LMFT exam questions & answers
2023/2024
3 primary phenomena that emerged into MFT - ANSWER-Psychoanalysis, group therapy, and race to cure
schizophrenia (and Bateson's research of family communication)
Betrand Russell - ANSWER-Theory of logical types (to define hierarchies based on level of abstraction)
Norbert Weiner - ANSWER-Cybernetics - Family has feedback loops(ongoing) to self-correct a family
system
refined Shannon-Weaver Model of Communication by adding two new features: feedback is an essential
feature of effective communication & said a communication theory which focuses only on information
overlooks important dimensions of human communication. (Overlooks feelings, motives, needs, history,
etc.)
Ludwig von Bertalanffy - ANSWER-General Systems Theory- parts of systems are interrelated, and the
whole is greater than the sum of its parts. This concept was advanced but Kurt Lewis within Field Theory.
General systems theory was first applied to groups.
John Bowlby - ANSWER-attachment theory- secure attachment, insecure attachment (anxious-resistant
and anxious-avoidant types), and disorganized/disoriented attachment.
Paul Popenoe - ANSWER-Founded the American Institute of Family Relations on the west coast
Emily Mudd - ANSWER--1932 founded Marriage Council of Philadelphia, which became AAMFT in 1979.
John Bell - ANSWER-May have been the first to treat families. He did so in multiple family therapy groups
and called his approach family group therapy (child-centered phase, parent-centered phase, and family-
centered phase)
,Robert MacGregor - ANSWER-Multiple Impact Theory as a way to have maximum impact on families who
came from all over Texas to spend several days with a team of professionals
Don Jackson - ANSWER-Conjoint Therapy, marital therapy in which the spouses were seen together
Josef Breuer - ANSWER-studied the effects of hypnotism and used it to treat patients with hysteria, first
treated "Anna O" with what she then deemed the Talking Cure. Breuer later referred to it as the
Cathartic Method. Freud expanded on this concept into what we now know Psychoanalysis
Alfred Adler - ANSWER-Believed that the individual was influenced by more than internal drives (Freud)
and instead identified the role of society and others had on individual personality development and
functioning. He launched the Child Guidance Movement in Austria, which was brought to US by Rudolph
Dreikers. Adele's concepts: overcompensation for felt inferiority, social interest, sibling birth order, and
working with families in front of a live audience.
Nathan Ackerman - ANSWER-Classified the family as a solitary unit of treatment (family system as a
client). He was always lively and open to effective use of therapist self-disclosure while emphasizing the
importance of paying attention to non-verbal cues as a means to understanding the hidden and
unspoken aspects of family functioning. Most notable intervention: Tickling the Defenses teasing,
provoking, and stimulating the members of a family to open up and say what is really on their minds.
FATHER OF FAMILY THERAPY
Lyman Wynne - ANSWER-Applied psychoanalytic ideas to his work with families with severe mental and
physical disorders. His concepts: pseudomutuality- systemic pretense of harmony and closeness that
hides conflict and interferes with intimacy, pseudo hostility- volatile and intense way of disguising and
distorting both affection and splits, Rubber-Fence boundary- the families seemingly yielding, but are in
fact nearly impermeable to information from outside systems.
Kurt Lewin (group therapy) - ANSWER-Field theory, " the whole of group was greater than the sum of its
individuals". Developed the process of change: 1) unfreezing- creating the motivation and readiness to
change, 2) changing- helping the client to see, judge, feel, and react to things differently, based on a new
point of view, 3) refreezing- helping the client to integrate the new point of view into the organization as
well as the individual personality).
Wilfred Bion (Group therapy) - ANSWER-Studied groups, importance of group dynamics, Process vs.
content
,Jacob Moreno (Group therapy) - ANSWER-Created a term Psychodrama
Peter Laque - ANSWER-Started Multiple Family Group Therapy, seeing several families together in a large
group using techniques from traditional therapy, psychodrama, and encounter groups. Co-therapists
were often used.
David Levy - ANSWER-Coined Maternal-Overprotectiveness as a result of his studies of schizophrenia,
which described mothers who were deprived of love when they were children, resulting in a
characterological makeup defined by dominance and indulgence.
Frieda Fromm-Reichmann - ANSWER-schizophrenogenic mother- domineering, aggressive, rejecting and
insecure women who influenced the development of schizophrenia in children.
Theodore Lidz - ANSWER-Invested research into causes of schizophrenia. Viewed the etiology of illness
as occurring systematically within the family. did not believe that the mother was the cause of
schizophrenia. His concepts: marital schism: the parents are overly focused on their own problems which
harms marriage, the individuals and children, Marital skew- one parent dominates the family, and the
other is dependent.
The Mental Research Institute (MRI) as Palo Alto - ANSWER-Gregory Bateson, William Fry, Jay Haley, John
Weakland, Don Jackson, Virginia Satir
Double bind - ANSWER-a situation in which an individual is given two different and inconsistent
messages. It must have 6 characteristics: important emotional relationship, repeated experience,
command not to do or not to NOT do (some act), non verbal abstract injunction, third injunction that
demands a response and prevents escape, individual becomes conditioned to double-bind.
Milton Erickson - ANSWER-Much of his contributions were centered on the idea that resistance to
change was a key obstacle to success in therapy. Paradoxical techniques to address resistance to
changeHis therapy was done TO not WITH client. Emphasized brief therapies that were ahistoric and
problem focused.
, Carl Whitaker - ANSWER-symbolic-experiential family therapy. Blank slate. Therapeutic usefulness of self-
disclosure and transparency, encouraging therapists be more themselves in therapy. Encouragement of
co-therapists.
Jay Haley - ANSWER-Strategic Family Therapy. Used directives to get the families to change their
behaviors and thereby break repetitive behavioral cycles.
Virginia Satir - ANSWER-was often empathic with the family. She identified five styles of relating with a
family. To explore relationships within the family, she used experiential/expressive techniques such as
family sculpting and taking a family life chronology. Was associated with experiential family therapy.
Developed Human Validation Process Model.
Murray Bowen - ANSWER-Known for work in intergenerational family therapy which utilized genograms;
proposed the idea of triangulation
Ivan Boszormenyi-Nagy - ANSWER-Contextual Family Therapy. Loyalty and Trust between members.
Salvador Minuchin - ANSWER-Structural Family Therapy: uses joining, enactment, boundary making, and
mimesis techniques
Fred and Bunny Duhl and David Kantor - ANSWER-Developed Integrative Model of Family Therapy.
Ross Speck and Carolyn Attneave - ANSWER-Network Therapy by assisting families in crisis by gathering
their entire social network upward toward 50 people. Focus on breaking destructive patterns.
Double descriptions - ANSWER-Bateson: "It takes two to know one". We can't understand one
phenomenon based upon a singular description or quantity.
Doherty's Couple Sensitive Individual Therapy (CSI) - ANSWER-First, build rapport by focusing on client's
emotional experience , then enter into the marital system
General Systems Theory - ANSWER-Ludwig von Bertalanffy. All universal systems share universal
characteristics. The whole of the system is greater than the sum of its parts. No system can be
