Identify the therapy that adopts bio-psychosocial approach to the delineation of psychopathology and combines cognitive therapy with behavioral techniques.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Cognitive behaviour therapy
Option (1) Gestalt therapy — Incorrect. Given by Fritz Perls with Laura Perls, it aims to increase an individual’s self-awareness and self-acceptance by helping the client recognise bodily processes and emotions blocked out from awareness. It is not built on behavioural techniques.
Option (2) Cognitive behaviour therapy — Correct. The most popular therapy at present, CBT adopts a bio-psychosocial approach to the delineation of psychopathology and combines cognitive therapy with behavioural techniques. The client’s distress is taken to have biological, psychological and social origins, so relaxation, cognitive change and behavioural methods are used together.
Option (3) Client-centred therapy — Incorrect. Given by Carl Rogers, it provides a warm, empathic and accepting relationship in which the client reconnects with her/his feelings and becomes her/his real self; the therapist is a facilitator, not a user of behavioural techniques.
Option (4) Alternative therapy — Incorrect. Alternative therapies, such as yoga, meditation, acupuncture and herbal remedies, are so called because they are alternatives to conventional drug treatment or psychotherapy. They are a group of treatments, not one therapy combining cognitive and behavioural methods.
NCERT (2025-26): “Cognitive Behaviour Therapy … The most popular therapy presently is the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT). Research into the outcome and effectiveness of psychotherapy has conclusively established CBT to be a short and efficacious treatment for a wide range of psychological disorders such as anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and borderline personality, etc. CBT adopts a bio-psychosocial approach to the delineation of psychopathology. It combines cognitive therapy with behavioural techniques. The rationale is that the client’s distress has its origins in the biological, psychological, and social realms. Hence, addressing the biological aspects through relaxation procedures, the psychological ones through behaviour therapy and cognitive therapy techniques and the social ones with environmental manipulations makes CBT a comprehensive technique which is easy to use, applicable to a variety of disorders, and has proven efficacy.…” |