Kavita has an irrational fear of going to the unfamiliar places. She avoids going to enjoyable picnics and excursions due to this fear. She wants to pursue psychology for which she has to move to a metropolitan city. She is worried about her fear of new places. Finally after thinking over the present situation and her goal of pursuing psychology, she decides to take help of a psychologist who uses behavioristic approach to treat her.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Reciprocal Inhibition Principle
Option (1) Insight Principle — Incorrect. Insight is the benefit that psychodynamic therapy values. Emotional insight is present when the client understands her/his conflicts intellectually, accepts them emotionally and changes her/his emotions towards them. A behavioural psychologist does not work through insight.
Option (2) Emotional Intelligence — Incorrect. Emotional intelligence is a set of skills for the accurate appraisal, expression and regulation of emotions. It is a quality of a person, not a principle on which a therapy works.
Option (3) Reciprocal Inhibition Principle — Correct. A behavioural psychologist treats a phobia like Kavita’s by systematic desensitisation, and the principle of reciprocal inhibition operates in it. The principle states that the presence of two mutually opposing forces at the same time inhibits the weaker force. Relaxation is built up first and a mildly anxiety-provoking scene is imagined; the anxiety is overcome by the relaxation, so the client tolerates greater anxiety step by step.
Option (4) Life Instinct Principle — Incorrect. In Freud’s theory the id is energised by two instinctual forces, the life instinct and the death instinct, and the life energy (libido) works on the pleasure principle. This idea belongs to psychoanalytic theory of personality, not to behaviour therapy.
NCERT (2025-26): “Behavioural Techniques … Systematic desensitisation is a technique introduced by Wolpe for treating phobias or irrational fears. 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. Box 5.2 gives details of relaxation procedures. The client is asked to stop thinking of the fearful situation if the slightest tension is felt. Over sessions, the client is able to imagine more severe fear-provoking situations while maintaining the relaxation. The client gets systematically desensitised to the fear. The principle of reciprocal inhibition operates here. This principle states that the presence of two mutually opposing forces at the same time, inhibits the weaker force. Thus, the relaxation response is first built up and mildly anxiety-provoking scene is imagined, and the anxiety is overcome by the relaxation. The client is able to tolerate progressively greater levels of anxiety because of her/his relaxed state.…” |