MFT NATIONAL 2026 EXAM QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS
GRADED A+
✔✔Contextual Loyalty - ✔✔An individuals' internalized expectations of and obligations
to his or her family of origin. Loyalty is assumed to influence individual functioning.
✔✔Contextual Legacy - ✔✔Qualities that are attributed to an individual as an account of
being born to his or her parents.
✔✔Contextual Entitlement - ✔✔What individuals are inherently due from others in their
family and what is earned from others based up behavior towards them.
✔✔Contextual Ledger - ✔✔The manner in which individuals within a family keep track
of and balance debts and entitlements.
✔✔Contextual Contextual - ✔✔The systemic impact of all that are impacted by
therapeutic effort.
✔✔Contextual Deparentification Process - ✔✔1. Therapist becomes temporarily
parentified to relive parentified child.
2. Addresses family dynamics to work toward systemic change.
✔✔Contextual Phases of Therapy - ✔✔1. Gather history.
2. Address any urgent needs, create balance.
3. Family members learn to act ethically toward others.
✔✔Contextual Treatment Goals - ✔✔-Work through entitlements~ take responsibility for
own behavior.
-Work through perceived legacies
-Differentiate between irrational and justifiable guilt
-Achieve exoneration
✔✔Contextual Diagnosis - ✔✔Non-pathologizing and maintained a systemic focus on
the presenting problem.
✔✔Contextual Split Filial Loyalty - ✔✔When a child finds that they have to choose
loyalty towards one parent at the expense of being loyal to the other.
✔✔Contextual Filial Loyalty - ✔✔Children are inherently loyal to family of origin.
✔✔Contextual Revolving Slate of Injustice - ✔✔Multi-generational transmission of
destructive entitlement in which one generation harms the next generation despite the
face that there was no wrong-doing.
,✔✔Contextual Destructive Entitlement - ✔✔Results when individuals experience the
denial or entitlement from family of origin so the seek what they believe is owed to the
from another relationship, often family of creation.
✔✔Contextual Debts/Filial Responsibility - ✔✔Fairness and ethical consideration with
lead to:
Debts- Destructive entitlement
Filial Responsibility- Loyalty
✔✔Contextual Parentification - ✔✔Child takes on role of parent. Becomes caretaker in
attempt to earn love.
✔✔Contextual Exoneration - ✔✔Process in which an individual restores balance to
ledger.
✔✔Strategic Therapy Structure - ✔✔First session is important and has 4 stages:
1. Social Stage- Therapist aims to make clients comfortable (joining).
2. Problem Stage- Asks each person perspective of problem.
3. Interaction Stage- Therapist observes but not interprets, looks for sequences,
hierarchies, triangles and alliances.
4. Goal Setting-Learn which solutions have been tried and failed, aims directives at
small changes. Goal of shifts in structure and hierarchies.
✔✔Strategic Who is Involved - ✔✔Few family members, usually 1 or 2, more if directly
related to the identified problem. Usually both parents.
✔✔Strategic Metaphoric Task - ✔✔Prescribing a directive to a family that engages them
in conversation or activity that is easier than talking about the problem directly. By
discussing it through metaphor, it will indirectly contribute to resolving the actual
problem.
✔✔Strategic Reframing - ✔✔Presenting an alternative perspective on a family
members' view of another's problematic behavior.
✔✔Strategic Paradoxical Interventions - ✔✔Interventions used to address the concept
that families are naturally resistant to change.
✔✔Strategic Goals of Therapy - ✔✔Symptom relief and changes in structure of family
and parent parental hierarchy.
✔✔Strategic Presenting Problem as Metaphor - ✔✔Symptom is redefined as a
metaphor of a larger problem.
, ✔✔Strategic Unbalancing - ✔✔An intervention where the therapist intentionally sides
with one family member over the other. Meant to disrupt homeostasis.
✔✔Strategic Pretend to Have Symptom - ✔✔Paradoxical Intervention where therapist
instructs child to have a symptom and instructs parents to help child through it.
✔✔Strategic Incongruous Hierarchies - ✔✔Occurs when children create symptoms in
attempt to change their parents.
✔✔Strategic Aligning with Parental Generation - ✔✔Technique directed at
strengthening the parental hierarchy and reinforcing that parents are in charge of the
children. Therapist breaks neutrality and intentionally aligns with parental subsystem.
✔✔Strategic Ordeal Therapy - ✔✔Paradoxical directive that places a client in a situation
where it creates more work for them to maintain problem symptoms than it would be to
change it.
✔✔Strategic Main Contributors - ✔✔Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes
✔✔Strategic Directives - ✔✔Specific, directed behavioral tasks for the family to engage
in during session and then carry out at home between sessions.
✔✔Strategic-Humanism How Individuals Resolve Conflict - ✔✔1. Dominate and Control
(behavior problems)
2. Desire to be loved (anxiety and depression)
3. Love and protect (abuse and neglect)
4. Repent and forgive (sexual/physical abuse)
✔✔Strategic-Humanism Themes - ✔✔-All problems stem from conflict between love
and violence.
-Clients are continually presented with range of choices as to what to make of
themselves and the present circumstances.
✔✔Strategic-Humanism Primary Contributor - ✔✔Cloe Madanes
✔✔Cybernetics Isomorphism - ✔✔Phenomenon in which two or more systems or
subsystems exhibit similar or parallel structures.
✔✔Cybernetics Attenuating/ Negative Feedback Loops - ✔✔Maintains stability and
homeostasis; Reduces Change.
✔✔Cybernetics - ✔✔Studying organization, pattern, and process rather than matter,
material, and content.
GRADED A+
✔✔Contextual Loyalty - ✔✔An individuals' internalized expectations of and obligations
to his or her family of origin. Loyalty is assumed to influence individual functioning.
✔✔Contextual Legacy - ✔✔Qualities that are attributed to an individual as an account of
being born to his or her parents.
✔✔Contextual Entitlement - ✔✔What individuals are inherently due from others in their
family and what is earned from others based up behavior towards them.
✔✔Contextual Ledger - ✔✔The manner in which individuals within a family keep track
of and balance debts and entitlements.
✔✔Contextual Contextual - ✔✔The systemic impact of all that are impacted by
therapeutic effort.
✔✔Contextual Deparentification Process - ✔✔1. Therapist becomes temporarily
parentified to relive parentified child.
2. Addresses family dynamics to work toward systemic change.
✔✔Contextual Phases of Therapy - ✔✔1. Gather history.
2. Address any urgent needs, create balance.
3. Family members learn to act ethically toward others.
✔✔Contextual Treatment Goals - ✔✔-Work through entitlements~ take responsibility for
own behavior.
-Work through perceived legacies
-Differentiate between irrational and justifiable guilt
-Achieve exoneration
✔✔Contextual Diagnosis - ✔✔Non-pathologizing and maintained a systemic focus on
the presenting problem.
✔✔Contextual Split Filial Loyalty - ✔✔When a child finds that they have to choose
loyalty towards one parent at the expense of being loyal to the other.
✔✔Contextual Filial Loyalty - ✔✔Children are inherently loyal to family of origin.
✔✔Contextual Revolving Slate of Injustice - ✔✔Multi-generational transmission of
destructive entitlement in which one generation harms the next generation despite the
face that there was no wrong-doing.
,✔✔Contextual Destructive Entitlement - ✔✔Results when individuals experience the
denial or entitlement from family of origin so the seek what they believe is owed to the
from another relationship, often family of creation.
✔✔Contextual Debts/Filial Responsibility - ✔✔Fairness and ethical consideration with
lead to:
Debts- Destructive entitlement
Filial Responsibility- Loyalty
✔✔Contextual Parentification - ✔✔Child takes on role of parent. Becomes caretaker in
attempt to earn love.
✔✔Contextual Exoneration - ✔✔Process in which an individual restores balance to
ledger.
✔✔Strategic Therapy Structure - ✔✔First session is important and has 4 stages:
1. Social Stage- Therapist aims to make clients comfortable (joining).
2. Problem Stage- Asks each person perspective of problem.
3. Interaction Stage- Therapist observes but not interprets, looks for sequences,
hierarchies, triangles and alliances.
4. Goal Setting-Learn which solutions have been tried and failed, aims directives at
small changes. Goal of shifts in structure and hierarchies.
✔✔Strategic Who is Involved - ✔✔Few family members, usually 1 or 2, more if directly
related to the identified problem. Usually both parents.
✔✔Strategic Metaphoric Task - ✔✔Prescribing a directive to a family that engages them
in conversation or activity that is easier than talking about the problem directly. By
discussing it through metaphor, it will indirectly contribute to resolving the actual
problem.
✔✔Strategic Reframing - ✔✔Presenting an alternative perspective on a family
members' view of another's problematic behavior.
✔✔Strategic Paradoxical Interventions - ✔✔Interventions used to address the concept
that families are naturally resistant to change.
✔✔Strategic Goals of Therapy - ✔✔Symptom relief and changes in structure of family
and parent parental hierarchy.
✔✔Strategic Presenting Problem as Metaphor - ✔✔Symptom is redefined as a
metaphor of a larger problem.
, ✔✔Strategic Unbalancing - ✔✔An intervention where the therapist intentionally sides
with one family member over the other. Meant to disrupt homeostasis.
✔✔Strategic Pretend to Have Symptom - ✔✔Paradoxical Intervention where therapist
instructs child to have a symptom and instructs parents to help child through it.
✔✔Strategic Incongruous Hierarchies - ✔✔Occurs when children create symptoms in
attempt to change their parents.
✔✔Strategic Aligning with Parental Generation - ✔✔Technique directed at
strengthening the parental hierarchy and reinforcing that parents are in charge of the
children. Therapist breaks neutrality and intentionally aligns with parental subsystem.
✔✔Strategic Ordeal Therapy - ✔✔Paradoxical directive that places a client in a situation
where it creates more work for them to maintain problem symptoms than it would be to
change it.
✔✔Strategic Main Contributors - ✔✔Jay Haley and Cloe Madanes
✔✔Strategic Directives - ✔✔Specific, directed behavioral tasks for the family to engage
in during session and then carry out at home between sessions.
✔✔Strategic-Humanism How Individuals Resolve Conflict - ✔✔1. Dominate and Control
(behavior problems)
2. Desire to be loved (anxiety and depression)
3. Love and protect (abuse and neglect)
4. Repent and forgive (sexual/physical abuse)
✔✔Strategic-Humanism Themes - ✔✔-All problems stem from conflict between love
and violence.
-Clients are continually presented with range of choices as to what to make of
themselves and the present circumstances.
✔✔Strategic-Humanism Primary Contributor - ✔✔Cloe Madanes
✔✔Cybernetics Isomorphism - ✔✔Phenomenon in which two or more systems or
subsystems exhibit similar or parallel structures.
✔✔Cybernetics Attenuating/ Negative Feedback Loops - ✔✔Maintains stability and
homeostasis; Reduces Change.
✔✔Cybernetics - ✔✔Studying organization, pattern, and process rather than matter,
material, and content.
