Therapist: Cognitive psychotherapy focuses on changing a

Before digging this deeply into the choices, let's refresh on what argument we're analyzing in the first place.


The therapist's conclusion is: Cognitive psychotherapy is likely to be more effective at helping patients overcome psychological problems than psychotherapies that focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires.

Breaking it down a bit further:

• Cognitive psychotherapy (let's call it CP) focuses on changing a patient's conscious beliefs.
• Only conscious beliefs are under the patient's direct conscious control.
• This implies that CP focuses on beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control.
• Other forms of psychotherapy (let's call them "other psychotherapies," or OPs) focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires.
• The Therapist concludes that CP is more effective than OPs at helping patients overcome psychological problems.

We have a gap in the logic here, because nothing in the argument explains why focusing on beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control would be more effective at helping patients than focusing on changing unconscious beliefs. The correct answer choice is the one that most strongly fills this gap.


(B) is quite explicit about which forms of psychotherapy are effective or not effective. This choice tells us that efficacy is difficult to achieve for any form of psychotherapy that doesn't focus on direct conscious control (including OPs). Here's what this looks like when we plug it into our breakdown of the argument:

• CP focuses on changing beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control.
• OPs focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires.
• It's difficult for any psychotherapy to be effective, if that psychotherapy does not focus on direct conscious control.
• Therefore, CP is more effective than OPs at helping patients overcome psychological problems.

This fills our logical gap directly, so we'll keep (B) around.


The first thing that jumps out at me is that this choice only offers information about OPs. And remember that we can't consider the information we just read in choice (B) as we read this new answer choice.

So far, we have no new information about the efficacy of CP. Instead, (D) states that no OPs can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control. When we plug this information back into the information we're given in the passage, here's where things stand:

• CP focuses on changing beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control.
• OPs focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires.
• OPs can be effective if they also help change beliefs under the patient's direct conscious control.
• Therefore, CP is more effective than OPs at helping patients overcome psychological problems.

This new information doesn't give us any reason to believe that CPs are more effective than OPs. In fact, this opens the possibility that an OP could be just as effective as CP, as long as the OP also helps change beliefs that are under direct conscious control.

Either way, Choice (D) does nothing to strengthen the argument. This is why we keep (B) and eliminate (D).

Whew, after working on this CR question, I need an extra hour of therapy myself. If we're counting my unconscious thoughts about the GMAT, maybe two hours...
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Let's first BOIL down the argument.

1. Cognitive psychotherapy's focus is conscious beliefs.
2. Patients can ONLY directly control conscious beliefs. => Cognitive psychotherapy (aka focusing on Conscious) beliefs are more EFFECTIVE than other forms of psychotherapy

What's the gap here? It's pretty clear from the 2nd point that we have an assumption: PATIENT's DIRECT CONTROL = MORE EFFECTIVE.
Let's scan through the answer choices to find something that is related to the gap.

(A) Psychological problems are frequently caused by unconscious beliefs that could be changed with the aid of psychotherapy.
-Out of scope, we are trying to argue why Cognitive psychotherapy is EFFECTIVE.

(B) It is difficult for any form of psychotherapy to be effective without focusing on mental states that are under the patient’s direct conscious control.
-In other words, TO BE an effective form of psychotherapy, IT MUST FOCUS on mental states (or conscious) that are DIRECTLY UNDER PATIENTS CONTROL. This is basically stating our gap and assumption!!

(C) Cognitive psychotherapy is the only form of psychotherapy that focuses primarily on changing the patient’s conscious beliefs.
-Just because it is the only one..doesn't mean it is EFFECTIVE. This doesn't help our argument.

(D) No form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control.
-In other words, TO be EFFECTIVE on changing patient's unconscious beliefs we ALSO NEED to change conscious beliefs. This is tricky..let's rewind a bit and look at what exactly are we trying to prove. What we do mean when we say Cognitive psychotherapy are more effective. Reading the stem again, we get "cognitive psychotherapy is likely to be more effective at helping patients overcome psychological problems than...". Looks like we are looking at EFFECTIVE in "overcome psychological problems" NOT "changing unconscious beliefs". Therefore this is OUT of scope!

(E) All of a patient’s conscious beliefs are under the patient’s conscious control, but other psychological states cannot be controlled effectively without the aid of psychotherapy.
-Obvious out of scope. We don't care what the patient can control. We are trying to prove IF Cognitive psychotherapy is more effective than other types of psychotherapy

B is the winner here.

OE from MGMAT:

What’s the assumption? The author assumes that in order to be effective, a treatment must address mental processes that are under the control of the patient. This is easy to miss, but it’s an important assumption that is critical to the argument. We can strengthen the argument by making this assumption explicit. Answer (B) does this.

(A) weakens the argument.
(C) is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if it’s the only form of therapy that focuses on conscious beliefs. The argument deals only with cognitive psychotherapy vs. other forms of psychotherapy that do NOT focus on conscious beliefs.
(D) strengthens the argument by providing an additional piece of supporting evidence, but it does not strengthen as much as answer (B). An answer that fills a gap in the argument will generally strengthen the most (since the argument is weak with the gap).
(E) fails to provide any information comparing the two types of therapy.
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Therapist: Cognitive psychotherapy focuses on changing a patient’s conscious beliefs. Thus, cognitive psychotherapy is likely to be more effective at helping patients overcome psychological problems than are forms of psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires, since only conscious beliefs are under the patient’s direct conscious control.

Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the therapist’s argument?

(A) Psychological problems are frequently caused by unconscious beliefs that could be changed with the aid of psychotherapy. --This weakens the argument, since Cognitive psychotherapy concentrates only on conscious beliefs.

(B) It is difficult for any form of psychotherapy to be effective without focusing on mental states that are under the patient’s direct conscious control. --Correct. Cognitive psychotherapy concentrates on conscious beliefs.

(C) Cognitive psychotherapy is the only form of psychotherapy that focuses primarily on changing the patient’s conscious beliefs. --Exaggerated statement

(D) No form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control. --Out of scope since we are talking about Cognitive psychotherapy that concentrates on conscious beliefs.

(E) All of a patient’s conscious beliefs are under the patient’s conscious control, but other psychological states cannot be controlled effectively without the aid of psychotherapy. --This is a neutral statement.

Hi,

I have a confusion between option B and D.

B says that psychotherapies which do not focus on mental states are not as effective as ones that do. This strengthens the conclusion, in fact, I would go even further and say this is, in fact, the author's assumption. (Negate it and the conclusion falls apart)

D says that no form of psychotherapy can be effective till it changes conscious beliefs. Although this is an exaggeration, it does increase my belief in the conclusion that possibly cognitive psychotherapy, since it changes conscious beliefs, is likely to be effective. I am not sure how to eliminate D.

Is it because changing conscious beliefs is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one for psychotherapy to be active? That is even if a psychotherapy changes conscious beliefs, there is no guarantee it will be more effective than a therapy which does not?

Many thanks.

Ah, we know we're in LSAT land when we get this deep into sufficient and necessary. If you want a good treatment of that, check out my friend Patrick's analysis here (the post from March 21, 2012): https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... tml#p15880

In a nutshell, the crucial difference between B and D is that D talks about "helping to change beliefs" while B addresses "focusing" on states under conscious control. The latter fits well with the argument. The problem with "helping" is that perhaps we could help change conscious beliefs without actively focusing them. In other words, if I'm receiving therapy that focuses on the unconscious, then it seems clear enough that I'm not focusing on the conscious, so B kicks in and helps us. However, we don't know whether that therapy is helping me to change my conscious beliefs, so D does not necessarily apply.
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guys

this seems to be very complex. is this limited only to LSAT or even GMAT has such tough questions?

Hi MikeHelios,

LSAT CR questions tend to be on the more difficult side of things, no doubt. However, If you look at the top of the page, you will see a difficulty measure. You can see how this question compares to other questions based on said difficulty level.

LSAT LR questions are great practice, but there a few that go above and beyond the GMAT.
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hi nightblade354

thanks. i hope we dont get many such questions on the real exam.
also how is that difficulty calculated?

Hi MikeHelios,

It is calculated by the percentage of forum participants who got it wrong. Hence, it is a good judge of GMAT difficulty and character
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nightblade354

hi man sorry to keep pestering you. it says its 95% hard, but 42% have got it correct? shouldnt it be 5% who have answered it correctly? am i missing something?

This is definitely a more LSAT-like question. One of the big differences in the LSAT is that it focuses heavily on conditional logic. To do well on the LSAT, you need to have a strong grasp of sufficient vs. necessary and you will often need to diagram arguments using conditional notation. We can generally get through the GMAT without any of this.

Short answer, for those who are worried: no, you're not likely to see something like this on the GMAT.
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Another way to think about the difficulty is that while it may not be the hardest LSAT question of all time, it tests skills that GMAT students won't typically have been working on. Similarly, we might not enjoy seeing an easy trigonometry question if we haven't studied trigonometry!
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Hi expert

I narrowed down to options "B" and "D".
I rejected "D" because it stated that "no form of psychotherapy could be effective unless it focuses on changing a person's concios belief". While the argument only says that Cognitve psychotherapy is more effective than other forms that concerntrate on unconcious beliefs. This implies that other forms of psychotheapy are also somewhat effective. Hence "D" is incorrect.
B makes a comparison by saying that it is difficult for other forms to be effective. This implies, though difficult, other forms can be effective. The statement is in line with the argument.

Please let me know if my line of reasoning is correct.

Thanks

GMATNinja VeritasKarishma gmat1393 nightblade354 AjiteshArun DavidTutorexamPAL
I rejected D as it is mentioned that No form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control.

Where as in passage it is already mentioned that ognitive psychotherapy is likely to be more effective at helping patients overcome psychological problems than are forms of psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires,

It means that psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs are less effective but are still effective whereas in D it talks about psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs are not effective

Is my reasoning correct if it's wrong please correct me

Therapist: Cognitive psychotherapy focuses on changing a patient’s conscious beliefs. Thus, cognitive psychotherapy is likely to be more effective at helping patients overcome psychological problems than are forms of psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires, since only conscious beliefs are under the patient’s direct conscious control.

Which one of the following, if true, would most strengthen the therapist’s argument?

okay, cognitive psychoterapy is more effective in helping patients to overcome psychological problems than than are forms of psychotherapy that focus on changing unconscious beliefs and desires

Why ? because only conscious beliefs are under the patient’s direct conscious control.

(A) Psychological problems are frequently caused by unconscious beliefs that could be changed with the aid of psychotherapy. ( i am not concerned with unconscious beliefs)


(B) It is difficult for any form of psychotherapy to be effective without focusing on mental states that are under the patient’s direct conscious control.
( correct so far ! this is what came to my mind straight away Since we need to strengthen practise of conscios psychoterapy. okay but still will check other options. [b]B is correct answer choice after eliminating all f answer choices.
[/b]

(C) Cognitive psychotherapy is the only form of psychotherapy that focuses primarily on changing the patient’s conscious beliefs. ( this is not a strengghten answer, cause it only talks about cognitive psychotherapy as isolated subject . anyway you got me what mean ) out of scope.


(D) No form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control. ( i defenitealy cant assume this. i cant be sure of this info. )

(E) All of a patient’s conscious beliefs are under the patient’s conscious control, but other psychological states cannot be controlled effectively without the aid of psychotherapy. we are not concerned with patients conscious beliefs. out of scope.

(B) It is difficult for any form of psychotherapy to be effective without focusing on mental states that are under the patient’s direct conscious control. - directly says that to be effective psychotherapy needs to focus on conscious beliefs, which is exactly not a the main factor of other forms of psychotherapy that focus on unconscious beliefs

(D) No form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires can be effective unless it also helps change beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control. - merely says that those that focus on unconscious beliefs need to address conscious beliefs too; yet, we don't get any information on how THESE forms stand against those that FOCUS on conscious beliefs

How is a "mental state" (as in B) even similar to a conscious belief? LSAT are not very exact here. A mental state, like sadness, is not even close to the definition of a belief.

Posted from my mobile device

Edit: I was gone. I thought a mental state was the same thing as an emotional state. The definition, however, is more general: "Mental states comprise a diverse class including perception, pain experience, belief, desire, intention, emotion and memory."

If you look closely, you can see that option D is a weakener. It says that even if we take the case of another form of psychotherapy that focuses on changing the patient’s unconscious beliefs and desires, that form of psychotherapy will only be effective if it also changes beliefs that are under the patient’s direct conscious control.

Then how can we say that one form of psychotherapy is better than another?