NCMHCE NCMHCE - National Clinical Mental Health Counseling Examination Family Systems and Couples Counseling 5

Question 1

A couples counselor is working with partners who fight constantly about household chores. One partner states, 'You never appreciate anything I do.' According to the Gottman method, this is an example of:

Accepted Answer

Criticism

Answer

Criticism attacks the partner's character rather than addressing a specific behavior, often using 'always' or 'never' language, and is one of Gottman's Four Horsemen predictors of relationship dissolution.

Question 2

In contextual family therapy (Boszormenyi-Nagy), 'relational ethics' refers to:

Accepted Answer

The balance of fairness, obligations, and entitlements among family members across generations

Answer

Boszormenyi-Nagy's contextual therapy centers on relational ethics—the multigenerational ledger of fairness, entitlements earned, and obligations owed between family members.

Question 3

A therapist working with a blended family notices that the stepparent attempts to discipline the biological children while the biological parent undercuts those efforts. The MOST systemic intervention is to:

Accepted Answer

Help the couple establish a unified parental alliance and clarify roles before enforcement

Answer

Structural family therapy prioritizes strengthening the parental/executive subsystem boundary so that the couple functions as a unified hierarchical unit before addressing child behavior.

Question 4

During a couples session, one partner suddenly becomes silent, avoids eye contact, and gives monosyllabic answers. Gottman's research identifies this pattern as stonewalling, which physiologically is associated with:

Accepted Answer

Flooding—diffuse physiological arousal above 100 BPM

Answer

Gottman's research shows stonewalling is typically a response to flooding—heart rate exceeding 100 BPM—where the partner shuts down to manage overwhelming physiological arousal.

Question 5

A family therapist using the Milan systemic approach introduces a question such as: 'If your mother were here, how do you think she would describe the relationship between your father and your sister?' This technique is called:

Accepted Answer

Circular questioning

Answer

Circular questioning, developed by the Milan team, explores relationships and differences in perception by asking one member to describe or speculate about the relationship between two others.

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 5