Self-study
Psychologist: Psychotherapists who attempt to provide psychotherapy on radio or television talk shows are expected to do so in ways that entertain a broad audience. ████████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ██████ ████████████ ████ █████████ ████████████ █████████████ █████ ███ ████ ███████ ████████████████ ██████ █████ ███████ █████████████ ██ ████ ██████
Summary
Psychotherapists can almost never provide high-quality psychological help on talk shows. They therefore should never provide psychotherapy on talk shows.
Notable Assumptions
This argument moves from a claim about a specific downside of talk show psychotherapy (that it isn’t high quality) to a claim that talk show psychotherapy should never be provided. There is therefore some missing assumption connecting these claims - something that states that if they can’t provide high-quality psychotherapy, psychologists shouldn’t provide any psychotherapy.
20.
Which one of the following ██████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███ ███ ██████████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ████████ ██████
a
It is never ███████████ ███ ████████████████ ██ ███████ ██ █████████ █ █████ █████████
Too strong. The argument isn’t trying to suggest psychotherapists should never try to entertain an audience in any way, just that they shouldn’t be doing so specifically by providing psychotherapy on talk shows.
b
The context in █████ █████████████ ████ ██ █████████ ███ █ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██████
The argument already states that talk show therapy is low quality - it doesn’t matter whether it’s low quality because of the context or the nature of the advice.
c
Psychotherapy should never ██ ████████ ██ █ ███████ ██ █████ █████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ██ ██ ████ ████ ████ ████████
Too strong. The argument doesn’t need to claim that it should never be provided if there is any chance it isn’t high quality. It instead looks only at a scenario where there is a very high chance the advice isn’t high quality.
d
Most members of █████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ███████ █████████████ ██████ ████ ████████████ █████████████ █████
If this were true it would undermine the argument - if what matters isn’t high-quality psychotherapy, then the argument’s conclusion that there shouldn’t be talk show psychotherapy might be false because the talk shows are actually serving a different purpose.
e
Psychotherapists should never ███████ ██ ███████ █████████████ ████ ██ █ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ████ ████████
This fills the gap in the argument, and explains why the low quality of talk show psychotherapy means psychotherapists shouldn’t give it. If this were false, then psychotherapists might be right in attempting to provide psychological help even on talk shows, and the argument’s conclusion wouldn’t follow.