PrepTest 127, Section 2, Question 20
Psychologist: Psychotherapists who attempt to provide psychotherapy on(41 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(14 more words not shown)
- AIt is never(10 more words not shown)
- BThe context in(21 more words not shown)
- CPsychotherapy should never(21 more words not shown)
- DMost members of(14 more words not shown)
- EPsychotherapists should never(17 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A talk show wants an entertaining segment. Good psychotherapy may require a different kind of conversation. I can see how trying to satisfy an audience could interfere with giving the person receiving therapy the best help.
The psychologist says meeting the entertainment demand is nearly always incompatible with high-quality psychological help. Then comes a strong recommendation: psychotherapists should never provide psychotherapy on talk shows.
What makes the quality problem a reason they should not do it? The argument assumes that providing good psychological help matters enough to restrict how psychotherapists practice. Someone focused only on putting on an entertaining show might accept the lower quality and carry on.
What we’re looking for
The stem asks for a principle the conclusion requires. We need the missing rule connecting compromised quality with what psychotherapists should do. It isn't enough simply to repeat that the show is entertaining or that its format affects the therapy.
Working the answers
- A
A psychotherapist could entertain people by performing comedy or magic away from any therapy setting. The argument criticizes providing psychotherapy under conflicting demands. It doesn't require a rule forbidding psychotherapists from ever entertaining an audience.
- B
The psychologist doesn't need to rank the influence of context against the influence of the actual advice. Both could affect quality. The missing step is why the quality problem makes this way of providing therapy unacceptable, not which influence has the greater effect.
- C
This is close because it connects quality to a prohibition, but 'any chance' makes it much stronger than the argument requires. Even an otherwise excellent setting might carry a small risk that a session falls below high quality. The psychologist could permit therapy in that setting while rejecting a format in which high-quality help is unlikely.
C would impose a zero-risk standard across psychotherapy. The evidence here concerns a much more serious quality problem: meeting the entertainment demand is nearly always incompatible with good help. We don't have to forbid every possibility of an imperfect session to accept the argument's recommendation.
- D
What most audience members want doesn't supply a rule about what psychotherapists should provide. The audience could prefer entertainment, but we would still need to explain why that preference should not be satisfied through this kind of therapy.
- ECorrect
This supplies the required standard: psychotherapists should not attempt to provide help in a way that makes high quality unlikely. The talk show's entertainment demand creates the quality problem described in the evidence; the principle makes that problem a reason to reject providing therapy that way.
Unlike C, E does not forbid therapy whenever there is even a small chance of an imperfect result. It addresses methods unlikely to provide high-quality help. That matches the concern about the talk-show format and supplies the ethical connection on which the recommendation depends.
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