LMSW Intervention and Treatment Planning 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A social worker using a strengths-based perspective in treatment planning would most likely:
- Focus primarily on the client's diagnosis and symptom reduction
- Build interventions around the client's existing resources and capacities (Correct answer)
- Avoid setting any measurable goals to prevent labeling
- Defer all goal-setting to the treatment team
Correct answer: Build interventions around the client's existing resources and capacities
Strengths-based practice centers treatment planning on identifying and mobilizing the client's existing strengths, resources, and natural supports rather than pathology.
Question 2: A client in the contemplation stage of change is best supported by which type of intervention?
- Providing a specific action plan with behavioral assignments
- Exploring ambivalence and increasing discrepancy between current behavior and goals (Correct answer)
- Focusing on relapse prevention strategies
- Celebrating recent behavioral successes
Correct answer: Exploring ambivalence and increasing discrepancy between current behavior and goals
Clients in contemplation are aware of a problem but ambivalent; exploring ambivalence and raising discrepancy is the appropriate stage-matched intervention.
Question 3: A social worker includes 'client will attend three community support group meetings per month' in a treatment plan. This goal best addresses which domain?
- Symptom reduction
- Medication adherence
- Social support and community integration (Correct answer)
- Vocational functioning
Correct answer: Social support and community integration
Community support group attendance directly targets building social support networks and community integration as part of a holistic treatment approach.
Question 4: Which of the following is the FIRST step in a structured crisis intervention model such as Roberts' Seven-Stage model?
- Establish rapport and therapeutic relationship
- Assess lethality and safety (Correct answer)
- Explore feelings and emotions
- Generate and explore alternatives
Correct answer: Assess lethality and safety
Roberts' Seven-Stage model begins with assessing lethality, imminent danger, and safety needs before building rapport or exploring emotions.
Question 5: A social worker is using Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) with a rape survivor. A core component of this intervention is:
- In vivo exposure to trauma-related stimuli
- Identifying and challenging 'stuck points' — distorted beliefs about the trauma (Correct answer)
- EMDR bilateral stimulation techniques
- Psychodynamic exploration of childhood attachment
Correct answer: Identifying and challenging 'stuck points' — distorted beliefs about the trauma
CPT specifically targets 'stuck points,' which are maladaptive cognitions about the trauma, self, and world that maintain PTSD symptoms.
Question 6: When a treatment plan is not producing expected progress, the social worker should FIRST:
- Terminate treatment and refer to a higher level of care
- Review and reassess the accuracy of the initial assessment and goal relevance (Correct answer)
- Increase session frequency immediately
- Consult with a psychiatrist for medication evaluation
Correct answer: Review and reassess the accuracy of the initial assessment and goal relevance
Lack of progress warrants a reassessment of whether the initial assessment was accurate and whether goals and interventions remain appropriate before making other changes.
Question 7: A social worker helping a client with anger management chooses to use a cognitive-behavioral intervention. Which technique is most consistent with this approach?
- Free association to explore unconscious roots of anger
- Identifying triggers, automatic thoughts, and replacing them with adaptive responses (Correct answer)
- Cathartic expression through expressive arts therapy
- Reiki and mindfulness-only practices
Correct answer: Identifying triggers, automatic thoughts, and replacing them with adaptive responses
CBT for anger management focuses on identifying triggering situations, automatic thoughts, and developing more adaptive cognitive and behavioral responses.
LMSW Intervention and Treatment Planning 3
A social worker using a strengths-based perspective in treatment planning would most likely: