Meera is in psychodynamic therapy. The steps by which she gains emotional insight are given below, with one step missing.
Step 1: She understands intellectually that her anger at her boss comes from old conflicts with her father.
Step 2: ______
Step 3: She changes her emotions towards these conflicts, and her symptoms reduce.
Which of the following fills the missing step?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → She is able to accept these conflicts emotionally.
Option (1) She identifies the maintaining factors that keep her anger going. — Incorrect. Maintaining factors belong to behavioural analysis. They are the factors that make a faulty behaviour persist, and they are not a step of emotional insight.
Option (2) She is able to accept these conflicts emotionally. — Correct. Emotional insight has three parts: the client understands the conflicts intellectually, accepts them emotionally, and then changes her emotions towards them. Meera's missing step is the emotional acceptance.
Option (3) She explores the causes of her problems by herself in a warm, secure relationship. — Incorrect. This is the existential (humanistic) view. There the therapist only gives a warm, empathic relationship and the client explores her problems herself; it is not a step of psychodynamic insight.
Option (4) She changes her faulty thought patterns into adaptive ones. — Incorrect. Changing faulty behaviour and thought patterns to adaptive ones is the chief benefit in behaviour therapy.
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