MFT Family Therapy Models 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Functional Family Therapy (FFT), the primary goal of the motivation phase is to:
- Teach communication skills and conflict resolution
- Reduce negativity and blame while increasing hope for change (Correct answer)
- Identify relational functions each member's behavior serves
- Develop individualized behavior change plans for each family member
Correct answer: Reduce negativity and blame while increasing hope for change
The motivation phase of FFT focuses on reducing negativity, blaming, and hopelessness to create a therapeutic alliance and readiness for change.
Question 2: Which of the following best distinguishes Narrative Therapy from other postmodern family therapy approaches?
- Its focus on changing communication sequences
- Its use of 'unique outcomes' or 'sparkling moments' to build alternative stories (Correct answer)
- Its emphasis on attachment injuries and emotional bonding
- Its use of circular questions to reveal relational patterns
Correct answer: Its use of 'unique outcomes' or 'sparkling moments' to build alternative stories
Narrative Therapy specifically searches for unique outcomes — times when the problem's influence was resisted — to use as building blocks for an alternative, preferred story.
Question 3: A therapist working with a couple using Integrative Behavioral Couple Therapy (IBCT) employs 'empathic joining' to:
- Teach the couple active listening skills as a behavioral intervention
- Help partners see each other's vulnerabilities underlying their problematic behavior (Correct answer)
- Join the couple system before implementing structural changes
- Reinforce positive behavior exchanges between partners
Correct answer: Help partners see each other's vulnerabilities underlying their problematic behavior
Empathic joining in IBCT involves formulating the couple's conflict in terms of each partner's underlying vulnerabilities, fostering compassion rather than blame.
Question 4: When a Bowenian therapist encourages a client to visit their family of origin and interact without their usual emotional reactivity, this is called:
- Sculpting the family system
- A detriangulation exercise
- A person-to-person relationship assignment (Correct answer)
- A multigenerational transmission analysis
Correct answer: A person-to-person relationship assignment
Bowen assigned clients person-to-person relationship tasks — direct, one-on-one contact with family members — to increase differentiation and reduce triangulation.
Question 5: The concept of 'multipartiality' in Contextual Family Therapy (Boszormenyi-Nagy) means the therapist:
- Remains strictly neutral and does not take any family member's side
- Sequentially takes each family member's side to understand their legitimate claims (Correct answer)
- Splits therapeutic focus equally between individual and family sessions
- Identifies and supports only the most victimized family member
Correct answer: Sequentially takes each family member's side to understand their legitimate claims
Multipartiality involves the therapist sequentially siding with each family member to validate their relational claims and obligations, rather than remaining neutral.
Question 6: In EFT (Emotionally Focused Therapy) for couples, a 'withdrawer re-engagement' involves:
- Teaching the withdrawing partner assertiveness skills to express needs
- Helping the withdrawing partner access and express attachment needs and fears (Correct answer)
- Having the withdrawer implement behavioral contracts to increase engagement
- Reframing the withdrawer's behavior as a positive contribution to the couple system
Correct answer: Helping the withdrawing partner access and express attachment needs and fears
Withdrawer re-engagement is an EFT change event in which the withdrawing partner accesses underlying attachment fears and begins to reach for the other partner.
Question 7: A family therapist using a psychoeducational model (such as Anderson's model for schizophrenia) would primarily focus on:
- Restructuring the family hierarchy to reduce stress on the identified patient
- Providing families with information about the illness and coping strategies to reduce expressed emotion (Correct answer)
- Using paradox to alter the family's reaction to the symptomatic member
- Exploring family-of-origin loyalties that perpetuate the illness
Correct answer: Providing families with information about the illness and coping strategies to reduce expressed emotion
Psychoeducational models provide families with accurate information about the illness, reduce expressed emotion (EE), and teach coping and communication skills to reduce relapse.
MFT Family Therapy Models 5
In Functional Family Therapy (FFT), the primary goal of the motivation phase is to: