MC Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield MC facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. A family therapist notices the identified patient (IP) in a family always acts out after the parents argue. This is best described as what systemic concept? → Triangulation
2. Which model says that a crisis can lead to both opportunities for growth and possible risks? → Danger and Opportunity Model
3. In group therapy screening, a contraindication for placing a client in an ongoing outpatient process group would be: → Active psychosis with poor reality testing
4. In strategic family therapy, the technique of 'reframing' primarily serves to: → Change the meaning attributed to a behavior without changing the behavior itself
5. Which term describes the tendency for clients from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to have more restricted career aspirations due to structural barriers? → Social class and career opportunity gap
6. A counselor working with a veteran with PTSD notices the client avoids all driving after a roadside bomb incident. This avoidance is BEST conceptualized as: → Trauma-related avoidance symptom (Criterion C)
7. Trust in a relationship is affected by a person's cultural competence. → True
8. In Narrative Therapy with couples, 'externalizing the problem' primarily involves: → Separating the problem from the identities of the people involved
9. Which assessment tool is specifically designed to measure anxiety symptoms and is widely used in both research and clinical practice? → GAD-7
10. Which of the following are traits that everyone has from birth: → Primary Dimensions
11. Which thinker made important contributions to behavior therapy by discovering classical conditioning? → Ivan Pavlov
12. The cognitive key is about how people feel when they are in a crisis. → FALSE
13. The 'Structural Dissociation of the Personality' model (Van der Hart et al.) distinguishes between which two primary personality parts? → The Apparently Normal Part (ANP) and the Emotional Part (EP)
14. A counselor working in a school setting is asked by a teacher to share what a student disclosed in a counseling session. What should the counselor do? → Decline and explain the limits of confidentiality to the teacher
15. Intergenerational trauma in families is BEST addressed through which therapeutic lens? → Bowenian and contextual family therapy exploring multigenerational patterns
16. A couples counselor uses the Prepare-Enrich assessment. This tool is MOST commonly associated with: → Premarital counseling and relationship strength assessment
17. The goal of the Community Mental Health Act of 1963 was: → Provide mental health treatment for individuals in crisis
18. Which racial identity model describes stages from pre-encounter through internalization-commitment? → Cross's Nigrescence Model
19. A excellent program to help an agency become more culturally competent: → Involves understanding and addressing biases
20. When a client discloses ongoing intimate partner violence (IPV) during a couples session, the counselor's IMMEDIATE priority should be: → Assessing the immediate safety of the victim and considering individual safety planning
21. Which domain focuses on thinking or thought processes, forming one of the three foundations for a comprehensive approach to counseling practice? → Cognitive domain
22. Which of the following instances for refusing services would NOT qualify as discrimination? → Smell
23. A meta-analysis in counseling research synthesizes findings from multiple studies primarily to: → Calculate an overall effect size across the body of research
24. Which diagnostic manual is the primary reference used by licensed counselors in the United States for classifying mental health disorders? → DSM-5-TR
25. Many of the people who lived through the 1942 fire in Coconut Grove were in crisis, which led to the development of which mental health treatment? → Crisis Intervention
26. A counselor wants to compare a client's test score to how others in the general population performed. This requires the use of: → Normative data
27. Sue and Sue's tripartite model of personal identity includes which three levels? → Individual, group, and universal
28. The 'installation of hope' curative factor is especially important in the early stages of group therapy because: → Members need to believe change is possible to invest in the process
29. A couple reports sexual dissatisfaction as their primary concern. According to Masters and Johnson's sex therapy model, the FIRST intervention is typically: → Prescribing sensate focus exercises to reduce performance anxiety
30. The 'Milan Systemic' approach to family therapy is known for using: → Paradoxical injunctions and long intersession intervals with a reflecting team