counseling skills

10. In helping, the term blind spot refers to which of the following?

A. Aspects of ourselves that we fail to see or choose to ignore that keep us from identifying and managing problem situations or identifying and developing opportunities

15. A helper has the sense that the client is not making wise decisions about her current romantic relationship, and tends to believe that the client will never be able to appreciate the thoughts and feelings of her partner. The client would like to stay with her current partner and says they are generally doing well, but that they are having communication problems about household chores. What is the best approach for the helper to take?

A. Attend to the client's strengths and misused opportunities.

13. How can helpers best avoid informational overload?

A. By identifying key messages and feelings

2. According to Egan, which of the following is true with regard to challenging clients?

A. Challenge should be mixed with support.

1. What is the primary function of challenging?

A. Helping clients test reality and invest what they learn to create a better future

10. Decision making is a common factor that is important in the therapy process. What are the four keys to decision making?

A. Information gathering, analysis, making a choice, and follow through**

1. When inviting clients to self-challenge, what is the best approach?

A. Provide a choice structure.

13. Which of the following is not a tactic identified by Egan for responding to clients with empathy?

A. Respond quickly to client communications.

7. According to Egan, values within the helping situation refer to which of the following?

A. That which the client says is most important in life**

11. Which of the following is not noted as a way to evaluate if a helping response was accurate?

A. Use the experiential recapitulation process.

11. At the end of the day, resistance is commonly thought to be ____.

A. clients' attempts to avoid a topic, feeling, or concern

Helping is about ________.

A. constructive change that leads to results

12. Nonverbal behavior can punctuate verbal communication by confirming or repeating what is being said; denying or confusing what is being said; strengthening or emphasizing what is being said; adding intensity to what is being said; and ____ what is being said.

A. controlling or regulating

15. According to Egan, the use of sympathy is ____.

A. denotes agreement rather than empathy

4. Counseling research has found that clients typically begin improving ____.

A. early in treatment**

12. To help clients become more active agents of their own lives ("doers" rather than "reactors"), the helper should ____.

A. listen carefully and remain passive so the client can be the more active participant**

9. According to Egan, which of the following indicate how a helper might express empathy towards a client?

A. respond accurately to clients' feelings, emotions and moods

13. Advanced empathy is designed to help the helper to ____.

A. respond more deeply to covert meanings of a client's communication

15. Egan recommends that helper self-disclosure typically be used ____.

A. selectively, carefully, and flexibly

4. When inviting a client to self-challenge, it is useful to be ____.

A. tentative in the delivery

15. Invitations to self-challenge will likely be more successful when ____.

A. the self-challenge is specific

3. Self-challenges should focus primarily on ____.

A. unused strengths

5. The basic formula Egan suggests beginners use to deliver empathic understanding is ____.

B. "You feel...because..."

2. Which of the following is most accurate regarding the collaborative nature of the relationship between helper and client?

B. Both helper and client have work to do in the problem-management and opportunity-development stages and tasks, and both have responsibilities related to outcomes.**

1. Which of the following is not a useful way for helpers to respond to clients?

B. By interpreting what the client has said to get at what he or she really means

10. ____ is a helper's commitment to work at understanding each client from his or her point of view together with the feelings surrounding this point of view and efforts to communicate this point of view when it is helpful.

B. Empathy**

11. According to the text, there are hundreds of different treatment models. Which of the following statements is the most accurate regarding the effectiveness of these different approaches?

B. There are clear advantages of some bona fide treatment models for some disorders (e.g., depression).**

9. Feedback is an important ingredient in the helping process. What typifies best practices regarding feedback?

B. Two-way feedback between the client and therapist about how therapy is going*

12. Which of the following is not one of the principles for responding to clients with empathy?

B. Use your responses to express your own emotions about the client's situation.

7. Which of the following is not cited in the text as a discrepancy that a helper might want to challenge?

B. What clients believe versus their intent

8. Resistance is ____.

B. a common experience for many clients

11. From the perspective of positive psychology, a helper should always listen to the client for ____.

B. client strengths, opportunities, and resources

HELPER: You just don't seem as if you want to change your actions at work, that is, the actions you say are getting in the way with your ability to cooperate with your boss. I don't know why this is the case, but you can't really move forward from here unless you change your actions. The helper is ____.

B. demonstrating an unhelpful response to the client's resistance

6. For clients who are reluctant to engage in self-challenges, therapists should ____.

B. explore the issue more

8. Clients use smoke screens to ____.

B. hide from the helper the ways in which they fail to face up to life

16. Which of the following techniques from the shadow side most implies that what is really important is hidden from the client?

B. interpretations

5. Invitations from the therapist should typically avoid ____.

B. inviting clients to adopt the therapist's values

4. According to Egan, the communication skills involved in responding with empathy have three dimensions. These are ____.

B. perceptiveness, know-how, and assertiveness

14. John says that he would like to change jobs because he feels awful at his current job. However, he is worried about finding a new job. This best illustrates ____.

B. reluctance

14. A client tells you the following: "I started my new job and right away, my boss starts giving me a hard time. I bet he is an unhappy and angry person. You know, when he hired me I had a sense he was unhappy. He told me that he was going on a business trip and that I would be unsupervised for the next two weeks." You notice that almost none of this communication has to do with the client. According to Egan, one useful way to think about this communication is ____.

B. to wonder about what the client is leaving out

CLIENT (hesitatingly): I don't know whether I can kick the habit, you know, just let some trivial things go at work and at home. I know I've made a contract with myself. I'm not sure that I can keep it. HELPER: Um... CLIENT (pauses, then laughs): Here I am deep into perfectionism, and I hear myself saying I can't do something. How ironic. Of course, I can. It's not going to be easy, at least at first. What is the helper's "Um" called?

C. A prompt

14. Which of the following is not a way to develop multicultural awareness in working with clients of backgrounds different from your own?

C. Creating a list of values that you think your clients need to work on to help them better understand mainstream American culture**

11. Which of the following is not an example of a blind spot?

C. Disagreement with the helper

6. Some weeks ago, Rachel told her counselor that her husband is very happy with their nonexistent sex life, and that they both agree that sex is not that important. During today's session, she tells her counselor that she was shocked and horribly saddened to learn that her husband was having an affair. When she asked her husband about it, he told her that he missed having sex in his life. Rachel's earlier assumption about her husband and their lack of interest in sex reflects which of the following?

C. Distorted understanding of the world

3. Kelly is upset because she believes she is not adequately keeping up with all of her demands as a full-time student, part-time bookkeeper, and single mother of three. "I feel like I am so dumb; I barely made a 'C' on the biology test I just took." The counselor points out she has As and Bs in all of her classes, including biology, and just got a raise at work. "I know, but I should have done better on that test. If I screw up one thing, I think I am a failure." According to Ellis, what type of self-defeating mindset does this exemplify?

C. Dysfunctional belief of always demonstrating competence

11. Which of the following does not reflect an aspect of empathy?

C. Empathy is a commitment to bring the client's values in line with the helper's to achieve clinical goals**

4. Sternberg identified four fallacies in thinking that otherwise smart people make. Which fallacy is consistent with the following statement, "I don't need to quit smoking; the statistics about smoking don't apply to me - I exercise all the time."?

C. Omnipotence fallacy

14. Which of the following is not an example of an advanced empathy technique?

C. Sharing with the client your gut instincts about what's going on

3. What does Ickes mean by "empathic accuracy?"

C. The ability to accurately infer the specific content of another person's thought and feelings

9. Sometimes a helper must challenge inadequate participation in the helping process. Which of the following is the most predominant reason that a client fails to participate adequately?

C. The client is too introspective.

1. The term working alliance refers to which of the following?

C. The collaboration between the client and the helper based on their agreement on the goals and tasks of counseling**

5. According to Egan, culture can be understood as which of the following?

C. The shared beliefs and assumptions that interact with shared values and produce shared norms that drive shared patterns of behavior**

12. Uncertainty in decision making and in the helping process:

C. can be a place to find unlimited possibilities.**

13. An important principle of dialogue in therapy involves:

C. co-creating an experience and the outcomes with clients.**

1. As presented by Egan, the four requirements for true dialogue in the helping process are turn taking; connecting; mutual influencing; and ____.

C. cocreating outcomes

6. In identifying emotions during a helping situation, the helper should use the right ____.

C. family of emotions and intensity

3. Outcome research indicates that within the helping relationship, ____.

C. helping is most successful when the helper helps the client to face difficult or painful feelings**

12. Successful negotiation is rooted in the belief that ____.

C. negotiation can be fair

An advantage to helping a client develop an action-oriented mentality in their lives is that it helps them to ________.

C. prevent future problems*

10. Empathy ____.

C. should be used throughout the helping process.

14. The ability to understand how the helper, client, their relationship, and the helping process itself can go wrong is the first step towards managing ________.

C. the shadow side of helping**

10. In working with resistance, therapists should ____.

C. understand their role in the resistance

9. The extent to which a helper and client are genuine with one another is referred to as the ____.

C. working relationship**

16. Which of the following is not an example of a shadow-side reality in the helping relationship?

D. A real-life focus

8. Because clients express feelings in a number of different ways, helpers can communicate an understanding of feelings in a variety of ways. Which of the following are ways suggested by Egan for helpers to communicate their understanding of the client's emotional state?

D. All of these

15. Which of the following is true of effective therapists?

D. All of these choices***

12. Transforming blind spots into new perspectives requires which of the following in order to manage problems and opportunities?

D. Cognitive restructuring

8. What is the first rule of helping?

D. Do no harm.**

5. A client has come to see a professional because s/he is not living as fully as s/he would like. Which of the following would be the best starting point for working with this client?

D. Focus on missed opportunities and unused potential.*

6. Which of the following is not part of a person's personal culture?

D. Norms, or what the helper reinforces as what the client should or should not do**

6. Though there are many ingredients in helping, what is ultimately one of the most key predictors of successful therapy?

D. The client's participation in the therapeutic endeavor*

13. In negotiation, it is useful to ____.

D. a and b

2. The right for a therapist to invite clients to self-challenge should be founded on ____.

D. all of the above

8. Clients' stories tend to be a collection of their ____.

D. all of these

9. When therapists listen to their clients, it is important for therapists to ____.

D. all of these

10. When clients tell their stories, it is important for therapists to ____.

D. both A and B

2. What type of empathy should typically be central to the helping process?

D. intrapersonal empathy

1. All of the empathic responses a helper might use to constructively influence the client's work may be referred to as a ____.

D. nudge

2. A verbal and sometimes nonverbal tactic for helping clients talk more freely and concretely about any issue at any stage of the helping process are commonly referred to as ____.

D. nudge

7. A client says to the therapist: "I have a difficult time getting along with people, due to my experiences at my high school, so I just don't know if right now is a good time to make new friends." The client is expressing ____.

D. reluctance to change based on lack of trust

16. Confrontation with clients should be used ____.

D. sparingly and carefully

5. What does the E stand for in the acronym SOLER?

Maintain good eye contact.

13. Which of the following is not a diversity and multicultural competency for a helper?

Making the best possible effort to help a client from another country to accept American values in order to assimilate

A therapist is focusing on a client's current difficulties of adjusting to college by helping the client manage her problems with time management. The therapist's approach involves teaching the client to manage her own time and to be proactive preparing for class. Which principle of outcome-focused helping is missing from this approach?

Producing life-enhancing outcomes

3. Which of the following is not an important factor in nonverbal communication between helper and client as presented by Egan?

Routinely shaking hands at the beginning of each helping session

8. According to research what is the second most important ingredient in successful therapies (after client factors)?

The quality of the relationship between the client and the therapist

Which of the following is/are the primary goal(s) of helping?

all of the choices

15. A bias toward promoting action with clients is ____.

an important component to the problem management process

7. According to Carl Rogers, empathic listening means ____.

entering the private perceptual world of the client and becoming thoroughly at home in it

2. One of the keys to mutual influencing is ____.

holding to the virtue of openness to others

What two basic issues cause most people to seek the helping process?

problem situations and missed opportunities

4. Nonverbal behaviors generally ____.

provide a window into the honest, true feelings of a person

6. Your text lists nonlistening, partial listening, tape-recorder listening, and ____ as forms of inactive or inadequate listening.

rehearsing