Assessment & Functional Analysis Flashcards
7 cards from real ACT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Assessment & Functional Analysis flashcards as text
In ACT assessment, the term 'workability' refers to evaluating whether a client's behavior:
Answer: Moves their life in a valued direction over time
Workability is the ACT standard for evaluating behavior: does it move the client toward a valued, vital life — not whether it reduces symptoms or conforms to external standards?
A clinician notes that a client consistently changes the subject when discussing their future goals. In an ACT functional assessment, this is MOST likely to reflect:
Answer: Avoidance of contact with the discrepancy between current life and values-based aspirations
Deflecting from future goals often reflects avoidance of the grief, anxiety, or self-criticism that arises when clients contact how far their life is from their values.
The Brief Experiential Avoidance Questionnaire (BEAQ) has an advantage over the AAQ-II for assessment because it:
Answer: Samples a broader range of experiential avoidance behaviors and is less confounded by psychopathology items
The BEAQ samples experiential avoidance more broadly and avoids some of the psychopathology item confound criticisms directed at the AAQ-II, offering cleaner measurement of the construct.
During ACT-informed assessment, a therapist asks a client to rate how much a difficult thought 'hooks' them versus how often it occurs. This distinction assesses:
Answer: Fusion versus defusion — the impact of the thought, not just its presence
ACT assessment distinguishes thought frequency (irrelevant to fusion) from the degree to which thoughts hook and control behavior — the latter reflecting cognitive fusion.
When using behavioral observation in ACT functional assessment, which in-session behavior MOST directly signals low psychological flexibility?
Answer: The client's behavioral repertoire narrows significantly when discussing a specific topic
Narrowing of behavioral repertoire — becoming rigid, avoidant, or shutting down — in response to specific content is a direct behavioral marker of psychological inflexibility.
A client's functional assessment reveals that they frequently seek reassurance from others about their health fears. In ACT, this behavior is MOST accurately conceptualized as:
Answer: A socially-mediated experiential avoidance behavior that reinforces health anxiety
Reassurance seeking temporarily reduces anxiety but functions as experiential avoidance — it prevents the client from developing willingness to tolerate uncertainty, thus maintaining health anxiety.
In ACT functional analysis, 'pliance' refers to rule-governed behavior that is maintained by:
Answer: Social reinforcement contingent on compliance with a verbally-stated rule
Pliance is rule-governed behavior reinforced by social consequences for compliance (e.g., approval, avoiding punishment), which can undermine contact with direct contingencies and values.