Read the case study and answer the five questions that follow:
Nikita and Ritika are twins. Nikita is intelligent, friendly and popular among her friends. Ritika is shy, withdrawn and feels inferior to her sister. As a child, she felt her parents neglected her and was deeply hurt when they made comparisons. As she grew, these feelings of rejection were reinforced when teachers made statements like, "Look how well Nikita is doing! Why can't you be like her?" Ritika's feelings of rejection only strengthened with time. With the passage of time, Ritika was convinced that she is not good enough and would always be a failure in life.
______ is the cause of Ritika's problem.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Dysfunctional cognitive structures
Option (1) Faulty learning — Incorrect. Faulty learning means maladaptive behaviour picked up through conditioning, such as a fear learnt by association, which behaviour therapy unlearns. Ritika’s trouble is not a learnt habit of behaving but a settled belief about herself.
Option (2) Dysfunctional cognitive structures — Correct. In Beck’s view, childhood experiences build core schemas: a child neglected by her parents develops the core schema ‘I am not wanted’. A critical incident later, such as being ridiculed by a teacher, triggers it, and negative automatic thoughts follow. These distort reality in a negative way and are called dysfunctional cognitive structures. Ritika felt neglected and compared as a child, the teachers’ remarks strengthened this, and she is now convinced that she ‘is not good enough and would always be a failure’: the very pattern Beck describes.
Option (3) Lack of self-actualisation — Incorrect. Humanistic therapy holds that the frustration of the urge to grow and fulfil one’s potential (self-actualisation) causes distress. The case says nothing about a blocked urge to grow; it shows a negative belief formed in childhood.
Option (4) Unresolved unconscious desires — Incorrect. This is the psychodynamic explanation: unfulfilled childhood desires stay in the unconscious and create inner conflict. Ritika’s problem lies in her conscious, repeated thoughts about herself, not in a hidden wish.
NCERT (2025-26): “Cognitive Therapy … Another cognitive therapy is that of Aaron Beck. His theory of psychological distress characterised by anxiety or depression, 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. 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.…” |