PTA.S4.Q10 - the therapist's reply to the interviewer

beezmoof

What does answer choice A mean to you? Coming out of Feb 1996 PT 14 Section 4 Question 10.

Question stem: The therapist's reply to the interviewer is most vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?"

A) it precludes the possibility of disconfirming evidence

I'm having real difficulty parsing out the meaning. I thought the question showed a circular reasoning flaw, so I hope this describes circular reasoning...

BinghamtonDave

I read answer choice (A) as "ignores or blocks the possibility of counter evidence."

The flaw here is that the first person says X does not work for some people and the second person says: if it does not work, it just shows they haven't tried hard enough. The problem with this reasoning is it seems to me to put the effectiveness of the treatment out of reach and essentially shifts the blame for the failure of the treatment to the failure of the person to adhere to the treatment. The therapists reasoning seems to be: the treatment is perfect, it is the patient that messed up. In doing this, the therapist has ignored or blocked the possibility of counter evidence.

An analogous argument might be something like this:

Skeptic: You claim you have designed a weight lifting program that allows anyone to deadlift 600 pounds. Yet some people can never lift that much, due to previous injuries etc.

Athletic trainer: if they cannot lift that much, they are not adhering to the program hard enough.

I hope the above analysis helps
David

beezmoof

@BinghamtonDave Yes thank you!!! My written up explanation matched yours so that makes me feel good!