Download Understanding Family Therapy Techniques and Approaches and more Exams Nursing in PDF only on Docsity! MFT Exam Flashcards Questions with Answers 2024 A strategic therapist responds, "I understand why you want to stay with him" to a woman whose spouse has had multiple affairs. This response would be considered a(n): \ n ✔a. positive connotation b. reframe c. accommodation d. paradox Dr. Anderson trains family therapists. Mary B is Dr. A's student. Midway through the year it becomes evident to Dr. A that Mary could benefit from therapy. When she approaches Mary with her recommendation,Mary agrees and asks Dr. A to be her therapist. Dr. A (Select one): \ n ✔a. declines to be Mary's therapist, since she already knows many of the issues. b. declines on the grounds that it would be unethical. c. says yes, but that she will have to get supervision because Mary is her student d. tells Mary she will be her therapist if Dr. A gets permission from the director Xi and her husband has been in the US now for three years, immigrating from Guangzhou, China. They are the first in their extended family to come to the US. Xi has been taking ESL classes within NYC's adult education program. She is 29 and is married and has 3 children under the age of 9. She reports feeling her children are becoming disrespectful to her, and her husband, often not listening. In working with Xi and her family, a therapist would be correct in assuming that: Select one: \ n ✔a. Chinese parents can be very demanding and the goal of therapy might simply be to educate the parents on how their children's behavior is typical of latency age children. b. Given their recent immigration, the family is feeling a great deal of stress which is being expressed by the children. c. While families with younger children often are strengthened by having each other, the reversal of hierarchies can often occur. d. The stress of immigrating is taking a toll on this family and a support group for new immigrants would help to normalize the stressors. Who coined the phrase "tickling the defenses?" Select one: \ n ✔a. Satir b. Ackerman c. Erickson d. Bateson In using Adlerian early recollections, a therapist might: Select one: \ n ✔a. Expand a client's perspective by gathering the perspectives of other family members. b. Work to process preverbal traumatic events c. Use information to understand their client's lifestyle d. Assess the parenting style in the client's family of origin In Adlerian parenting models, it is important for parents to pay attention to and monitor their own emotional reactions because: Select one: \ n ✔a. They can identify unresolved family of origin triggers b. They can avoid disciplining when they are emotionally triggered. c. They can model congruent communication to their children d. They can use their emotional reaction to better understand their children's mistaken goals. A 17-year old female is referred by her parents for having an "outburst" at a movie theater while with friends four days earlier. During the initial interview she tells the clinician that she has no idea why it happened and that this is her first such incident. She has no history of mental health issues or past treatment. She ays she's not concerned. She's in the clinician's office only because her parents were concerned. She ways the police were called to the theater to manage the situation, but she was not arrested. She says also that the person sitting in front of her said she was slapped a number of times, but the client doesn't remember doing that. The therapist should: Select one: \ n ✔a. attempt to establish a no-suicide contract b. explore recent life events to identify any crisis or trauma triggering circumstances, evaluate for depression and dangerousness, carefully document her findings and then call the parents to take the client to the local emergency room for medical evaluation . c. be mindful of the need for therapist safety when interviewing dangerous clients, and call the police to escort her to the local emergency room where a thorough psychiatric evaluation can be performed, and where security services are available. d. attempt to engage the client in a conversation about her life circumstances, including family, friends, and school, to see if a crisis management or therapeutic relationship can be established that has a reasonably good chance of averting another incident. Research has demonstrated that children with autism have improved child-parent interactions and improved diversity of play activities when: Select one: \ n ✔a. A well- defined and implemented eclectic version of Strategic Family Therapy is applied over the course of 12 sessions b. The school is included in an eco-family therapy model c. Parent-mediated interventions are used, compared to professionally delivered interventions alone. d. A well-defined and implemented combination of individual counseling and medication is offered, along with psychoeducation sessions for the whole family. A family comes to therapy and during the first session, the therapist observes that the 7-year-old daughter sits between her parents and looks toward her mother before answering any questions. The father appears bored during the session and constantly looks up toward the ceiling whenever the daughter looks toward the mother. The 5-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter are sitting opposite the parents and appear distracted and uninvolved. Which of the following family therapists would see all family members as part of the problem and reformulate symptoms into concrete observable behaviors? Select one: \ n ✔A. Structural B. Narrative C. Behavioral Common Techniques in Structural Therapy include: Select one: \ n ✔a. positively connoting dysfunctional interactions in session b. asking circular and reflexive question prior to an enactment c. unbalancing the family equilibrium and re-aligning boundaries d. teaching families how to tell their own Structural narratives According to the communication theorists the content aspect of communication is known as: Select one: \ n ✔a. an analogical message b. metacommunication c. report d. request Mr. & Mrs. Doherty present for family therapy complaining that their son Jon will not listen to them and is acting out. In designing a treatment plan, a Contextual family therapist would: Select one: \ n ✔a. map the system b. establish long- and short-term goals. c. track disabling sequences d. assess the credits and debits A husband and wife are in couples therapy. They both are experiencing depression at a level that is altering their lives. They both have experienced some improvement in depression and some improvement in their marital satisfaction. At their next session, they ask the MFT if they would be better off if they took time off of couples work and both entered separate individual therapies. From the perspective of current outcome research alone: Select one: \ n ✔a. The therapist should encourage continuing the couples therapy because there is research evidence that it is as effective or more effective in relieving symptoms of depression. b. The therapist should agree because individual therapy plus medication has been demonstrated to be more effective with depression than couples therapy with medication. c. The therapist should encourage continuing the couples therapy because recent outcome research has demonstrated that dropping out of couples therapy too early increases the risk of divorce. d. The therapist should leave it up to the couple, because the research only addresses efficacy and no clear guidance can be gotten from it. Vignette: A 60 year old woman is referred for depression and feeling 'lost' in life. During the initial interview the client describes her partner getting very angry at her and sometimes slapping her, then apologizing, promising to never get that angry again. The clinician should: Select one: \ n ✔a. recognize this as the "excuses" phase of the Cycle of Abuse and begin to counsel the client about safety. b. taking the client's safety as a priority, the clinician should assure she will be safe before proceeding with any further counseling. c. remember that in system-based treatment, cause and effect are circular, and advise the client to alter her own behavior to avoid further violent incidents d. explore the possibility that this is a pattern and part of the Cycle of Abuse. David Olson's Family Circumplex Model maps the dynamic relationships within families; identifying the following dimensions as critical to show how all family members and their behaviors are interconnected. Which of the following are Olson's dimensions? Select one: \ n ✔a. Cohesion, Flexibility, and Communication b. Centripetal, Centrifugal, and Adaptability c. Affective, Involvement, Behavior and Communication, Control d. Power, Meaning, and Affect David Olson's Family Circumplex Model maps the dynamic relationships within families; identifying the following dimensions as critical to show how all family members and their behaviors are interconnected. Which of the following are Olson's dimensions? Select one: \ n ✔a. Cohesion, Flexibility, and Communication b. Centripetal, Centrifugal, and Adaptability c. Affective, Involvement, Behavior and Communication, Control d. Power, Meaning, and Affect A developmental task for families with preschool children is: Select one: \ n ✔a. fitting into the community of school-age families b. maintaining a supportive home base c. coping with energy depletion and lack of privacy d. fitting into the kin network Autism Spectrum disorder now encompasses which of the following DSM-IV diagnostic categories? Select one: \ n ✔a. Pervasive developmental disorder b. Asperger's Disorder c. Childhood Disintegrative Disorder d. All of the above Bob and Cindy discuss in a therapy session how their last fight escalated to the point of Bob pushing Cindy so hard she fell and split her lip. Although this had never happened before it scared them and they decided to seek therapy. The therapists should first: Select one: \ n ✔a. suggest Bob attend a batterer's group. b. suggest that each member of the couple be seen by individual therapists c. suggest Bob move out until he can gain control of his emotions d. help the couple develop a safety plan The DSM-5 Dimensional Concepts addresses such things as: Select one: \ n ✔a. Measurement of distress, disability, and severity b. V-code norms c. family etiology and disorder rankings d. stages of a disorder and risk of recidivism Process research has shown that Emotionally Focused Therapy correlates strongly with lasting therapeutic outcome when there is: Select one: \ n ✔a. symmetry between primary emotional states b. effective modeling of unconditional and multidirectional positive regard by the therapist. c. complementary primary and secondary emotions. d. a deep level of emotional processing A family consisting of a mother, father, two daughters age 13 and age 15, and a son age 17 enter therapy. The parents are complaining that their 15-year old daughter is coming in drunk every night and is very abusive to the family. If this family is diagnosed as enmeshed, a family therapist's goal would be: Select one: \ n ✔a. to form a coalition between the mother and daughter to increase a sense of closeness by having the mother meet the daughter for lunch at her work. b. interrupt rigid patterns of conflict-avoidance through Minuchin's famous Mimesis technique c. to help each of the family members to differentiate while making the boundaries more permeable. d. to create a spontaneous subsystem exchange which creates a second-order change. The essential feature of Anorexia Nervosa is: Select one: \ n ✔a. Frequent weight fluctuations b. recurrent episodes of binge eating c. refusal to maintain body weight d. disturbed sense of self A family is referred for therapy with a family therapist in private practice. The daughter, the identified patient, has asked to speak with the therapist privately. During her conversation with the therapist she announces she is pregnant. In this situation, the most appropriate initial approach for the family therapist would be to: Select one: \ n ✔a. tell her you can't keep her secret and that you will have to tell her parents. b. offer to counsel her as to whether she wants to keep the baby or abort. c. refer the daughter to an individual therapist and continue family therapy. d. encourage the daughter to talk to her family about her situation Studies involving family therapy vs. individual therapy in the treatment of anorexia nervosa have suggested: Select one: \ n ✔a. individual therapy is more effective than family therapy when the age of onset is less than 18 years. b. family therapy is generally more effective than individual therapy when age of onset is less than 18 years. c. both were equally effective no matter what the age of onset. d. family therapy was more effective than individual therapy. Both the Constructivist and Milan Systemic therapists agree that: Select one: \ n ✔a. the hypothesis generated about the family cannot be directly proven. b. a prescription or a positive connotation is needed at the end of the session. c. externalization empowers both therapist and client to build alliances quickly, even with difficult-to-engage clients d. living systems are characterized by "loop formations" rather than linear cause- effect A feminist critique of research into therapy outcomes would include all of the following EXCEPT: \ n ✔a. the people doing the research are all males. b. research does not use gender sensitive measurement c. measures are based on male data. d. no one has asked women how they feel about therapy b. The therapist is still not in violation of HIPPA because his right to make use of an administrative assistant as contracted support staff even under these circumstances is described in the Security Rule. c. The therapist is in violation of the Privacy Rule disclosure of PHI principles since the administrative assistant is not a licensed mental health clinician and is therefore not a HIPPA covered entity. d. The therapist is in violation of the Security Rule because the administrative assistant's residence in the same town, with children in the same school, could potentially result in an incidental disclosure and thereby compromise security of the client's PHI. Under the HIPPA Privacy Rule, any therapist is liable for her/his entire practice if: Select one: \ n ✔a. They are a licensed mental health clinician and have contracted support staff b. They are a licensed, or unlicensed, mental health clinician who transmits PHI using any electronic means. c. They are a licensed, or unlicensed, mental health clinician who transmits PHI using any electronic means for at least 50% of their current clients. d. They are a licensed, or unlicensed, mental health clinician who transmits PHI using electronic means for even one client, on one occasion Clinical practice in today's regulatory environment requires MFTs to attend to guidelines originating from the following sources: Select one: \ n ✔a. HIPPA Security & Privacy Rules, state-specific licensing regulations, Nichols & Schwartz b. HIPPA Security & Privacy Rules, AAMFT ethics code, state-specific licensing regulations c. State-specific HIPPA Security & Privacy Rules, state-specific licensing regulations, industry standards of practice, AMFTRB ethics code. d. HIPPA Security & Privacy Rules, state-specific licensing regulations, state-specific ethics code, industry standards of practice One of the risks of relationship-based interventions with domestic violence, agitating the dynamics in a way that increases violent tendencies, has been addressed by recent MFT research. That research: Select one: \ n ✔a. The literature shows few benefits to individual violence counseling, such as "anger management" b. Showed that the risk is real, and individual counseling and safety contracting is the best approach in all cases. c. Showed that the risk is small when working with partners where there is reciprocal (both direction) violence and where they want to stay together. d. The literature shows significant benefit to applying anger management in addition to relationship counseling. Questions that provide information about how a problem has managed to disrupt a family versus how much they have been able to control it are referred to as: Select one: \ n ✔a. The First Formula Task questions b. Scaling Questions c. Relative Influence questions d. Mapping the System questions Pick the answer that describes the relationship that the following symbol would denote: (Image shows Mother and father are estranged/cut off (genogram symbol) with daughter in triangle at bottom). Select one: \ n ✔a. Conflictual triangle b. Diffused Dyad c. Rigidly bound triangle d. None of the above The Role of the Strategic therapist is: Select One: \ n ✔a. close tracking of self reports b. to use genogram to organize data c. conducting a structured initial interview d. being objective, detached from family emotional system The DSM-V has replaced important language as required by what is commonly known as Rosa's Law (Public Law 111-256). This federal statute changed: Select one: \ n ✔a. the guidelines for discrimination b. the use of the term mental retardation to intellectual disability c. what constitutes domestic violence in a marriage d. who is a mandated reporter Rational/scientific, approval, worrier, protective all describe parts of: Select one: \ n ✔a. Hoffman's level of congruence systems model b. Schwartz's parts of the therapist c. Satir's levels of communication d. Nagy's relational determinants A study of family therapy, rated outcomes in two different ways. The first way was self-report in which family members were asked to rate their improvement on a scale of 1-5. The second rating was by trained observers watching for changes in specific behaviors on video playback of the families in their sessions. They also rated improvements on a scale of 1-5. Which of the following statements is correct? Select one: \ n ✔a. The mean of the findings can be found by adding up all the ratings and dividing by 2.5 (half of 5, which is the highest rating). b. We can be more confident in the findings to the extent that the self-reports and observer ratings correlate. c. Trained observers are likely to be more reliable than family members who are expected to offer more subjective judgments. d. This must be a qualitative study which can give us information about the specific individuals being studied, but cannot generate more general conclusions, which can only come from a quantitative study with robust statistical outcomes Mrs. J. called a Behavioral therapist asking to set up an appointment with him that would also include her husband and their daughter, Mary, age 3. Mary's behavior has been problematic. In designing a treatment plan, a Behavioral family therapist would: Select one: \ n ✔a. establish long-and short term goals. b. track disabling sequences c. hypothesize about the problem d. map the system Which of the following are similarities between strategic and structural models? Select One: \ n ✔a. All of the above b. They use in-session interactions to assess the family and emphasize process over content c. They both consider the impact of the life-cycle stage d. The treatment is symptom oriented A person's experience shapes the way they think about it, this notion is called: Select one: \ n ✔a. Narrative Therapy b. Social Constructionism c. Psychoanalysis d. Gestalt Therapy The notion that a person's experience shapes the way they think and understand the meaning of things and relationships in their life is called: Select one: \ n ✔a. Gestalt Therapy b. Narrative Therapy c. Psychoanalysis d. Social Constructionism Mary is a 15-year-old who has been truant for 31 days. In addition, her parents report that she sleeps all day and stays up most of the night. She has gained 30 pounds over the past six months. She looks sad and has isolated herself from all her friends. A Strategic family therapist treating Mary and her family for the first time would most likely: Select one: \ n ✔a relabel Mary's behavior as stubbornness and laziness. b. establish a hierarchy c. emphasize in-session enactment d. deal directly with the web of invisible loyalties influencing family members behavior A mother calls the therapist sounding very panicky, wanting an immediate appointment. At the first session, the mother states that her 12-year old son Sam has just been caught in the bathroom of a neighbor's home with a 6-year old boy. The 6- year old says that Sam was playing with his "bum" and kissing his penis. When confronted by his mother, Sam admitted to having "played" with the boy on 4 previous occasions. The neighbor's boy's parents have banned Sam from their home and informed other parents and the school about his "perversion." Sam's mother called a psychiatrist prior to calling you who she says stated, "You can put him into therapy and give him drugs, but it's probably already too late." You begin seeing Sam and his family. In your first meeting with this family, you begin by speaking for a time with each member of the family, asking them about themselves. This engagement technique might be used in which sc \ n ✔a. Strategic/Haley b. Structural/Minuchin c. Solution-focused/deShazer d. Strategic/Watzlawick A couple comes in for therapy. The husband complains his wife is too close to her family and she has trouble separating from them. In fact, he states that his wife is in constant contact with her mother and looks to her mother constantly to help her