This document features 80+ graded and verified questions with detailed answers from COUN 601 Exam 3 at Liberty University, compiled for the 2025/2026 academic year. The exam explores key theories, techniques, and models in Marriage and Family Therapy (MFT), with emphasis on structural, strategic, systemic, and cognitive-behavioral approaches to counseling.
Core content areas include:
Structural family therapy (Minuchin): coalitions, boundaries, enmeshment, disengagement, mapping, mimesis, and unbalancing
Strategic family therapy: symptom prescription, paradoxical directives, communication hierarchy, Haley’s model, and family sequences
Milan systemic therapy: circular questioning, positive connotation, rituals, neutrality, counterparadox
CBT techniques in family therapy: cognitive restructuring, behavioral contracts, contingency management, ABC model (Ellis), sensate focus
Communication models: metacommunication, symmetrical vs. complementary relationships, syntax, semantics, pragmatics
First-order vs. second-order change, therapeutic reframing, and recursive feedback loops
Psychosomatic family dynamics and their treatment interventions
This resource is tailored for:
Graduate-level counseling and marriage & family therapy students
Candidates preparing for NCE, NCC, or LPC licensure exams
Students in CACREP-accredited clinical mental health counseling programs
Therapists-in-training reviewing theory-based and systems-based family interventions
All questions are aligned with current clinical standards and counseling theory, serving as an effective study guide, review packet, or exam simulation.
Keywords:
COUN 601, structural therapy, strategic family therapy, Milan model, CBT in counseling, circular questioning, family boundaries, communication theory, counseling exam prep, NCE study guide, therapeutic interventions, enmeshed families, coalitions, second-order change, family therapy quiz
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Liberty University Coun 601 Exam 3
2025/2026 Exam Questions and Verified
Answers | Already Graded A+
What is meant by Family Coalitions? - 🧠 ANSWER ✔✔In the structural
model of Minuchin, Coalitions are alliances between specific family
members against a third member
What is the emphasis of Structural therapists? - 🧠 ANSWER
✔✔Structuralists pay special attention to family transactional patterns
because these offer clues to the family's structure, the permeability of the
family's boundaries, and the existence of alignments or coalitions- all of
which affect the family's ability to achieve a delicate balance between
stability and change. Structural therapeutic efforts are geared to the
present and are based on the principle of action preceding understanding.
, what are characteristics of psychosomatic families? - 🧠 ANSWER
✔✔Families of children who manifest severe psychosomatic symptoms are
characterized by certain transactional problems that encourage
somatization such as Enmenshment, poorly functioning subsystems, too
diffuse boundaries to allow for individual autonomy. A psychosomatic family
was found to be overprotective, inhibiting the child from developing a sense
of independence, competence, or interest in activities outside the safety of
the family. The psychologically vulnerable child feels responsibility for
protecting the family. The manifestation of symptoms typically occurs when
stress overloads the family's already dysfunctional coping mechanisms,
Thus the symptoms are regard as having a regulation effect on the family
system.
What are the interventions according to structural therapists for
psychosomatic families? - 🧠 ANSWER ✔✔Therapuetic efforts were not only
directed at changing the structure of relationships within the family but also
at helping the family develop clearer boundaries, learn to negotiate for
desired changes and deal more directly with hidden, underlying conflicts.