Scenario II
It is challenging to conclusively demonstrate the effectiveness of treatments for psychological disorders. Although treatments may appear to work, their apparent effectiveness could be due to a number of other factors, termed treatment illusions. Treatments may appear effective due to natural improvement unrelated to the treatment, placebo effects in which the apparent effectiveness of a treatment is due to the expectancy of its effectiveness, and reconstructive memory in which persons remember their symptoms prior to treatment as more severe than they were.
-(Scenario II) An introductory psychology student accepts the facts that medications can improve the symptoms of some psychological disorders, but thinks that most forms of psychotherapy are only effective only because "it's all in the patient's head." In defense of the effectiveness of psychotherapy, a clinical psychologist would make all of these points EXCEPT:

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The clinical psychologist would not make the point that psychotherapies and placebos usually activate very different brain regions. Instead, they would likely point out that effective psychotherapies and pharmacotherapies for a particular disorder activate similar brain regions, as listed in choice C. Additionally, they would likely mention that psychotherapy has been shown to produce clinical improvements that are greater than placebo levels (choice A) and that for a number of disorders, psychotherapy has been shown to be more effective than pharmacotherapy (choice B).

Scenario II It Is Challenging to Conclusively Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Treatments