A major difference between insight therapies and behavior therapies is in their position about whether it's necessary or useful to seek out the origin of psychological difficulties. A compromise position might be that this kind of information is important for patients with some disorders, but not for patients with other disorders. Explain why this kind of information might be more helpful for

some kinds of patients than for others.

What will be an ideal response?

Answers to this question should reveal students' understanding of the characteristics of the various types of disorders. Insight therapeutic approaches carry the assumption that if symptoms are removed but the underlying causes are not treated, the disorder is likely to manifest again. Behavior therapies carry the assumption that that there are no "underlying" causes, but that maladaptive behavior has simply been learned and ought to be unlearned.

For some patients, it's difficult to pinpoint a particular behavior that needs to be unlearned or modified because the maladaptive pattern has become so pervasive. This may be true in some cases of anxiety, mood, and personality disorders. For these patients, it may be more beneficial to seek out the "roots" of the pervasive maladaptive style and, perhaps, to destroy the many offshoots stemming from these roots. When particularly troublesome behaviors can be identified and modified, however, doing so may be the best approach. If successful in changing the problem behavior, the patient and therapist might then want to remain on the lookout for future signs that an underlying problem is manifesting via new symptoms. If so, then insight therapy may be called for.