Ritika, 28, works at a bank in Pune. She feels lonely and cut off from others, and has lost interest in her work and her friends since her parents stopped her from pursuing music. Her first therapist lets her pour out her anger and sadness without any criticism, and leaves it to Ritika to decide where each session goes. Later, a second therapist, a psychiatrist, talks openly about his own values and life, keeps her attention on the present, and reminds her that her life is unlike anyone else's. A third therapist repeats her statements back in simpler words, and his warmth does not change whatever she tells him.
The second therapist works from a particular view of the cause of psychological distress. By this view, Ritika's distress comes mainly from:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Spiritual anxieties, which lead to a sense of meaninglessness
Option (1) Negative automatic thoughts, which lead to anxiety and depression — Incorrect. In Beck's cognitive therapy, repeated negative automatic thoughts lead to anxiety and depression. That is a cognitive account; the second therapist, a logotherapist, traces distress to spiritual anxieties.
Option (2) Instincts stored in the unconscious, which lead to inner conflict — Incorrect. The unconscious as the repository of instincts is the psychoanalytic idea. Frankl speaks of a spiritual unconscious, the storehouse of love, aesthetic awareness and values of life.
Option (3) Spiritual anxieties, which lead to a sense of meaninglessness — Correct. Sharing his own values, staying with the present and stressing her unique life mark the second therapist as a logotherapist. Frankl held that spiritual anxieties lead to meaninglessness; this is existential anxiety, a neurotic anxiety of spiritual origin.
Option (4) Faulty behaviour patterns, which lead to distress in the present — Incorrect. Faulty behaviour patterns are how behaviour therapy explains distress, which it corrects in the present. Logotherapy traces distress to spiritual anxieties.
NCERT (2026-27): “Existential Therapy |