Arrange the correct sequence of treatment plan used by a behavioural psychologist:
(A) A client with psychological distress comes to a psychologist
(B) Causative factors which predispose the client to indulge in mal-adaptive behaviour are identified
(C) The client is interviewed to analyse his/her behaviour patterns
(D) Maintaining factors reinforcing the mal-adaptive behaviours are understood
(E) A treatment package is chosen to eliminate the faulty behaviours and replace them with adaptive behaviour patterns
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → (A), (C), (B), (D), (E)
(A) A client with psychological distress comes to a psychologist — Treatment begins when the client seeks help for distress, or for physical symptoms with no physical cause.
(C) The client is interviewed to analyse his/her behaviour patterns — The client is interviewed with a view to analyse her/his behaviour patterns. This behavioural analysis finds the malfunctioning behaviours, the ones that cause distress.
(B) Causative factors which predispose the client to indulge in mal-adaptive behaviour are identified — The analysis then looks for the antecedent factors, the causes that predispose the person to the behaviour. For a young man who started smoking while preparing for an examination, the anxiety-provoking situation is the causative or antecedent factor.
(D) Maintaining factors reinforcing the mal-adaptive behaviours are understood — Next come the maintaining factors, which make the faulty behaviour persist. For the smoker, the feeling of relief from anxiety keeps the smoking going.
(E) A treatment package is chosen to eliminate the faulty behaviours and replace them with adaptive behaviour patterns — Only once the faulty behaviours have been identified is a treatment package chosen, with the aim of eliminating them and substituting adaptive behaviour patterns.
NCERT (2025-26): “Behaviour Therapy … The client with psychological distress or with physical symptoms, which cannot be attributed to physical disease, is interviewed with a view to analyse her/ his behaviour patterns. Behavioural analysis is conducted to find malfunctioning behaviours, the antecedents of faulty learning, and the factors that maintain or continue faulty learning. Malfunctioning behaviours are those behaviours which cause distress to the client. Antecedent factors are those causes which predispose the person to indulge in that behaviour. Maintaining factors are those factors which lead to the persistence of the faulty behaviour. An example would be a young person who has acquired the malfunctioning behaviour of smoking and seeks help to get rid of smoking. Behavioural analysis conducted by interviewing the client and the family members reveals that the person started smoking when he was preparing for the annual examination. He had reported relief from anxiety upon smoking. Thus, anxiety-provoking situation becomes the causative or antecedent factor. The feeling of relief becomes the maintaining factor for him to continue smoking. The client has acquired the operant response of smoking, which is maintained by the reinforcing value of relief from anxiety. Once the faulty behaviours which cause distress, have been identified, a treatment package is chosen. The aim of the treatment is to extinguish or eliminate the faulty behaviours and substitute them with adaptive behaviour patterns.…” |