MFT Basic Marital and Family Therapy 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: When treating a couple where one partner has disclosed domestic violence, which therapeutic approach is CONTRAINDICATED?
- Individual safety planning with the victim
- Conjoint couples therapy (Correct answer)
- Psychoeducation about the cycle of violence
- Referral to specialized domestic violence services
Correct answer: Conjoint couples therapy
Conjoint couples therapy is contraindicated in active domestic violence situations because it may increase the victim's risk of retaliation and can be used by the abuser to gather information.
Question 2: In Bowen theory, when a child absorbs the most parental anxiety and develops symptoms as a result, this is called:
- Emotional cutoff
- Family projection process (Correct answer)
- Multigenerational transmission
- Sibling position
Correct answer: Family projection process
The family projection process describes how parents transmit their undifferentiation and anxiety to one or more children, impairing that child's differentiation of self.
Question 3: A therapist working from a feminist family therapy lens would MOST likely challenge which assumption of traditional family therapy?
- That individual pathology should be treated within the relational context
- That gender and power inequities are central to family dysfunction (Correct answer)
- That symptom relief should be a primary goal of treatment
- That therapists should join with the family's worldview to build alliance
Correct answer: That gender and power inequities are central to family dysfunction
Feminist family therapists critique the field for historically ignoring how patriarchal structures and gender inequalities are embedded in and perpetuate family dysfunction.
Question 4: The concept of 'therapeutic neutrality' in the Milan systemic approach means the therapist:
- Avoids forming alliances with any family member or hypothesis (Correct answer)
- Refuses to offer opinions or directives to the family
- Maintains equal emotional distance from all family members at all times
- Does not express personal values regarding family functioning
Correct answer: Avoids forming alliances with any family member or hypothesis
Milan neutrality means the therapist avoids privileging any single family member's account or becoming locked into one explanatory hypothesis, remaining curious and open to multiple meanings.
Question 5: A couple in therapy has reached an impasse where neither partner is willing to change. Which SFBT technique would be MOST appropriate to address this?
- Prescribing the symptom
- Exception-finding questions (Correct answer)
- The formula first session task
- Externalizing the problem
Correct answer: Exception-finding questions
Exception-finding questions direct clients to identify times when the problem is absent or less severe, revealing existing resources and successful patterns they can amplify.
Question 6: Under HIPAA, which of the following would be permissible for an MFT to share without client authorization?
- Treatment notes to a managed care company for billing purposes (Correct answer)
- Psychotherapy notes to a requesting insurance company
- Session content to the client's employer upon employer request
- Diagnosis to the client's spouse without the client's consent
Correct answer: Treatment notes to a managed care company for billing purposes
Treatment (billing) notes — including diagnosis, dates of service, and treatment summary — may be shared for payment purposes without specific authorization under HIPAA.
Question 7: Which of the following BEST describes the therapeutic goal of 'externalizing the problem' in narrative therapy?
- Helping clients blame external circumstances for their difficulties
- Separating the person's identity from the problem so they can relate to it as an external force (Correct answer)
- Encouraging clients to avoid personal responsibility for their actions
- Reframing the problem as a symptom of societal issues
Correct answer: Separating the person's identity from the problem so they can relate to it as an external force
Externalizing separates the person from the problem — 'the person is not the problem; the problem is the problem' — creating space to examine and resist the problem's influence.
MFT Basic Marital and Family Therapy 5
When treating a couple where one partner has disclosed domestic violence, which therapeutic approach is CONTRAINDICATED?