NCE Helping Relationships 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Alfred Adler's concept of 'social interest' (Gemeinschaftsgefühl) refers to:
- The desire for social media engagement
- An innate potential to cooperate and contribute to the welfare of others (Correct answer)
- Competitive striving for social status
- Anxiety arising from social situations
Correct answer: An innate potential to cooperate and contribute to the welfare of others
Adler viewed social interest as a core indicator of psychological health — the capacity to identify with and contribute to the community.
Question 2: A client repeatedly arrives late to sessions and 'forgets' homework. A psychodynamic counselor would most likely interpret this as:
- Poor time management skills
- Resistance (Correct answer)
- Lack of motivation
- Testing the counselor's limits
Correct answer: Resistance
In psychodynamic theory, resistance refers to unconscious defenses that interfere with therapeutic progress.
Question 3: The technique of 'scaling questions' is most associated with which therapeutic approach?
- Psychoanalysis
- Gestalt therapy
- Solution-focused brief therapy (Correct answer)
- Existential therapy
Correct answer: Solution-focused brief therapy
Solution-focused brief therapy uses scaling questions to help clients rate their progress and identify small steps toward goals.
Question 4: In behavioral counseling, which technique pairs a relaxation response with a hierarchy of anxiety-provoking stimuli?
- Flooding
- Systematic desensitization (Correct answer)
- Aversion therapy
- Token economy
Correct answer: Systematic desensitization
Systematic desensitization, developed by Wolpe, gradually exposes clients to feared stimuli while maintaining relaxation to extinguish anxiety.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes 'unconditional positive regard' in person-centered therapy?
- Agreeing with everything the client says
- Accepting the client fully without conditions or judgment (Correct answer)
- Providing positive reinforcement for adaptive behaviors
- Praising the client's achievements
Correct answer: Accepting the client fully without conditions or judgment
Unconditional positive regard means the counselor accepts and values the client as a person regardless of their behavior or statements.
Question 6: Viktor Frankl's logotherapy is based on the premise that the primary human motivational force is:
- The pursuit of pleasure
- The will to power
- The search for meaning (Correct answer)
- The need for attachment
Correct answer: The search for meaning
Frankl developed logotherapy after his Holocaust experience, proposing that finding meaning is the central human drive even in suffering.
Question 7: When a counselor notices that a client's verbal and nonverbal messages are inconsistent and points this out, the counselor is using:
- Interpretation
- Confrontation (Correct answer)
- Reflection of feeling
- Reframing
Correct answer: Confrontation
Confrontation involves bringing discrepancies, mixed messages, or incongruences in the client's communication to their attention.
NCE Helping Relationships 3
Alfred Adler's concept of 'social interest' (Gemeinschaftsgefühl) refers to: