has healing properties, because of the regular availability of the therapist, and the warmth and empathy provided by the therapist.
3. At the outset of therapy while the patient/client is being interviewed in the initial sessions to understand the nature of the problem, s/he unburdens the emotional problems being faced. This process of emotional unburdening is known as catharsis, and it has healing properties.
4. There are several non-specific factors associated with psychotherapy. Some of these factors are attributed to the patient/client and some to the therapist. These factors are called non-specific because they occur across different systems of psychotherapy and across different clients/patients and different therapists. Non-specific factors attributable to the client/patient are motivation for change, expectation of improvement due to the treatment, etc. These are called patient variables. Non-specific factors attributable to the therapist are positive nature, absence of unresolved emotional conflicts, presence of good mental health, etc. These are called therapist variables.

Some of the alternative therapies are Yoga, meditations, acupuncture, herbal remedies etc.

Question 7: What are the techniques used in the rehabilitation of the mentally ill?

Answer 7: Rehabilitation of the mentally ill is necessary to improve their quality of life once their active symptoms are reduced.

In the case of milder disorders, such as generalized anxiety disorder, reduction of symptoms improves their quality of life and such patients need not to help rehabilitation.
However in severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenic disorders, reduction of symptoms does not mean that patient is cured. Such patients develop negative symptoms like apathy or lack of motivation and their cognitive social and occupational skills get impaired. So they need rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation provides:
1.Social Skill Training: It helps the patients to develop interpersonal skills through role play, imitation and instruction.
2.Cognitive Retraining: It helps the patients to improve the basic cognitive
functions of attention, memory and executive functions. ..
3.Occupational Therapy: The patients are taught skills such as candle¬making, paper bag making and weaving to develop work discipline.
4. Vocational Training: When the patient becomes self-sufficient, vocational training is given wherein the patient is helped to gain skills necessary to undertake productive employment.

Question 8: How would a social learning theorist account for a phobic fear of lizards/cockroaches? How would a psychoanalyst account for the same phobia?

Answer 8: Social learning theories work on the principle that our experience—be it positive or negative—such as phobia of lizards/cockroaches are the result of learning process which start early in life. Small children can play with snakes, they sire not aware of the danger involved. For them it is just another play object, as they grow up the fear of these things are instilled by their parents and society which is reinforced and accounts for reactions like phobia.

A psychoanalytical account for the same could involve attribution to some unconscious or/and repressed experiences. For example, suppose in your childhood you watched a group of roudy boys brutally torturing a cockroach/snake, which eventually died, although you going about the incidence after some days, but it might remain in back of your mind forever, which might explain your phobia to cockroaches which might remind you of the incidence and disturbs you emotionally.

Question 9: What kind of problems is cognitive behaviour therapy best suited for?

Answer 9: The kinds of problems is cognitive behaviour therapy best suited mentioned below: 

(i) Anxiety Disorders: Including generalised anxiety disorder (GAD), panic disorder, social anxiety disorder (social phobia), specific phobias, and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). CBT helps clients identify and change distorted thought patterns and behaviours that contribute to anxiety.

(ii) Depressive Disorders: Such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia). CBT focuses on identifying negative thinking patterns and promoting more adaptive ways of thinking and behaving to alleviate depressive symptoms.

(iii) Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): CBT, particularly in the form of trauma-focused CBT, helps individuals process traumatic experiences and manage associated symptoms like flashbacks, nightmares, and hypervigilance.

(iv) Eating Disorders: Including bulimia nervosa, binge-eating disorder, and some cases of anorexia nervosa. CBT targets distorted thoughts and behaviours related to body image, eating habits, and self-esteem.

(v) Substance Use Disorders: CBT is effective in helping individuals overcome addiction by addressing triggers, cravings, and underlying thought patterns that contribute to substance abuse.

(vi) Insomnia: CBT for insomnia (CBT-I) focuses on improving sleep habits, addressing negative thoughts about sleep, and promoting relaxation techniques to manage insomnia effectively.