LCDC Terms Exam Questions with Correct Answers

LCDC Terms Exam Questions with Correct Answers Assessment - Answer-Assessment is an ongoing process through which the counselor collaborates with the client and others to gather and interpret information necessary for planning treatment and evaluating client progress Tools of Assessment - Answer-Tools of assessment include counselors' observations, clinical interviews, laboratory tests, and instruments such as tests and self- report inventories. Info gathering for assessments - Answer-Interviews with other people in the client's life can corroborate client self reports. Family members may provide information about a client's developmental history, early attachments, and how the client fit into the family. Other sources of information are friends, staff, school records, and physicians. Appropriate documentation of client consent is required before counselors can solicit information from outside sources. Cultural Relevance - Answer-Assessment should be culturally relevant, taking into account the client's social context. A behavior may carry a meaning in the client's culture that is different from that of the counselor's culture. Explaining the assessment process - Answer-Clients need to know the procedures being used in their assessment, and they need to have an opportunity to ask questions about them. They need to know that the purpose of the assessment is to gather information that will help determine the counseling interventions that will be most helpful to them. Explaining the assessment results - Answer-When explaining assessment results to clients, counselors should use nontechnical language that the client understands. The counselor should offer results not as a proclamation but tentatively for the client's consideration. For example, "What this score suggests is that you may have alcohol dependence" is preferable to "According to this test, you are an alcoholic." Clients should have an opportunity to ask questions and indicate their level of agreement with the assessment results. Biopsychosocial perspective - Answer-The biopsychosocial perspective recognizes that there are biological, psychological, and social causes of substance abuse and dependence. Biological factors include brain chemistry problems, which may be genetic. Genetics influence biochemistry, and biochemistry makes some people particularly vulnerable to addiction to certain drugs once they try them. Psychological factors include cognitive styles, personality traits, and early developmental experiences. Social factors include poverty, oppression, poorly developed social skills, and family dysfunction (Watkins, et al., 2001, p. 3). Counselors' assessments emphasize psychological and social factors. Interviewing clients - Answer-Interviews must be conducted skillfully in order to put the client at ease and to collect valid information. Establishing rapport, a comfortable working relationship, with the client helps assure the client's trust and cooperation. Culturally sensitive language, including using "people first" language, communicates respect to clients. Examples are referring to the client as a person with alcohol dependence rather than an alcoholic; a homosexual person rather than a homosexual, or a person with schizophrenia rather than a schizophrenic. Motivational Interviewing - Answer-Motivational interviewing, which is used not only for assessment, but for all phases of treatment, is a style of interacting with clients that is particularly helpful for reducing defensiveness and encouraging therapeutic collaboration between the counselor and client. With motivational interviewing, counselors use the interpersonal process to enhance clients' motivation to change. It encourages clients to move on to the next stage of readiness for change. Motivational interviewing respects the client's perception of the problem. For example, a client who does not acknowledge having a problem with alcohol is not labeled as being in denial. Instead, the client is recognized as being at the precontemplation stage of readiness for change. The counselor's responsibility is not to persuade the client to adopt the counselor's view of the client's problem but rather to engage the client in a dialogue that promotes the client nondefensively reexamining the situation and coming to determine that a problem exists. Screening Tools - Answer-A screening instrument is one that distinguishes individuals who do not have a disorder from those who might have one. AUDIT (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test) - Answer-The 10 items on this instrument developed by the World Health Organization ask about frequency of drinking, alcohol dependence, and problems caused by alcohol. Scores range from 0 to 40, with a score of 8 or higher indicating the likelihood of harmful alcohol consumption.