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MFT LICENSING EXAM Questions With
Verified Answers
ABC-X Family Crisis Model - answer✔Rueben Hill's model used to explain whether or not a
stressful event would result in crisis in some families but not in other's.
A=stressor
B=family's crisis- meeting resources
C=family's definition of the stressor
X=the crisis
Accomodation - answer✔Describes a variety of engagement techniques such as joining, used
principally by Structural Family Therapists in which the therapist adapts themselves to the
family's style of interacting.
Acculturation - answer✔The process by which immigrant group members adjust to the culture of
their new country.
Adaptability - answer✔Term from Olson's Circumflex Model, which is a measure of the families
ability to respond and adapt to changes in their lives. Also called "flexibility"-families are rated
at 4 levels:
1. Rigid
2. Structured
3. Flexible
4. Chaotic
Alliance - answer✔Structural and Strategic Model Definition: a bond or affiliation between 2 or
more family members. Alliances differ from coalitions in that they are generally within the
subsystems and not hidden.
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Domestic Violence Model Definition: Refers to the redemptive phase of the abuse cycle, in
which the perpetrator promises to never act violently again and the victim agrees to participate in
that goal and believes them, continuing the cycle of abuse.
Antilibidinal Ego - answer✔Objects-Relations Term defined as the part of the ego that is formed
from interactions with the rejecting object.
Antilibidinal System - answer✔Object-Relations Term define as a repressed system within the
ego characterized by aggression, rage, and contempt.
"As If" Structure - answer✔Symbolic-Experiential Term defined as family members are
encouraged to freely experiment "as if" they were in the role of the other, so long as they
understand that the role play is symbolic. The process allows family members to alternately
experiment and then return to their secure roles.
Autopoetic (Autopoeisis) System - answer✔Defined as a system that is self organizing and self
maintaining, such as biological and human systems. Can be described by second order
cybernetics. Term originated from Postmodern Chilean Biologist, Maturana.
Avoider - answer✔SATIR EXPERIENTIAL MODEL: This is 1 of the 5 communication styles
developed by Satir (Experiential Therapy). The avoider tends to distract others form potential
conflict by acting helpless, weak, and lacking an understanding.
Battle for Initiative - answer✔WHITAKER EXPERIENTIAL MODEL: The Battle for Initiative
follows the Battle for Structure. Defined as the family taking back authority form the therapist to
make choices about what is discussed and about decisions that affect their life.
Battle for Structure - answer✔WHITAKER EXPERIENTIAL MODEL: The Battle for Structure
is when the therapist demands the family capitulate (give in to) to their way of conducting the
therapy, particularly during the initial stage of therapy. It is followed by the next phase, Battle
for Initiative.
Beavers-Timberlawn Model - answer✔An assessment tool used to rate the dimensions of
competence and style in a family.
Competence Dimensions are:
1. Adequate
2. Optimal
3. Midrange
4. Borderline
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5. Severely Dysfunctional
Stylistic Dimensions are:
1. Centripetal
2. Centrifugal
3. Mixed
Behavioral Exchange Theory - answer✔From Behavior Family Therapy. Defined as a way of
describing relationships in terms of costs and benefits. Functional relationships have plentiful
access to rewards and relatively few costs, while distressed relationships have few rewards
relative to the costs.
Behavioral Family Therapy (BFT) - answer✔A theory and therapeutic model developed by
PATERSON, REID (and others). Based on principles of learning and behavior change. All
family members are seen as part of the problem, and symptoms are reformulated into concrete
observable behaviors, each of which will be rewarded, or extinguished.
Behavioral Parent Training (Behavioral Family Therapy) - answer✔A program for training
parents in the use of contingency management to modify, or extinguish unwanted behaviors and
reinforce desirable behaviors in children.
Bicultural - answer✔People who belong to more then one culture and are able to alternate
between the two, adjusting temporarily to each, depending on the circumstance.
Bilateral Pseudo Therapy - answer✔SYMBOLIC-EXPERIENTIAL: Defined as the tendency in
some families for members to be therapists to one another. The Therapist demands the therapy be
turned over to them, asserting the family has failed in it's efforts at self-therapy. (Goes along
with Battle for Structure and Battle for Initiative)
Bilateral Transference - answer✔SYMBOLIC-EXPERIENTIAL: A therapeutic stance defined
as the therapist adopting the language, accent, rhythm, pr posture of the family.
Biobehavioral - answer✔Defined as biological factors that influence behavior (example,
depression that is caused, in part, by faulty neurochemistry.
Bi-Modal Feedback Mechanism - answer✔(Ashby) the rule-bound mechanism by which a
system remains unchanged so long as the internal or external environment is stable, but when the
fluctuation exceeds the range of stability the system must respond in some new way. The system
either breaks down or it makes a leap into new levels of functioning. The change results in a new
set of patterns which, like the old pattern, is also bound by rules, and it, too, remains unchanged,
so long as the environment is stable.
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Binuclear Family - answer✔Families in which the parents are divorced, have remarried, and
formed two intact nuclear families.
Blamer - answer✔SATIR EXPERIENTIAL MODEL: This is 1 of the 5 communication styles
developed by Satir (Experiential Therapy). The Blamer judges and complains, often for the
purpose of bullying others into accepting what their preference is (get their own way).
Boundary - answer✔MINUCHIN-STRUCTURAL:Minuchin's structural family therapy,
boundaries are hypothetical dividers between or among subsystems within the family or between
systems. They are defined spatially by the ways family members align with one another.They are
set by the implicit or explicit rules concerning who participates in which subsystem and in what
manner. Boundaries and the subsystems they define may change over time. In the structural
model, boundaries are rigid, clear, or diffuse.
Boundary Interface - answer✔The regions between each subsystem of the family and between
the family and the suprasystem. In family systems therapy this interface is referred to as the
familial boundary.
Boundary Making - answer✔A structural therapy technique in which the therapist establishes a
functional semi-permeable (clear) boundary where either a rigid or diffuse boundary had existed
previously.
Bowenian Family Therapy - answer✔Bowen's theory and therapeutic model is based on the
family's emotional system, the differentiation of self within one's family, and the multi-
generational transmission of emotions and family patterns.
Brief Family Therapy - answer✔DEVELOPED BY MRI (STRATEGIC): A model of problem-
focused and time-limited therapy developed by the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA.
Milton Erickson and others.
Caring Days - answer✔From behavioral marital therapy, each partner identifies behaviors that
his/her partner finds enjoyable and makes a commitment to increasing those behaviors.
Case-Specific Symptom Prescription - answer✔STRATEGIC MODEL TECHNIQUE defined as
a therapeutic technique of the strategic model, in which symptomatic or other undesirable
behaviors are paradoxically encouraged in order to lessen such behavior or bring it under
conscious control.
Central Ego - answer✔OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY:1 of 3 parts of the ego. The Central
Ego is conscious, adaptable, & free to deal with future experiences with attachment figures in
reasonable ways. The central ego maintains its own object, the ideal object
