CPCE Family Systems and Counseling 3

Question 1

The Bowenian concept of 'emotional cutoff' describes:

Accepted Answer

The way people manage unresolved family attachment through physical or emotional distancing

Answer

A therapeutic technique for terminating unhealthy family relationships

Answer

The process of permanently removing a toxic member from the family system

Answer

A boundary intervention technique used within structural family therapy

Question 2

In Bowen's multigenerational transmission process, anxiety and levels of differentiation are:

Accepted Answer

Transmitted across generations through established patterns of emotional functioning

Answer

Randomly distributed among family members across successive generations

Answer

Fully resolved within a single generation when effective therapy is provided

Answer

Caused exclusively by identifiable traumatic external events in the family's history

Question 3

Strategic family therapy, associated with Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes, is primarily characterized by:

Accepted Answer

Using paradoxical directives and specific strategies to disrupt problem sequences

Answer

Exploring authentic emotional expression and family communication patterns

Answer

Analyzing multigenerational patterns through extensive genogram exploration

Answer

Restructuring family subsystems and clarifying boundary definitions

Question 4

In Olson's Circumplex Model of family functioning, which families demonstrate the best overall outcomes?

Accepted Answer

Balanced families with moderate levels of cohesion and flexibility

Answer

Enmeshed and chaotic families with high cohesion and high adaptability

Answer

Disengaged and rigid families with very low cohesion and adaptability

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Highly structured families with strong parental hierarchy and firm boundaries

Question 5

In attachment theory applied to family systems, a child with an anxious-ambivalent attachment style is most likely to:

Accepted Answer

Show intense distress at separation and difficulty being soothed upon the caregiver's return

Answer

Avoid emotional closeness and appear self-reliant and unaffected by separation

Answer

Explore freely with the caregiver as a secure base and be easily comforted

Answer

Display little emotional response to either separation from or reunion with the caregiver

Question 6

Paradoxical interventions in family therapy, such as 'prescribing the symptom,' work primarily by:

Accepted Answer

Placing the client in a therapeutic double bind that disrupts the problem's maintaining pattern

Answer

Reinforcing the symptom until behavioral extinction naturally occurs

Answer

Gradually exposing the family to increasingly anxiety-provoking situations

Answer

Using behavioral contracts to systematically manage problematic family behaviors

Question 7

John Gottman's research on couples identified which pattern as the strongest predictor of relationship dissolution?

Accepted Answer

The presence of criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling ('Four Horsemen')

Answer

High levels of open conflict and frequent disagreement between partners

Answer

Significant differences in attachment styles and communication preferences

Answer

Unresolved emotional conflicts originating from each partner's family of origin