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He or she internalizes, or takes credit for success, and externalizes
experiences of failure. Maladjusted individuals must do the opposite; he or she may go to the
opposite extreme, attributing successes and positive events to others or environmental factors
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and failure and negative events to his or her own lack of initiative or ability. In one case, the
maladjusted person is protecting a fragile self-esteem, and in the other, the person is
confirming low self-esteem.
Personalization of events. This is a mild form of delusions of reference, a condition in which
there is a tendency to see personal significance in the behavior of others. A person goes to a
party at which the host serves Mexican food. The person does not like Mexican food and
thinks that the host served it to spite him or her. The professor scolds the class for poor
performance on a test. A student feels that the message is intended for him or her personally.
You may have noticed that the types of faulty thinking described by cognitive psychologists as
roots of emotional disorders are similar to uncritical, rigid thinking in general. Faulty thinking
can distort our interpretation of events, and it can cause us to make unfortunate decisions.
Why Does Therapy Sometimes Fail?
Putting the blame on science.
We do not know the causal agent for most mental disorders because mental disorders, unlike
most physical illnesses, have no easily identifiable germ, bacteria, virus, organic damage, or
psychosocial factor that has been associated with the majority of cases. The medical model
contends that we will eventually identify biological causes for mental disorders. The psychosocial
model points to life experiences, stress, and sociocultural forces as causes. Currently, a synthesis
of these two theories prevails; biological and psychosocial forces interact as causal agents. Mental
disorders seem to be like headaches in that they may result from any of many causes. Therapists
of different theoretical orientations have their own explanations for mental disorders.
Diagnosis of most mental disorders must be made based on signs and symptoms, what the
mental health professional observes in the patient閳ユ獨 behavior, and the patient閳ユ獨 description of his
complaint. Symptom patterns are usually not clear-cut or easily associated with a particular
diagnostic category, and mental health professionals do not get diagnostic help from analysis of
blood or urine or X-rays.
Putting the blame on the therapists.
Research suggests that the personality, experience, and talent of the therapist are more important
in determining the success of therapy than the type of therapy utilized. In other words, the
person-therapist is more important than whether the therapy is psychoanalytic, humanistic,
behavioral, or eclectic.
It is more difficult for therapists to be objective than it is for medical practitioners to be so,
because the therapist cannot entirely avoid intrusions of his or her own values and preferences
into the perception and interpretation of the patient閳ユ獨 behavior and disclosures. This problem is
accentuated when the therapist and the patient have divergent socioeconomic, cultural, or ethnic
backgrounds, or perhaps are of different genders.
Carl Rogers said that to be effective a therapist must be empathic, able to feel with the client;
warm and accepting; and genuine. Empathy and warmth cannot be merely a professional facade.
Yet, the important criteria for admission to most graduate and professional schools are
intellectual ability and academic achievement, rather than warmth and genuineness. There may
well be a gift or a talent that is an important ingredient in therapy that many therapists do not
possess閳ユ攼r that was selected out of postgraduate admissions.
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Putting the blame on the patients.
For convenience, we can put people who undergo psychotherapy into one of two categories.
First, there are those who are in therapy because they were coerced or forced by family, authority
figures, or the courts. Second, there are those who voluntarily seek therapy because their
abnormal behavior is causing them pain or problems. It is not difficult to understand why
therapy often fails when patients are coerced or forced, but why does it fail to help those who
actively seek help with the intention of cooperating and doing their share in the therapeutic
process?