NCMHCE NCMHCE - National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination Family Systems and Couples Counseling 4

Question 1

A couple presents with chronic conflict over finances. The husband hides purchases while the wife monitors all accounts obsessively. Which family systems concept BEST describes the wife's monitoring behavior?

Accepted Answer

Reactive pursuit

Answer

Reactive pursuit occurs when one partner increases closeness-seeking behaviors in response to the other partner's distancing, creating a pursuer-distancer cycle.

Question 2

In structural family therapy, a therapist deliberately sides with one family subsystem to shift a rigid coalition. This technique is called:

Accepted Answer

Unbalancing

Answer

Unbalancing involves the therapist temporarily aligning with one family member or subsystem to challenge existing hierarchies and disrupt rigid, dysfunctional coalitions.

Question 3

A same-sex couple reports that one partner's family of origin refuses to acknowledge the relationship. Using an Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) lens, the FIRST priority is to:

Accepted Answer

Identify each partner's attachment fears and needs underlying the conflict

Answer

EFT prioritizes de-escalating negative interaction cycles by first identifying the underlying attachment emotions and needs driving each partner's responses.

Question 4

A family therapist notices that the parents never disagree in front of their children and that the children are unusually well-behaved and anxious. This pattern is MOST consistent with:

Accepted Answer

Conflict detouring through children

Answer

Conflict detouring occurs when parents suppress their marital conflict and the family's anxiety is redirected onto the children, who then develop symptoms to maintain parental stability.

Question 5

In Gottman's Sound Relationship House model, 'turning toward' bids for connection is associated with which foundational level?

Accepted Answer

Building love maps

Answer

Building love maps—deeply knowing your partner's inner psychological world—is the foundational level, and turning toward bids consistently is the behavioral mechanism that builds this intimacy.

NCMHCE - National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination Practice Test

NCMHCE - National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination Practice Test

NCMHCE NCMHCE - National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination Family Systems and Couples Counseling 4