ASWB LCSW Exam Prep – comprehensive study guide and practice questions for
clinical licensure exam
Theories - correct answer ✔✔Are general explanations supported by evidence obtained
through the scientific method.
Psychoanalytic Theory - correct answer ✔✔Sigmund Freud
Client is a product of his past
Treatment involves dealing with repressed material in the unconscious
Personalities arise because of attempts to resolve conflicts between the unconscious sexual and
aggressive impulses and social demands to restrain these impulses
3 Levels of Awareness - correct answer ✔✔Preconscious, Conscious, Unconscious
Preconscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Info outside of the client's attention
but available and easy to bring to consciousness.
Conscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Info the client is paying attention to at
any given time.
Unconscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Thoughts, feelings, desires and
memories of which a client has no awareness but that influences every aspect of their day-to-
day lives.
3 Components of Personalities - correct answer ✔✔Id, Ego, Superego
Id (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔Instinctual energy, biological urges,
impulses toward survival, sex and aggression.
,Unconscious.
Pleasure principle - the drive to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
Ego (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔Manages conflict between Id and the
real world.
Has unconscious, preconscious or conscious parts.
Reality principle - the awareness that gratification of impulses has to be delayed in order to
accommodate the demands of the real world.
Role is to prevent the Id from gratifying its impulses in socially inappropriate ways.
Ego-Syntonic/Ego-Dystonic:
Syntonic - behaviors "insync" with ego (no guilt)
Dystonic - behaviors "dis n sync" with ego (guilty)
Determine best course of action based on info from id, reality, and the superego.
Inability to reconcile the demands of the Id, reality and superego produces conflict that leads to
a state of psychic distress known as anxiety.
Ego strength - ability to deal with demands of id, reality and superego.
Superego (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔The moral component of
personality, learned from parents and society, causes clients to feel guilty.
Psychosexual Stages of Development - correct answer ✔✔Freud believed there to be five stages
of psychosexual development: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent and Genital. At each of these stages,
pleasure is focused on a particular part of the body. Too much or too little pleasure in any one of
these stages caused a fixation which would lead to personality or psychological disorders. For
example, too much pleasure in the phallic stage could lead to obsessive masturbation and
sexual dysfunction as an adult.
Oral (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Birth-12 months
Pleasure centers on mouth; sucking, biting, chewing.
, If not satisfied result is excessive smoking, overeating, or dependence on others.
Anal (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 2 (during toilet training)
Pleasure centers on Bowel movements.
If not satisfied result is an overly controlling (anal-retentive) personality or an easily angered
(anal-expulsive) personality.
Phallic (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 3 to 5
Pleasure centers on Genitals.
If not satisfied result is Guilt or anxiety about sex.
Latency (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 5 to Puberty
Pleasure centers on Sexuality is latent, or dormant, during this period.
No fixations at this stage.
Genital (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Begins at puberty
Pleasure centers on The genitals; sexual urges return.
No fixations at this stage.
Fixation - correct answer ✔✔Is an inability to progress normally from one stage into another.
Oedipus complex - correct answer ✔✔A male child's sexual desire for his mother and hostility
toward his father.
Castration anxiety - correct answer ✔✔Fear of penis being cut off, child accepts father and
authority results in superego.
clinical licensure exam
Theories - correct answer ✔✔Are general explanations supported by evidence obtained
through the scientific method.
Psychoanalytic Theory - correct answer ✔✔Sigmund Freud
Client is a product of his past
Treatment involves dealing with repressed material in the unconscious
Personalities arise because of attempts to resolve conflicts between the unconscious sexual and
aggressive impulses and social demands to restrain these impulses
3 Levels of Awareness - correct answer ✔✔Preconscious, Conscious, Unconscious
Preconscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Info outside of the client's attention
but available and easy to bring to consciousness.
Conscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Info the client is paying attention to at
any given time.
Unconscious (3 Levels of Awareness) - correct answer ✔✔Thoughts, feelings, desires and
memories of which a client has no awareness but that influences every aspect of their day-to-
day lives.
3 Components of Personalities - correct answer ✔✔Id, Ego, Superego
Id (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔Instinctual energy, biological urges,
impulses toward survival, sex and aggression.
,Unconscious.
Pleasure principle - the drive to achieve pleasure and avoid pain.
Ego (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔Manages conflict between Id and the
real world.
Has unconscious, preconscious or conscious parts.
Reality principle - the awareness that gratification of impulses has to be delayed in order to
accommodate the demands of the real world.
Role is to prevent the Id from gratifying its impulses in socially inappropriate ways.
Ego-Syntonic/Ego-Dystonic:
Syntonic - behaviors "insync" with ego (no guilt)
Dystonic - behaviors "dis n sync" with ego (guilty)
Determine best course of action based on info from id, reality, and the superego.
Inability to reconcile the demands of the Id, reality and superego produces conflict that leads to
a state of psychic distress known as anxiety.
Ego strength - ability to deal with demands of id, reality and superego.
Superego (3 Components of Personalities) - correct answer ✔✔The moral component of
personality, learned from parents and society, causes clients to feel guilty.
Psychosexual Stages of Development - correct answer ✔✔Freud believed there to be five stages
of psychosexual development: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent and Genital. At each of these stages,
pleasure is focused on a particular part of the body. Too much or too little pleasure in any one of
these stages caused a fixation which would lead to personality or psychological disorders. For
example, too much pleasure in the phallic stage could lead to obsessive masturbation and
sexual dysfunction as an adult.
Oral (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Birth-12 months
Pleasure centers on mouth; sucking, biting, chewing.
, If not satisfied result is excessive smoking, overeating, or dependence on others.
Anal (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 2 (during toilet training)
Pleasure centers on Bowel movements.
If not satisfied result is an overly controlling (anal-retentive) personality or an easily angered
(anal-expulsive) personality.
Phallic (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 3 to 5
Pleasure centers on Genitals.
If not satisfied result is Guilt or anxiety about sex.
Latency (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Age 5 to Puberty
Pleasure centers on Sexuality is latent, or dormant, during this period.
No fixations at this stage.
Genital (Stage of Development) - correct answer ✔✔Begins at puberty
Pleasure centers on The genitals; sexual urges return.
No fixations at this stage.
Fixation - correct answer ✔✔Is an inability to progress normally from one stage into another.
Oedipus complex - correct answer ✔✔A male child's sexual desire for his mother and hostility
toward his father.
Castration anxiety - correct answer ✔✔Fear of penis being cut off, child accepts father and
authority results in superego.
