MFT Couples Therapy 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When a couple presents with one partner diagnosed with ADHD, which relational dynamic is MOST commonly reported?
- The non-ADHD partner develops a parental/caretaker role, leading to resentment and loss of intimacy (Correct answer)
- Both partners disengage and develop parallel lives
- The ADHD partner becomes the pursuer due to impulsivity
- The non-ADHD partner becomes the identified patient in therapy
Correct answer: The non-ADHD partner develops a parental/caretaker role, leading to resentment and loss of intimacy
Couples with one ADHD partner frequently develop a parent-child dynamic as the non-ADHD partner compensates for executive functioning deficits, which erodes romantic and sexual connection.
Question 2: A therapist is seeing a same-sex couple and applies heteronormative assumptions about gender roles. This is an example of:
- Countertransference
- Microaggression and affirmative therapy failure (Correct answer)
- Negative sentiment override in the therapist
- A structural boundary violation
Correct answer: Microaggression and affirmative therapy failure
Applying heteronormative frameworks to same-sex couples constitutes a microaggression and violates affirmative therapy principles, which require culturally responsive and non-assumptive practice.
Question 3: A couple reports that one partner is consistently dismissive of the other's emotional bids. According to Gottman, what is the long-term relational consequence of 'turning away' from bids?
- Increased reliance on problem-solving conversations
- Emotional bank account depletion and relationship dissolution risk (Correct answer)
- Development of pursuer-distancer patterns
- Increased stonewalling by the dismissive partner
Correct answer: Emotional bank account depletion and relationship dissolution risk
Consistently turning away from bids depletes the emotional bank account, which Gottman's research links to emotional disconnection and increased divorce risk.
Question 4: In the Developmental Model of couples therapy (Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson), the healthy progression from 'symbiosis' to 'differentiation' requires:
- Partners to adopt similar values and worldviews to build unity
- Each partner to develop a solid individual identity while maintaining the bond (Correct answer)
- The therapist to challenge enmeshment by assigning individual tasks
- Couples to delay having children until full differentiation is achieved
Correct answer: Each partner to develop a solid individual identity while maintaining the bond
The Developmental Model holds that healthy couples evolve from early symbiosis toward differentiation, where each partner can express a separate self within an intimate connection.
Question 5: Which of the following is a contraindication for conjoint couples therapy?
- One partner has a history of depression
- Active domestic violence with ongoing safety concerns (Correct answer)
- Partners have different attachment styles
- One partner has disclosed an affair to the therapist only
Correct answer: Active domestic violence with ongoing safety concerns
Active domestic violence is a primary contraindication for conjoint therapy because joint sessions can escalate danger, silence the victim, or reinforce the abuser's control.
Question 6: A couple engages in frequent 'kitchen sinking' during arguments. This term refers to:
- Bringing in multiple unrelated grievances from the past during a current conflict (Correct answer)
- Using household chores as proxies for power struggles
- Flooding the other partner with emotional complaints to overwhelm them
- Avoiding conflict by displacing it onto mundane daily tasks
Correct answer: Bringing in multiple unrelated grievances from the past during a current conflict
Kitchen sinking describes throwing everything but the kitchen sink into a fight by mixing multiple unresolved issues, which prevents any single issue from being resolved.
Question 7: A couple therapist using a feminist perspective would most likely focus on:
- Improving communication symmetry through structured dialogue exercises
- Examining how societal power structures and gender role expectations affect relationship dynamics (Correct answer)
- Rebuilding the couple's friendship and fondness systems
- Identifying and modifying each partner's cognitive distortions about the relationship
Correct answer: Examining how societal power structures and gender role expectations affect relationship dynamics
Feminist couples therapy situates relationship problems within broader social and political contexts, examining how patriarchal norms and gender roles shape couple dynamics.
MFT Couples Therapy 4
When a couple presents with one partner diagnosed with ADHD, which relational dynamic is MOST commonly reported?