Self-study
Physician: Conclusion Clinical psychologists who are not also doctors with medical degrees should not be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications. ████████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ████████ ██ ████ █ ███ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ ██ █████████████ ███████████ ███ █████████████ ██ █████████ ███████ ████ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ ██████ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████████████
Summary
The author concludes that clinical psychologists who aren’t doctors with medical degrees shouldn’t be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications.
Why does the author believe this?
Clinical psychology only includes at most a few hundred hours of education in neuroscience/physiology/pharmacology.
Doctors with medical degrees, however, must receive years of training in these fields before being allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications.
Notable Assumptions
The conclusion asserts that a certain kind of clinical psychologist “should not” be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications. But the premises don’t tell us when someone “should not” be allowed to prescribe something. We want a principle to connect the premises to the conclusion. For example:
If you don’t have at least a few years of training in neuroscience, physiology, and pharmacology, then you should not be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications.
10.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
Clinical psychologists who ███ ████ ███████ ████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (A) allows to conclude that a certain kind of psychologist SHOULD be allowed to prescribe. But we’re trying to conclude that some psychologists should NOT be allowed to prescribe.
b
Doctors without training ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████ ███ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████████████
Wrong trigger. The clinical psychologists who aren’t doctors with medical degrees do have training in clinical psychology. So (B) doesn’t allow us to conclude that those psychologists shouldn’t be allowed to prescribe.
c
No one without █████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████████ ███████████ ███ ████████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████████████
Builds a bridge from the premises to the conclusion. (C), restated, means if you don’t have years of training in neuroscience, physiology, and pharmacology, then you should NOT be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications. We have evidence that clinical psychologists who aren’t doctors with medical degrees don’t have years of such training (because clinical psychology only includes at most a few hundreds hours of such training). So these psychologists, then, shouldn’t be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications.
d
The training in █████████████ ███████████ ███ ████████████ ████████ ███ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ █ ██████ ██ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ ███████████ ████████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (D) allows to conclude that someone SHOULD be allowed to prescribe. But we’re trying to conclude that some psychologists should NOT be allowed to prescribe. Learning what is sufficient for being allowed to prescribe does not establish what is necessary for being allowed to prescribe.
e
Clinical psychologists should ███████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████████ ███████████ ███ █████████████
Leads to wrong conclusion. (E) allows us to reach a conclusion that clinical psychologists should get years of training. But we’re trying to prove that certain clinical psychologists shouldn’t be allowed to prescribe psychiatric medications.