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 Ritika is shy, withdrawn and feels inferior to her sister.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.
Identify the Therapy best suited for Ritika.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Beck’s Cognitive Therapy
Option (1) Systematic Desensitisation — Incorrect. This behaviour technique treats phobias or irrational fears: the client, kept relaxed, imagines a hierarchy of feared situations from the mildest to the most severe. Ritika does not fear a particular object or situation.
Option (2) Token Economy — Incorrect. Here a person gets a token every time a wanted behaviour occurs and later exchanges the tokens for a reward. It builds behaviours; it does not change a belief such as ‘I am a failure’.
Option (3) Beck’s Cognitive Therapy — Correct. Ritika’s distress comes from negative automatic thoughts rooted in a childhood core schema. Beck’s therapy uses gentle, non-threatening questioning of these thoughts (‘Why should everyone love you?’), so that the client thinks in the opposite direction, sees her dysfunctional schemas and alters her cognitive structures.
Option (4) Psychodynamic therapy — Incorrect. Psychodynamic therapy uses free association and dream analysis to bring unconscious conflicts to light. Ritika’s problem is a conscious, distorted way of thinking about herself, which cognitive therapy targets directly.
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. 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. The questions make the client think in a direction opposite to that of the negative automatic thoughts whereby s/he gains insight into the nature of her/ his dysfunctional schemas, and is able to alter her/his cognitive structures.…” |