Often, the great challenge of a psychologist is to ask the right questions to their patients in therapy, something that has a lot to do with the so-called Socratic method or dialogue. It is a methodology focused on a practical reflection from which conclusions can be drawn that allow solutions to certain problems. That is, what is intended is to delve into the mind to promote self-knowledge and resolve conflicts.
Socratic dialogue is a widespread resource among psychologists, framed within cognitive therapy, as a way of guiding the patient along a path of thought. The objective is that these allow you to broaden your point of view, analyze her doubts and ideas, and result in a remedy for your problem, in the form of relief and/or behavior adjustment.
In the psychological consultation, the professionals will use what are known as inductive questions to put the Socratic dialogue into practice. They adopt this name because the function of these questions, which will be open, will be to induce a response. What must be achieved is to guide, but at no time to direct, throughout the reasoning process that the patient is undertaking.
It all starts with exposing a problem through a first question, which will lead to a series of answers. These will become the material with which the psychologist will have to formulate the following as an orientation until reaching the end of the road, which is none other than the acceptance, assimilation and search for a solution to the conflict raised.
The Socratic dialogue is one of the bases of cognitive therapy, an alternative that is usually used in the face of pharmacology, whenever this is possible. During the consultation, the therapist walks hand in hand with his patient through questions that make him reflect and adopt a logical point of view. Other possibilities are explored, irrational or catastrophic thoughts are identified, and ideas and emotions are concretized. In this way, these people will be able to reach a better understanding of their conflict and make use of diverse and new resources and tools that allow them to face it.
The therapist’s role is not to provide solutions, but to facilitate the patient’s task of finding them for himself. Many patients get blocked and are submerged in negativity because they ask the wrong questions, which do not allow them to study the problem realistically and effectively, with a perspective focused on its resolution. For this reason, the figure of a professional who masters the Socratic dialogue is vital.
