Free and Premium NBCC NCE-ABE Dumps Questions Answers

Within the group counseling process, counselors are expected to recognize predictable emotional patterns that appear at different developmental stages of a group. According to the work behaviors related to group facilitation, counselors must understand how members respond as the group moves toward closure.

During the termination stage, members commonly experience mixed emotions, including:

Sadness, because they are separating from the support, cohesion, and interpersonal connections formed within the group.

Relief, because the formal group work is ending and members may feel a sense of completion or accomplishment.

These emotions reflect a normal and expected part of group development, and the counselor’s role is to help members process these feelings, consolidate learning, and prepare to apply insights outside the group.

Why the other options are incorrect:

B. Transition stage: Typically involves anxiety, resistance, conflict, and testing of boundaries, not the concluding emotions associated with group completion.

C. Formative (initial) stage: Characterized by orientation, confusion, dependency, and uncertainty, not feelings tied to ending.

D. Production (working) stage: Marked by cohesion, trust, productive work, and deep exploration, not termination-related emotions.

This understanding fits the NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas’ expectation that counselors demonstrate competence in group development, emotional processing, and effective intervention throughout all stages of group work.

The techniques listed come from different theoretical orientations:

Relaxation training – commonly associated with behavioral and cognitive-behavioral approaches.

Covert modeling – a behavioral technique using imagined models.

Mental imagery – used in both cognitive and experiential/affective approaches.

Interpretation – often associated with psychodynamic and insight-oriented therapies.

Empty chair – a hallmark of Gestalt and other affective/experiential approaches.

Because this list spans multiple theoretical orientations, the best match is D. Eclectic, where counselors intentionally draw techniques from different theories and apply them in an integrated manner based on client need rather than allegiance to a single model.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas describe effective counselors as able to:

Select and apply a variety of interventions.

Match techniques to client goals, problems, and preferences.

Integrate methods from different orientations when appropriate.

This is the essence of an eclectic approach, making D the correct answer.

When there is a significant lack of bonding or secure attachment between a caregiver and a child, one major consequence is often low levels of stimulation, interaction, and responsive caregiving. This can lead to:

Inhibited cognitive growth (e.g., delayed language, problem-solving, and conceptual skills).

Inhibited emotional growth, including difficulty regulating emotions and forming relationships.

These developmental limitations directly affect school readiness and academic performance, making A the best answer.

The other options describe possible effects of attachment problems but are less directly and broadly tied to academic underperformance:

B. Indiscriminate attachments to adults – seen in some severe attachment disturbances, but this focuses more on social behaviors than academic performance per se.

C. Decreased experience with attending behaviors – could play a role but is more narrow and not the primary developmental factor emphasized in research.

D. Decreased practice with delaying gratifications – relates more to impulse control and behavior, which can affect school, but the core academic underperformance is more strongly linked to global cognitive and emotional inhibition due to low early stimulation.

Within Areas of Clinical Focus, counselors are expected to understand how early attachment and caregiving environments influence later functioning, including academic achievement, and to recognize how disruptions in bonding can affect a child’s cognitive and emotional development.

This client is:

In advanced age with declining health and a recent heart attack.

Expressing fears about dying alone and questions about how much time he has left.

Reflecting on life choices and losses (“all he did to provide for his family”).

These features point strongly to end-of-life concerns, such as mortality, meaning, unresolved feelings, and how to live meaningfully in the time remaining. Thus, A. End-of-life issues is the most central and clinically indicated focus.

Why the others are secondary or less indicated:

B. Repairing family relationships – while potentially helpful, he states he has “accepted” those losses; that may be explored within end-of-life work, but the primary clinical task is addressing his fears and meaning-making around death.

C. Reviewing will and health care directives – important practically, but this is more of a legal/administrative task than the core counseling focus.

D. Developing and expanding support networks – can be part of the work, especially given fears of dying alone, but it is one element within the broader focus on end-of-life adjustment rather than the central organizing theme.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas include attending to developmental and life-stage issues, including older adulthood and end-of-life, and helping clients cope with illness, mortality, and existential concerns.

With retired and older adults, group counseling often benefits from life review and reminiscence, where members share and process past experiences, roles, accomplishments, regrets, and transitions. This helps with identity integration, meaning-making, grief, and adjustment to retirement, so a primary focus on personal reminiscences is particularly appropriate. Thus, Option D is correct.

Option A (more structured activities) can be useful, but structure alone is not the central developmental task for retired individuals; the question asks what the counselor should do, pointing to primary focus, not just a technique.

Option B is contrary to good practice: pre-group screening is recommended for most counseling groups, including those with older adults, to ensure appropriate membership and fit.

Option C (developing new humanistic coping skills) is not wrong in spirit, but it is overly vague and does not highlight the unique value of life review and reminiscence in later-life group counseling.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas emphasize that effective group interventions are adapted to the developmental stage and life tasks of the population served. For retired persons, structured reminiscence and life review are evidence-based, developmentally appropriate group foci.

The phrase in the question is the standard definition of cognitive style—the characteristic way an individual perceives, processes, organizes, and uses information. This includes preferred ways of learning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

C. Cognitive style therefore correctly names individual differences in how people comprehend, store, and use information.

The other options are related but distinct concepts:

A. Divergent thinking refers to generating many possible solutions or ideas from a single starting point (often associated with creativity and brainstorming).

D. Convergent thinking involves narrowing down options to find a single correct solution (often used in logic or standard problem-solving).

B. Creativity generally refers to the ability to produce novel and useful ideas or products, not specifically the stable way a person processes information.

Understanding cognitive styles is part of the Areas of Clinical Focus, since it helps counselors conceptualize clients’ learning, problem-solving, and information-processing patterns, and adapt interventions accordingly.

Counselors using assessments must understand basic statistics, including correlation, to interpret test data appropriately. A correlation coefficient (r) ranges from −1.00 to +1.00 and reflects the strength and direction of a linear relationship between two variables.

A correlation of 0 (option A) indicates no linear relationship between the variables—knowing one gives no information about predicting the other in a straight-line fashion.

−1.00 (B) indicates a perfect negative linear relationship: as one variable increases, the other decreases in a perfectly predictable way.

+1.00 (C) indicates a perfect positive linear relationship: as one variable increases, the other also increases in a perfectly predictable way.

Unable to determine (D) is incorrect because the coefficient itself does provide this information.

Therefore, 0 represents a complete lack of linear relationship, making A the correct answer.

Within the Core Counseling Attributes domain, counselors are expected to demonstrate an ability to accurately understand and reflect the client’s emotional experience. Empathy involves communicating back to the client an accurate awareness of their internal world, especially their feelings, meanings, and emotional nuances.

Option A reflects this essential skill: the counselor expresses an understanding of what the client is feeling, allowing the client to feel heard, validated, and emotionally understood. This is central to building the therapeutic relationship and promoting client growth.

Why the other options are incorrect:

B. Nod their head frequently: This is a nonverbal attending skill, but nodding alone does not establish empathy or convey an understanding of the client’s emotional experience.

C. Open posture: Although helpful for rapport and presence, posture alone does not demonstrate emotional understanding and therefore is not empathy by itself.

D. Provide a detailed summary: Summarizing is a useful skill, but a detailed summary may focus on content rather than the client’s emotional experience, and therefore does not fully represent empathy.

The NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas emphasize that empathy involves accurately perceiving and clearly communicating the client’s emotional state, making option A the correct answer.

In the Professional Practice and Ethics domain, counselors are expected to understand basic research concepts so they can evaluate the quality of studies and apply findings responsibly. When a researcher examines factors such as:

History (events occurring between pretest and posttest),

Differential mortality (attrition of participants from groups),

Pretesting procedures (testing effects),

Statistical regression (regression toward the mean),

they are evaluating threats to internal validity.

Internal validity (Option C) refers to the degree to which changes in the dependent variable can confidently be attributed to the independent variable, rather than to extraneous or confounding factors. Examining these threats is central to determining how well the experimental design supports cause-and-effect conclusions.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Content validity – Concerns whether a measure adequately samples the domain of content it is supposed to cover (e.g., whether a test of math skills adequately represents the math curriculum), not the design’s vulnerability to history or mortality threats.

B. External validity – Involves the generalizability of findings to other populations, settings, and times, not the internal threats listed.

D. Construct validity – Refers to whether a test or procedure actually measures the theoretical construct it purports to measure, not the impact of history, testing effects, or attrition on experimental outcomes.

NBCC-aligned counselor work behaviors emphasize that ethically responsible practitioners must be able to critically evaluate research methods, including recognition of internal validity threats, to determine how much confidence to place in study results they might use to inform practice.

In the Professional Practice and Ethics domain, counselors are expected to follow a systematic ethical decision-making process and to document:

The model or steps they used.

The consultations they sought.

The options considered and the actions taken, along with the rationale.

This documentation serves several purposes, but a key function is to show that the counselor acted in a thoughtful, reasonable, and professionally responsible manner if their decisions are later questioned by a licensing board, court, or ethics committee. This most directly aligns with:

C. to protect the counselor if decisions are challenged.

Why the other options are less accurate:

A. to protect the client if records are subpoenaed – good documentation can benefit the client, but the primary emphasis in ethical decision-making documentation is on demonstrating professional due diligence.

B. to protect the profession when reviewed by other professionals – while sound documentation reflects well on the profession, this is not the main purpose.

D. to protect the integrity of the client–counselor relationship – maintaining integrity is crucial, but documentation of an ethical decision-making model is primarily a risk management and accountability tool.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas stress that ethical practice includes using structured decision-making models and documenting the process to demonstrate adherence to professional standards and to protect the counselor in the event of scrutiny or challenge.

The term that encompasses a client’s background, values, morals, traditions, and ways of living within a social context is culture.2 Culture is commonly understood as the shared patterns of beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that a group uses to cope with the world and pass on to future generations. It shapes:

Worldview and meaning-making

Interpersonal expectations and communication styles

Attitudes toward counseling, mental health, and help-seeking

Thus, Option B (culture) is correct.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Individualism – Refers to a value orientation emphasizing personal autonomy, independence, and self-reliance. It is one possible cultural value, not the full description of a client’s total human experience.

C. Collectivism – The opposite value orientation to individualism, emphasizing group harmony, interdependence, and group goals. Again, it is one type of cultural value, not the overarching construct.

D. Race – Refers to a category often (problematically) based on physical characteristics and socially constructed groupings. While race can influence experience and oppression, it does not by itself encompass the entirety of background, values, morals, and traditions; those are more fully covered by the broader concept of culture.2

In the Professional Practice and Ethics area, NBCC highlights that ethically competent counselors must understand and respect clients’ cultural contexts, integrating these into assessment, case conceptualization, and intervention.

In assessment, counselors are expected to understand basic statistics used to interpret test scores. The standard deviation is the measure that indicates, on average, how far individual scores fall from the mean of a distribution. It is a key index of variability around the average.

When the standard deviation is small, scores cluster closely around the mean.

When it is large, scores are more spread out.

Thus, option C. Standard deviation is correct.

Why the others are incorrect:

A. Correlation coefficient measures the degree and direction of relationship between two variables, not the average distance from the mean.

B. Range is the difference between the highest and lowest score; it is a simple measure of spread but does not reflect the average distance of scores from the mean.

D. Standard score (e.g., z-score, T-score) is a transformed score that indicates how far an individual score lies from the mean in standard deviation units, but it is not the name of the variability index itself.

Knowledge of how to interpret scores using concepts like the mean and standard deviation is part of Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis, as counselors must interpret test results accurately to inform case understanding and decision-making.

Transference is a core relationship phenomenon in counseling in which a client unconsciously redirects feelings, expectations, and patterns from important early relationships (often parents or caregivers) onto the counselor. A common form of this is when the client begins to relate to the counselor as if the counselor were a parental figure—idealized, critical, abandoning, overprotective, or nurturing in ways that mirror their early experiences.

This makes B the best answer: it captures the classic understanding of transference as the client viewing and reacting to the counselor in a parental role.

A (wanting a counselor who shares their culture) is a preference about counselor characteristics and is more related to cultural competence and matching, not transference.

C (developing strong emotions) is too broad; clients can have strong feelings without it being transference. Transference specifically involves repetition of earlier relational patterns.

D (wanting a counselor with the same diagnosis) is again a preference for perceived similarity, not an unconscious displacement of past relationship dynamics.

Recognizing and working with transference appropriately is part of the counselor’s core counseling attributes (self-awareness, relationship skills, and understanding of interpersonal processes) as outlined in professional counselor work behaviors.

In the Counseling Skills and Interventions work behavior area, counselors are expected to select interventions that are supported by empirical evidence for the client’s specific concerns, including substance use disorders.

Motivational interviewing (MI) (Option A) is a widely researched, empirically supported treatment modality for individuals with substance use disorders. It is a client-centered, directive approach designed to:

Enhance intrinsic motivation for change,

Resolve ambivalence,

Support clients in moving through stages of change regarding substance use.

Core MI skills often summarized as OARS (open questions, affirmations, reflections, summaries) are used to elicit and strengthen “change talk” and reduce resistance. Research has consistently shown MI’s effectiveness in reducing substance use and increasing treatment engagement across various populations and settings.

Why the other options are less appropriate here:

B. Narrative therapy – While potentially helpful for meaning-making and identity reconstruction, it is not the primary empirically validated front-line modality for substance use disorders.

C. Solution-focused brief therapy – Has some supportive evidence for various problems and can be useful in certain substance-related contexts, but MI has a stronger and more direct evidence base specifically for substance use disorders.

D. Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) – Primarily validated for trauma-related disorders, particularly PTSD, rather than as a core, primary treatment for substance use disorders.

NBCC-aligned counselor work behaviors emphasize that practitioners should match interventions to the problem using approaches with strong empirical support, making motivational interviewing the best choice among the options for treating substance use disorders.

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Within Professional Practice and Ethics, counselors are expected to monitor and evaluate their own effectiveness, seek feedback, and engage in ongoing professional development to improve their practice.

In this scenario, the counselor:

Asks for anonymous written comments after each session

Focuses specifically on the counselor’s own behaviors in the group

Takes steps to protect confidentiality (having comments typed by a third party)

This clearly frames the feedback as a tool for the counselor to evaluate and improve their own performance, which is an example of self-evaluation.

Group stage evaluation (A) would focus on where the group is developmentally (forming, storming, norming, etc.), not primarily on the counselor’s behavior.

Outcome evaluation (B) assesses whether client or group goals are being met (symptom reduction, improved functioning), not how the counselor acted.

Process gradient scaling (D) is not what’s being described here; this is not a formal scaling or rating method of session process variables.

Therefore, the process is best understood as self-evaluation, making C the correct answer.

In the Counseling Skills and Interventions domain, behavioral approaches emphasize observable, measurable behavior change, and the use of practice outside of sessions to generalize and maintain gains. In behavioral group counseling, key principles include:

Setting specific, individualized behavioral goals

Defining goals in observable, measurable terms

Using homework or between-session assignments to practice new behaviors in real-life situations

Option A directly reflects this: group members have individualized objectives to work on between sessions, which is a hallmark of behavioral work and supports skill acquisition and generalization.

B is incorrect because behavioral methods often use more than just verbal interaction (e.g., modeling, role-playing, behavioral rehearsal, reinforcement, feedback systems).

C is partially true that goals should be in performance terms, but the requirement that each member have multiple goals is not a core principle and may even dilute focus.

D contradicts behavioral theory, which holds that environmental factors strongly influence behavior; behavioral counseling explicitly considers and modifies environmental contingencies.

Thus, A best reflects a principle of behavioral group counseling.

Within diagnostic work, counselors must distinguish between eating disorders by identifying core diagnostic features. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by restriction of energy intake leading to significantly low body weight, a disturbance in the way one’s body weight or shape is experienced, and, critically, an intense fear of gaining weight or becoming fat, even when underweight. That intense fear is central to both the client’s experience and the clinical diagnosis, making Option B correct.

Option A (repeatedly regurgitating food for at least one month) aligns more with rumination disorder, not anorexia nervosa.

Option C is incorrect: anorexia is more frequently associated with higher-income, industrialized societies, not predominantly low-income countries.

Option D (binge eating) is more characteristic of bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder; while some people with anorexia (binge-eating/purging type) may binge, it is not the defining feature.

Correctly identifying hallmark symptoms like fear of weight gain reflects the NBCC Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis expectation that counselors accurately recognize and differentiate mental disorders when formulating diagnoses and treatment plans.

Career construction counseling (Savickas) is a narrative, meaning-based approach to career development. Its central activity is helping clients tell, explore, and organize their life stories in a way that reveals recurring life themes and preferred ways of being in the world. These themes then guide career choices and roles that feel coherent and meaningful.

Thus, option C. Identifying life themes is correct, as it captures the core narrative task of career construction counseling.

A. Analyzing temperament fits more with trait-based or psychometric approaches.

B. Documenting experience may occur, but it is secondary to making sense of those experiences through themes.

D. Practicing interview skills is a useful career skill-building task but is not the central activity of career construction counseling.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas expect counselors to understand major career theories and approaches, including narrative and constructivist models that emphasize life themes, meaning-making, and storytelling in career development.

Within the Counselor Work Behavior Areas, counselors are expected to understand the core assumptions of major counseling theories, including behavioral approaches. Behavioral theories view psychological issues, including anxiety, primarily in terms of learned behaviors and skills deficits, rather than unconscious conflicts or self-concept discrepancies.

From a behavioral orientation, anxiety is understood as:

A response that has been learned and reinforced in certain situations.

Often maintained because the person does not have effective, adaptive responses or coping skills for those situations.

Reduced in the short term by avoidance, which then reinforces the anxious response in the long term.

Thus, Option B, lack of effective responses to problem situations, best reflects the behavioral view that anxiety develops and persists when individuals have inadequate or maladaptive behavioral repertoires for dealing with stressors.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Inappropriate reactions to early childhood behavior – This suggests a more psychodynamic or relational focus on early childhood experiences, not a strictly behavioral explanation.

C. Discrepancies between the real and the ideal self – This reflects humanistic/person-centered theory (Rogers), not behavioral theory.

D. Overt inconsistencies in responding to the environment – While behaviorists pay attention to environmental contingencies, this option does not clearly capture the central behavioral idea that anxiety persists due to reinforced maladaptive responses and lack of effective alternatives.

This matches the Counselor Work Behavior Area requirement that counselors know how different theoretical orientations conceptualize the development and maintenance of client problems, including anxiety, so they can plan appropriate, evidence-based interventions.

Ratio IQs (mental age ÷ chronological age × 100) create interpretation problems, especially for adults, because mental age does not increase steadily across the lifespan. Modern intelligence testing instead uses deviation IQs, which:

Compare an individual’s performance to that of their age-based normative group.

Use a fixed mean (typically 100) and standard deviation (often 15 or 16) to express how far above or below the average a person’s score falls.

Option B best captures this idea: deviation IQs are derived from standardized norms with designated means and standard deviations, which are similar across many commonly used IQ tests, allowing for more meaningful interpretation.

The other options do not describe the purpose of deviation IQs:

A. Lower the standard deviation among test takers – deviation IQs standardize the distribution; they don’t simply “lower” the standard deviation.

C. Place primary emphasis on selecting students in extreme intelligence categories – extremes can be identified, but that is not the primary reason deviation IQs were developed.

D. Reflect that all new IQ tests are being based on a common theory of intelligence – tests differ in their theoretical foundations; deviation scoring is a psychometric method, not a theory of intelligence.

Within the Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis area, counselors are expected to understand basic principles of standardized testing, including the interpretation of IQ scores using norm-referenced, deviation-based metrics.

Client-centered (person-centered) counseling, based on Carl Rogers’ theory, is grounded in a fundamentally positive view of human nature. People are seen as having an innate actualizing tendency—a built-in drive to grow, develop, and move constructively toward fulfillment when provided with appropriate conditions such as empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard from the counselor.1

Because of this, client-centered counselors view people as essentially:

Forward moving – oriented toward growth, change, and self-improvement.

Capable of realistic perception when not distorted by conditions of worth or external pressures.1

This aligns directly with Option A: forward moving and realistic.

Why the other options are incorrect:

B. Incongruent in most aspects of their lives.While Rogers acknowledges that incongruence (a mismatch between self-concept and experience) can occur and lead to distress, he does not define people primarily as incongruent in “most aspects” of their lives. Rather, incongruence is seen as a condition that can be reduced in a supportive therapeutic relationship.1

C. Incapable of unassisted change.Person-centered theory emphasizes that clients possess their own resources for growth. The counselor’s role is to provide facilitative conditions, not to act as the expert who “changes” the client. People are not viewed as fundamentally incapable of change without a counselor.1

D. Seeking to purge the evil from their lives.This reflects a moral or theological framing, not the humanistic, nonjudgmental stance of client-centered counseling. Rogers did not conceptualize people as evil; he saw them as basically trustworthy and constructive.1

In the Core Counseling Attributes area, NBCC emphasizes that counselors hold attitudes that respect the client’s inherent capacity for growth, autonomy, and self-direction—exactly the view reflected in Option A.

Within the Areas of Clinical Focus work behavior area, counselors are expected to know evidence-based treatments for specific clinical conditions, including personality disorders.

Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) (Option C) was originally developed by Marsha Linehan specifically to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). DBT integrates:

Cognitive-behavioral strategies for behavior change,

Acceptance-based strategies (e.g., mindfulness),

A dialectical framework balancing acceptance and change.

The model includes:

Individual therapy,

Group skills training (mindfulness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness),

Phone coaching,

Consultation team for therapists.

These features reflect the NBCC-aligned work behavior expectation that counselors understand appropriate, validated modalities for complex clinical presentations such as BPD.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Analytical behavioral analysis – This is not the recognized model associated with the original treatment of BPD.

B. Cognitive behavioral therapy – While DBT evolved from CBT and CBT techniques are useful with many disorders, standard CBT was not specifically designed as the original, specialized treatment protocol for BPD.

D. Transactional analysis – A distinct theoretical model focusing on ego states and life scripts; it is not the empirically established, original treatment model for BPD.

Counselors working with personality disorders are expected to identify and, when within their scope, apply or refer for treatments such as DBT, which are designed and researched for these clinical populations.

Within the Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis work behavior area, counselors are expected to understand the basic principles of test construction, reliability, and validity so they can select and interpret assessment instruments appropriately.

Criterion validity refers to how well a test score is related to an external criterion, such as independent ratings, real-world performance, or other objective measures of behavior or achievement. For example, if a test is designed to measure job performance, its criterion validity would be demonstrated by the strength of the relationship between test scores and supervisor performance ratings or actual productivity.

Face validity (A) is a superficial judgment about whether a test appears to measure what it claims to measure and is not based on statistical relationships.

Content validity (C) concerns whether the items on a test adequately represent the full range of the content area or domain being measured.

Construct validity (D) refers to how well a test measures a theoretical construct or trait (such as depression, anxiety, or intelligence) and involves an accumulation of evidence from many sources.

Because this question specifically references the test's relationship to independent ratings of performance, it is describing criterion validity, making option B the correct answer.

In many residential treatment settings, groups are typically:

Open-ended, with clients entering and leaving treatment at different times.

Characterized by fluctuating membership and inconsistent attendance due to admissions, discharges, medical issues, or program requirements.

Therefore, leaders can expect open groups with inconsistent attendance (D).

Why the others are less accurate in this context:

A. Treatment team members to specify the goals for the group – although treatment teams may offer input, group leaders are generally responsible for defining and managing group goals within the program structure.

B. Use of screening – in residential facilities, group membership is often driven by who is currently admitted, so there is typically limited ability to screen out members.

C. Consistent and stable membership – this is more typical of closed groups, not residential settings with rolling admissions and discharges.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas expect counselors to understand how setting characteristics (like residential care) shape group structure, membership, and how leaders plan and intervene.

The term “outsider witness groups” comes specifically from narrative therapy. In this approach, clients tell and re-author their stories, and selected others (outsider witnesses) listen to these stories and then respond by sharing what moved or resonated with them. This process:

Brings in social resources and supportive witnesses.

Strengthens the client’s preferred identity and alternative story.

Helps the client feel seen and supported in a broader community context.

Thus, option D. Narrative therapy is correct.

Adlerian therapy (A) uses family constellation, early recollections, and encouragement, but not outsider witness groups as a standard technique.

Gestalt therapy (B) emphasizes experiential awareness, here-and-now work, and empty-chair techniques.

Community psychology (C) incorporates social systems and resources but does not specifically use “outsider witness groups” as conceptualized in narrative therapy.

NBCC Counselor Work Behaviors expect counselors to know the distinctive concepts and methods of major counseling theories, including narrative therapy’s use of outsider witnesses to support client change.

Kohlberg’s theory states that young children (preschool age) typically operate at the preconventional level of moral development. At this level, moral judgments are based mainly on the consequences of actions, especially punishment and reward. Children see behaviors as “good” or “bad” depending on what happens afterward, not based on internalized values or concern for relationships.

Option B reflects this: decisions based on the outcomes of specific acts (e.g., “If I do this, will I get in trouble or get a reward?”).

Options A, C, and D reflect more advanced moral reasoning: peer influence, concern for relationships, and ethical principles—all of which appear later in Kohlberg’s stages. Understanding developmental theories like Kohlberg’s helps counselors conceptualize client behavior across the lifespan, which fits within Areas of Clinical Focus in the NBCC Counselor Work Behavior framework.

Family counseling is grounded in systems theory, which views the family as an interconnected unit where each member’s behavior affects the entire system. When a counselor helps one member become more assertive, they operate from the assumption that a change in one part of the system will influence changes in other parts of the system.

Therefore, option B is correct: changing one family member’s behavior will change the behavior of other family members. It does not mean everyone will necessarily become more assertive (so A is too specific and inaccurate), nor does it assume assertiveness is purely individual and unreachable through family work (C). It also does not require that all family members agree to the change before it can occur (D).

NBCC-aligned work behaviors expect counselors to understand systemic dynamics and recognize that interventions aimed at a single family member can ripple through the entire family system.

In clinical work, counselors must understand how definitions of “normal” and “abnormal” can vary across cultures and theoretical perspectives.

Cultural relativism holds that:

There is no single universal standard of normality.

Behavior is understood in the context of the values, norms, and expectations of a particular culture or context.

What is considered healthy or deviant depends on culturally shaped value systems.

Thus, “normal” under cultural relativism is best captured by:

D. Adherence to contextual values – that is, behavior is normal when it fits the values and norms of the specific cultural context in which the person lives.

Why the others are not correct under cultural relativism:

A. Conformity to social expectations – close, but too general; it doesn’t explicitly reference the cultural-contextual framework that relativism emphasizes.

B. Ideal state of self-actualization – reflects more of a humanistic view, not cultural relativism.

C. Incongruence between behaviors and ideals – describes distress or conflict, not a definition of normality.

Counselors are expected to incorporate this understanding when assessing behavior and distress across diverse populations, avoiding imposing one culture’s standards on another.

In developmental and ethological theory, imprinting refers to the process by which very young offspring form a strong, early bond or attachment to a primary caregiver. This process is especially noted in animal studies but is often used conceptually to describe how early, close caregiver relationships form and shape later attachment patterns.

Option B, imprinting, matches the idea of an early, foundational attachment process.

Role identification (A) involves modeling and adopting roles/behaviors, typically later in development.

Operant conditioning (C) and classical conditioning (D) describe learning through reinforcement or association, not specifically the attachment bond itself.

Knowledge of early attachment processes and their impact on later emotional and relational functioning is part of Areas of Clinical Focus in the NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas, as it helps counselors understand developmental roots of clients’ concerns.

In accountability and program evaluation, counselors are expected to use data that reflects actual client change to demonstrate effectiveness. Within professional practice, the most powerful and persuasive evidence is outcome data, because it shows:

What changed for clients (e.g., improved career decision-making, job placement, satisfaction with career choice).

The degree to which program goals and client objectives were met.

The impact of services on client functioning and development.

By comparison:

Input data focuses on what resources went into the program (e.g., staff, time, materials).

Context data describes the environment or client population characteristics.

Process data shows what was done (activities, number of sessions), but not whether it worked.

NBCC-aligned counselor work behaviors emphasize using results-focused (outcome) data for accountability to stakeholders and for improving services, which is why outcome data has the greatest impact.

In the Assessment and Testing core area, CACREP requires that counselors understand:

The use of diagnostic classification systems (such as DSM),

The difference between identity or behavior and a mental disorder, and

The central role of distress or impairment in making a diagnosis.

For gender dysphoria, diagnostic criteria emphasize that:

A person may experience incongruence between their experienced/expressed gender and assigned sex,

However, this incongruence alone is not sufficient for a mental health diagnosis,

A diagnosis is appropriate only when the experience is associated with clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Evaluating the options:

A. Considering surgical reassignment – Not required for diagnosis. Many individuals with gender dysphoria may never seek surgery.

B. Strong dislike for their anatomy – This can be one feature, but by itself does not justify a diagnosis without associated distress or impairment.

C. Desire for secondary sexual characteristics of another gender – Again, this can be part of the experience but is not sufficient alone to meet diagnostic criteria.

D. There was clinically significant distress. – This is the essential condition across DSM diagnoses: the symptoms must cause clinically significant distress or impairment. Without that, a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria should not be made.

Therefore, the counselor would only diagnose gender dysphoria if D (there was clinically significant distress) is present.

In the Assessment and Testing core area, CACREP expects counselors to distinguish between different categories of instruments, including interest inventories, personality tests, aptitude tests, and self-concept measures.

Interest inventories are designed to assess a person’s likes and dislikes regarding activities, subjects, and occupations. They are widely used in career counseling to help people explore suitable fields based on what they enjoy.

They directly ask about preferences—which is exactly what the question describes.

Why the others are not best:

Likert-type scale (B): This is a response format (e.g., strongly agree to strongly disagree), not a type of test by itself. It can be used in many kinds of instruments (attitudes, beliefs, etc.).

Self-concept inventory (C): Focuses on how people see themselves (self-image, self-worth), not primarily on their likes and dislikes about activities or careers.

Projective technique (D): Uses ambiguous stimuli (inkblots, drawings, etc.) to explore personality dynamics, not straightforward preference ratings.

Therefore, an instrument that indicates likes and dislikes is A. An interest inventory.

Within Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice, CACREP highlights the importance of counselors understanding impairment, burnout, and self-care—for themselves and in general occupational contexts.

Burnout is typically defined as a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion that results from chronic work-related or career-related stress, often accompanied by decreased sense of accomplishment and depersonalization.

Option D captures burnout as a phenomenon associated with career-related (occupational) stress, which is the broad, accurate description tested on the NCE.

Options A, B, and C each describe possible symptoms or correlates (hopelessness, confusion, fatigue, illness), but none by themselves constitute the definition of burnout. Burnout is best understood as a syndrome arising from prolonged job stress, making D the best answer.

In the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors must understand standard scores, including normalized scores with a specified mean and standard deviation (like 50,10).

Step 1: Compute the z-score.

Raw score = 56

Mean = 42

Standard deviation = 7

Compute the difference:

56 − 42 = 14

Compute z:

14 ÷ 7 = 2

So, z = 2.

Step 2: Convert the z-score to a standard score with mean = 50 and SD = 10.

Formula:

Standard score = (z × new SD) + new mean

Compute:

z × new SD = 2 × 10 = 20

20 + 50 = 70

So the f-score (50,10) is 70, which corresponds to Option D.

In Human Growth and Development, especially in Adlerian and psychodynamic theory content, counselors learn that:

Compensation is a coping mechanism in which a person attempts to counterbalance perceived weaknesses or feelings of inferiority by emphasizing strengths in other areas.This directly matches the description of coping with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, so A is correct.

The other terms reflect different mechanisms:

Displacement (B): redirecting emotions from a threatening target to a safer one.

Reaction formation (C): expressing the opposite of one’s true feelings.

Regression (D): reverting to earlier, more childlike behaviors under stress.

Therefore, the mechanism that best describes coping with feelings of inferiority is compensation.

The Social and Cultural Diversity core area requires counselors to:

Develop multicultural counseling competence,

Recognize their limitations and biases, and

Engage in ongoing professional development specifically in multicultural issues.

Ethical and training standards emphasize that when counselors recognize gaps in their cultural knowledge or skills, they should:

Seek supervision, consultation, or training to improve their competence with those populations.

Looking at the options:

A. Focus on global concepts and ideas.This can make counseling more abstract and may overlook specific cultural contexts and lived experiences.

B. Disclose any lack of knowledge or awareness to the client.Limited, thoughtful self-disclosure may sometimes be appropriate, but it is not, by itself, sufficient or the most helpful global strategy.

C. Seek supervision and training on multicultural issues.This aligns directly with CACREP’s expectation of ongoing multicultural competence development and is the best answer.

D. Work to assimilate clients who are culturally dissimilar.This is contrary to multicultural principles; counselors should honor and respect clients’ cultural identities, not pressure them to assimilate.

Therefore, the most appropriate and CACREP-consistent action is C (seek supervision and training on multicultural issues).

In the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors are expected to recognize common diagnostic features of mental disorders to inform screening, referral, and conceptualization (not to replace full diagnosis).

For generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), hallmark symptoms include:

Excessive anxiety and worry about a variety of events or activities,

Difficulty controlling the worry,

Physical and cognitive symptoms such as:

Restlessness or feeling keyed up/on edge,

Being easily fatigued,

Difficulty concentrating,

Irritability,

Muscle tension,

Sleep disturbance.

Thus, restlessness (Option B) is a classic symptom associated with GAD.

The other options fit different or nonspecific issues:

A. Lack of hobbies is not a diagnostic criterion; it may relate to lifestyle, depression, or other factors but is not specific to GAD.

C. Rechecking locked doors is more characteristic of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), where compulsive checking behaviors respond to intrusive obsessions.

D. Pressured speech is typically associated with mania or hypomania, not GAD.

Therefore, B is the correct symptom associated with generalized anxiety disorder.

In the Human Growth and Development core area, counselors study major developmental and personality theories, including humanistic and existential approaches.

Abraham Maslow proposed the hierarchy of needs, a motivational model in which human needs are arranged from basic physiological needs to safety, love/belonging, esteem, and finally self-actualization at the top.

In Maslow’s framework, self-actualization is the realization of one’s full potential and is explicitly presented as a central goal of personal development.

Carl Rogers (Option C) also discussed an actualizing tendency and the movement toward becoming a “fully functioning person,” but the classic concept of self-actualization as the pinnacle of a hierarchy of needs is most directly associated with Maslow.

Fritz Perls (Option B) is associated with Gestalt therapy, focusing on awareness, here-and-now experience, and integration of the self, but not primarily on the hierarchical notion of self-actualization.

William Glasser (Option D) developed Reality Therapy and Choice Theory, emphasizing responsibility and needs satisfaction (love/belonging, power, freedom, fun, survival), but again, not self-actualization as framed in Maslow’s model.

Because self-actualization as a specific, named goal in development is most strongly and classically linked with Abraham Maslow, the correct answer is A (Maslow).

In the Group Counseling and Group Work core area, counselors are trained to use systematic observation to understand group dynamics, members’ behaviors, and group process. Effective observation is intentional, not random. That means the group leader must know what specific behaviors, interactions, or processes they are watching for (e.g., participation patterns, conflict, cohesion, leadership, resistance).

CACREP-based training emphasizes:

Using planned, purposeful observation tied to the group’s goals and stage of development.

Monitoring both verbal and nonverbal behaviors to inform interventions.

While informing members about general observation and taking notes can be good practice, the essential professional skill is having a clear, defined focus for what is being observed, which makes D the best answer.

Within the Career Development core area, counselors are trained to view work, career, and leisure as integrated components of overall life satisfaction and well-being. A foundational assumption is that:

Individuals can meet psychological needs (e.g., achievement, affiliation, autonomy, creativity, meaning) through both work roles and leisure activities.

Satisfaction in life may arise from a combination of paid employment, unpaid roles, and leisure pursuits, depending on the client’s values and circumstances.

Thus:

Option C reflects the principle that personal need satisfaction and fulfillment can come from either or both work and leisure, which guides holistic counseling around lifestyle, not just employment.

Options A and D overemphasize a rigid “work-first” ethic and are more value-laden than is appropriate for ethical, client-centered counseling.

Option B assumes that leisure is “preferable” for most adults, which is not supported as a universal counseling assumption and may conflict with many clients’ values around meaningful work.

Therefore, the assumption most aligned with CACREP-based career counseling concepts is C. Personal need satisfaction may be derived from either work or leisure activities.

In the Career Development core area, modern practice emphasizes career self-management, lifelong employability, and empowering clients with skills to navigate a changing labor market.

Contemporary occupational placement and career services focus on helping clients develop practical job search skills (résumé writing, interviewing, networking, use of online tools) and the ability to build and maintain professional networks. Clients are taught to actively manage their careers rather than passively wait for placements. This aligns with Option A, making it correct.

Computer-assisted decision-making models (B) can be useful tools, but current theory does not emphasize reliance on them as the main feature; they are one resource among many.

The idea that the singular purpose of placement centers is simply to find jobs for clients (Option C) reflects an outdated, narrow view. Contemporary practice emphasizes counseling, skill-building, and career development, not only placement.

Option D, suggesting that personal skills can always compensate for declining trends in any occupational field, is inaccurate; labor market conditions and field-specific trends significantly affect opportunities, and counselors are trained to help clients realistically consider labor market information and occupational outlooks.

Thus, the focus on clients developing job search and networking skills (A) best represents contemporary theories of occupational placement services.

In the Human Growth and Development core area, middle adulthood (approximately 40–65) is commonly associated with life review, reappraisal, and concerns about time and life goals. Theories such as Erikson’s generativity vs. stagnation and life-span models emphasize:

Awareness that time is finite,

Reflection on accomplishments vs. unfulfilled goals,

A possible sense that some earlier aspirations may no longer be realistic or attainable.

This makes Option A consistent with core developmental theory for this age range.

Option B is inaccurate because men and women often experience different developmental stressors, roles, and expectations (e.g., caregiving, menopause, occupational shifts).

Option C overgeneralizes; while peer deaths may trigger grief and reflection, severe distress and heightened spirituality are not universal or predicted outcomes.

Option D is not characteristic specifically of ages 40–65; significant memory decline is more commonly associated with older adulthood, and even then, it tends to be more complex than “short-term down, long-term up.”

Therefore, A best reflects what human development theory tells us about midlife adults.

In the Career Development core area, CACREP emphasizes that counselors must be able to use career information resources (like the Occupational Outlook Handbook) to help clients understand the nature and scope of the world of work, including job duties, training requirements, labor market trends, and related occupations.

In this scenario, the client knows only a very limited set of occupations, and none are appealing. The most appropriate use of the Occupational Outlook Handbook here is to:

Broaden the client’s awareness of the vast range of occupational choices.

Provide structured, accurate information about many different fields.

Help the client see new possibilities they have not previously considered.

This is exactly what option D describes: helping the individual gain an understanding of the wide range of options.

Options A and B are narrower and do not capture the primary purpose of using this broad informational resource. Option C (exploring resistance) is more of a counseling process goal and not the main reason for introducing the Handbook at this stage.

In the Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice core area, counselors are taught to follow ethical procedures when addressing suspected ethical violations by colleagues, consistent with codes such as the ACA Code of Ethics. These standards state that when a counselor believes that another professional has violated an ethical standard, they should:

First attempt an informal resolution, when appropriate,

Approach the colleague directly, in a respectful, private manner,

Discuss the concern and encourage corrective action.

Only when informal resolution is not appropriate, not effective, or the violation is severe or poses immediate harm are more formal actions (e.g., reporting to supervisors, licensing boards, or professional organizations) recommended. In this situation, Counselor B’s behavior appears to violate confidentiality, but there is no indication that a direct, private conversation would be unsafe or impossible.

Therefore, in line with CACREP-aligned ethics instruction, Counselor A should first attempt to address the concern informally by speaking privately with Counselor B, making B the correct answer.

In the Social and Cultural Diversity core area, counselors are expected to demonstrate multicultural competence, including the ability to broach topics such as race, ethnicity, culture, oppression, identity, and power dynamics.

Broaching is the counselor’s intentional effort to:

Acknowledge and invite discussion of cultural and sociopolitical factors affecting the client,

Normalize and validate the significance of the client’s cultural identities, and

Address how these factors may shape the counseling relationship and presenting concerns.

Best practice is for broaching to occur early and repeatedly:

It should be introduced in the first session to set a foundation that cultural and identity-related issues are welcome topics.

It should continue throughout the counseling process, as relevance may change or deepen over time.

Limiting broaching to referral considerations (A) or only when a client formally requests it (B) contradicts multicultural counseling competencies, which emphasize counselor responsibility.

Doing it only by the second session and at termination (C) makes it infrequent and procedural, rather than an ongoing part of the relationship.

Thus, broaching is implemented in the first session and throughout counseling, making D the correct answer.

Within the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors are expected to distinguish between screening instruments and diagnostic assessments.

The SASSI-4 (Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory) is a screening tool, not a diagnostic instrument. It:

Uses both face-valid (obvious) and subtle items.

Classifies individuals into categories indicating the likelihood (probability) of having a substance use disorder.

Ethically and professionally, screening tools such as the SASSI-4 are used to:

Identify those with a high probability of SUD,

Guide decisions about further assessment or referral,

But not to independently confirm a diagnosis.

Therefore, the results indicate the probability that a person has a substance use disorder, making D correct.

Within Human Growth and Development, counselors are trained to understand how individuals adapt and sometimes grow in response to trauma. Post-traumatic growth is conceptualized not merely as “positive thinking,” but as a process and outcome in which people:

Engage in adaptive coping after trauma,

Do meaning making about what happened,

Experience personal growth (e.g., deeper relationships, new life priorities, greater appreciation of life).

Option B captures this standard definition: it emphasizes both process (coping and meaning making) and outcome (personal growth) following traumatic experiences.

Options A, C, and D are incomplete or overly simplistic—focusing on theory labels or “positivity” rather than the well-established process/outcome framework used in counseling literature and CACREP-aligned training.

Within the Research and Program Evaluation core area, counselors are expected to understand how different research designs relate to questions of causality. Experimental designs are identified as the primary method for examining cause–effect relationships because they:

Use manipulation of an independent variable

Include control or comparison groups

Often use random assignment to reduce bias

Descriptive and correlational designs can show associations or describe variables but cannot establish causation because they do not control for alternative explanations in the same way. Therefore, consistent with CACREP’s emphasis on understanding experimental methods as the standard for testing causal hypotheses, the correct answer is D. An experimental design.

Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, counselors must understand major counseling theories and their conceptualizations of emotional and behavioral problems.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis, holds that:

People do not simply become disturbed by events themselves; rather, they become disturbed by how they interpret the events through irrational or illogical beliefs.

These beliefs are often rigid (“musts,” “shoulds,” “have tos”) and self-maintained by ongoing self-talk and interpretations.

Emotional and behavioral disturbances are thus seen as the result of these self-sustained, irrational thought patterns, and counseling focuses on identifying, disputing, and replacing them with more rational beliefs.

Reality therapy (A) emphasizes choice, responsibility, and meeting basic needs, not primarily irrational beliefs.

Transactional analysis (C) focuses on ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and life scripts.

Behavior therapy (D) emphasizes learned behaviors through conditioning and reinforcement, typically without the central emphasis on irrational beliefs as the main cause.

Therefore, the approach that specifically maintains that emotional and behavioral disorders stem from clients’ self-maintained illogical beliefs is Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (B).

In the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors must differentiate among types of validity:

Face validity refers to the degree to which a test appears, on the surface, to measure what it claims to measure. It is based on a subjective judgment of the items by laypersons or test users—essentially, “does this look like it measures what it says it does?” This is captured by option D, which involves subjectively examining the items.

By contrast:

Option A describes criterion-related or convergent validity (correlating with another established measure).

Option B reflects item analysis and relates to internal consistency/reliability, not face validity.

Option C describes content validity, which relies on expert judgment about whether items adequately represent the construct content.

Thus, D is the correct description of how face validity is established.

In the Human Growth and Development core area, CACREP includes understanding theories of human needs, such as Maslow’s hierarchy. According to this framework:

When individuals are under significant financial stress, their basic needs (e.g., housing, food, safety, security) are threatened.

Under such conditions, people are more likely to be preoccupied with survival-level concerns (physiological and safety needs) than with higher-order needs such as development, self-exploration, or complex interpersonal growth.

Options A, B, and C refer to important but higher-level needs relative to basic survival and security. In the presence of acute financial stress, clients understandably prioritize D. Survival needs.

Within the Group Counseling and Group Work core area, counselors are expected to understand stages of group development, including typical member behaviors during the termination/ending stage. When a group is approaching termination, members frequently experience feelings of loss, anxiety, and uncertainty.

Human development and group counseling theories (such as those commonly taught in CACREP-aligned programs) note that:

As termination nears, unresolved issues and dependency needs may surface.

Members may revert to earlier patterns characteristic of the initial or transition/storming stages, such as increased dependence on the leader, renewed resistance, or emotional distancing.

This return to earlier patterns is essentially a regression to an earlier stage of group development, making D the best answer.

Options A, B, and C can occur in some groups but are not the most typical or defining reaction to the anticipation of termination. Regression to earlier-stage behaviors due to anxiety around endings is the response most strongly supported by group development theory.

Within the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors are expected to know the basic diagnostic classification of common disorders, including ADHD, as described in widely used diagnostic systems. ADHD is described as having three primary presentations:

Predominantly inattentive

Predominantly hyperactive/impulsive

Combined presentation

The inattentive presentation is characterized by symptoms such as difficulty sustaining attention, being easily distracted, forgetfulness, and problems with organization. “Aggressive,” “disorganized,” and “interpersonal” are not formal diagnostic presentations of ADHD. Therefore, the correct answer is C. Inattentive.

In the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, counselors are trained to develop treatment plans and goals that are grounded in a clear understanding of the client’s presenting concerns, assessment data, and diagnostic impressions.

Treatment goals should flow logically from the client’s current diagnosis and presenting problems as identified through assessment and clinical formulation. This ensures that interventions are appropriate, evidence-informed, and clinically justified for the condition being treated.

Past goals may provide historical context but should not dictate current treatment if the client’s situation, functioning, or diagnosis has changed.

Internal consistency is a psychometric concept usually referring to the reliability of items within an assessment instrument, not a direct client factor used to anchor treatment goals.

Counselor’s expertise is important ethically (practice within competence), but it is not a client factor; treatment goals must prioritize the client’s needs and diagnosis, not simply what the counselor is most comfortable doing.

Because treatment goals in professional counseling are expected to be aligned with the client’s current diagnosis and presenting clinical picture, the best answer is B (Current diagnosis).

The Group Counseling and Group Work core area requires counselors to know the advantages and limitations of using groups in various settings, including career counseling.

One commonly noted limitation is that:

Group members often have a wide range of individual needs, interests, and career concerns.

A group format can make it challenging for the leader to tailor content, activities, and feedback to each person’s unique interests and decision-making stage.

This is exactly what option D describes: the leader may struggle to address the full variety of individual interests in a group setting.

Why the others are not best:

A: It is possible (and common) to assess members’ occupational functioning through intakes, assessments, and individual check-ins, even in group programs.

B: Psychological functioning can be assessed in a group setting; group counselors are trained to observe behavior, collect histories, and use assessment tools.

C: All formats (individual, group, family) have limitations; stating there are none is inconsistent with CACREP’s emphasis on critical evaluation of methods.

Thus, a major limitation in career groups is that the leader can find it difficult to meet the wide range of individual interests, making D the correct answer.

In the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, CACREP includes knowledge of major counseling theories, including Reality Therapy/Choice Theory. Reality therapy emphasizes:

Personal responsibility for choices and behaviors

Focus on current behavior rather than the past

Collaborative evaluation of whether the client’s behavior is helping them meet their needs

The counselor’s role is not to act as an authority who fixes the client, but as a collaborative partner who:

Builds a warm, involved relationship

Helps the client evaluate their own behavior

Encourages the client to accept responsibility and make more effective choices

Therefore:

Option A (consultant solving problems) is too expert-driven and takes responsibility away from the client.

Option B (effective listener) is necessary but does not capture the responsibility-focused, collaborative nature of reality therapy.

Option C (parental surrogate) conflicts with the reality therapy emphasis on adult responsibility, not dependency.

The best description of the reality therapy counselor’s role is D. A partner who helps the client accept behavioral responsibility.

Within Group Counseling and Group Work, CACREP emphasizes that group leaders should:

Attend to here-and-now interactions,

Acknowledge and name feelings expressed in the group,

Promote safety and constructive processing of conflict.

Client B’s response shows clear anger, defensiveness, and possible threat of confrontation outside the group. The group leader’s first responsibility is to contain and process the emotional intensity in the moment.

Option D, acknowledging the anger response (e.g., “I see you’re really angry about what was just said”), aligns with core group leadership skills: recognizing and reflecting affect, de-escalating potential conflict, and opening space to explore what is happening between members.

The other options are less appropriate:

A (telling B to apologize) is prematurely directive and may escalate defensiveness rather than explore the underlying issue.

B (pressuring A to provide “evidence”) can intensify conflict and shift the group into a debate rather than a therapeutic exploration.

C (remaining silent) neglects the leader’s responsibility for group safety and guidance, especially when a verbal threat is implied.

Therefore, D is the most appropriate leader intervention.

In the Assessment and Testing core area, counselors are expected to understand different types of tests, including the distinction between maximum performance measures (e.g., ability, aptitude, achievement) and typical performance measures (e.g., personality, interests, attitudes, self-concept).

Ability tests (including aptitude and achievement) are designed so that each item has one correct answer. They measure how well a person can perform on tasks that have objectively right or wrong responses.

Measures of personality, interest, and self-concept do not have right or wrong answers; they assess typical ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, or preferences.

Because the question states that each item has only one correct answer, this clearly describes a measure of ability, making B the correct answer.

In the Group Counseling and Group Work core area, counselors learn about therapeutic factors in groups, such as universality/universalization.

In groups, when an individual shares something deeply personal and then discovers that others have similar feelings or experiences, members realize that what feels “most personal” is often shared and common.

This experience is called universality or universalization—the recognition that “I am not alone in this.”

This directly reflects Rogers’s idea that what is most personal is also most general, and in group work that concept is labeled universalization (B).

Projection (A) involves attributing one’s own unacceptable feelings to others. Transference (C) involves transferring feelings from past significant relationships onto the counselor or group members. Generalization (D) is a learning principle, not the specific group therapeutic factor being referenced here.

Thus, the correct term in group counseling for Rogers’s idea in this context is B. Universalization.

In the Group Counseling and Group Work core area, CACREP expects counselors to understand different group leadership styles, including democratic, authoritarian, and laissez-faire.

A laissez-faire leader is characterized by minimal direction, low structure, and very little intervention, allowing group members to largely manage their own processes and decisions.

In this scenario, such a leader would not step in to decide the goal (A or C) or actively facilitate group problem-solving (B). Instead, they would allow the members to continue interacting until they naturally reach some resolution, which aligns with D.

Thus, D. Let the two group members continue until some form of resolution had been achieved best reflects a laissez-faire leadership style.