MFT NATIONAL EVALUATION EXAM ACTUAL QUESTIONS
AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
✔✔Object-Relations Therapy Goals - ✔✔Develop insight and work through unresolved
conflict. Eventually, individuals develop healthy egos and begin to relate to others
maturely without projection.
✔✔Object-Relations Therapy Structure - ✔✔1. Assess early childhood experiences and
current and past relationships. Explore current relationship style.
2. Foster insight and begin working through.
3. Individual begins to experiment with developing new behaviors and ways to interact.
Fosters later experiences that can re-shape internalized objects.
✔✔Object-Relations Assessment - ✔✔Non-Structured. Explores:
-Early childhood experiences and the clients' interpretations of them.
-Past and present relationship with caregivers.
-Current relationship style and where they are struggling with healthy relationships.
✔✔Object-Relations Introject - ✔✔Internalized objects become introjects, and are split
into being either all-good or all-bad.
✔✔Object-Relations Countertransference - ✔✔The therapist's tendency to attribute
qualities that reflect unresolved grievances from a previous relationship onto a client.
✔✔Object-Relations Transference - ✔✔Tendency of individuals to attribute qualities to
other individuals that reflect unresolved grievances from a previous relationship.
✔✔Object-Relations Interpretation - ✔✔Therapist's hypothesis about the influence of
the client's past experiences on their current behaviors and struggles.
✔✔Object-Relations Working Through - ✔✔After insight is achieved, working through
process entails translating insight into more desirable and constructive ways of being.
✔✔Object-Relations Insight - ✔✔The process of raising unconscious forces to
awareness, allowing clients to better understand how underlying dynamics impact their
behavior and relationships.
✔✔Object-Relations Projective Identification - ✔✔Each parent projects the remnants of
their repressed object relationships onto the child. The child then internalizes these
projections into becoming significant components of their personality.
✔✔Object-Relations Object - ✔✔An individual's collective distortions based upon his or
her subjective experiences and perceptions of another person, typically an internalized
representation of a parent/caregiver based on repeated interactions throughout early
childhood.
,✔✔Object-Relations Projection - ✔✔When a child is born, each parent projects
fragments of repressed object relationships onto the child.
✔✔Object-Relations Main Contributor - ✔✔James Framo
✔✔Bowen Differentiation - ✔✔Differentiated individuals are able to react to the world
rationally and enter into relationships while balancing competing needs for belonging
and individuality.
Opposite is emotionally fused and ruled by emotions.
✔✔Bowen Dysfunction - ✔✔Comes from lack of differentiation. Symptoms come from
when stress exceeds a persons ability to handle it or when the level of anxiety exceeds
the system's ability to bind it.
✔✔Bowen Family Projection Process - ✔✔Undifferentiated parents transmit immaturity
to children.
When stress overwhelms, one parent may become emotionally distant, the other may
become overly involved with the child.
✔✔Bowen Triangles - ✔✔Smallest stable unit in system. Forms out of the anxiety of a
2-person system; to stabilize the relationship a third party is drawn in.
✔✔Bowen Solid-Self - ✔✔An individual who is more differentiated and is able to
function based on personally defined set of values, beliefs, convictions and life
principles.
✔✔Bowen Pseudo-Self - ✔✔An individual who is not differentiated and may be fused
with another person. Does not reason from own internal values but borrows from others.
✔✔Bowen Societal Emotional Process - ✔✔Society influences how families function.
Bowen believed that the more differentiated individuals and families resist destructive
social influences (sexism, racism, etc.)
✔✔Bowen Therapy Structure - ✔✔1. Assessment Phase - Patterns of togetherness and
individual exploration of family of origin.
2. Genogram Phase
3. Differentiation Phase
✔✔Bowen Going Home Again - ✔✔Technique that encourages clients to go home and
experience family of origin without emotional reactivity. Researches emotional cut-offs.
identifying triangles, etc.
✔✔Bowen Primary Contributor - ✔✔Murray Bowen
, ✔✔Bowen Diagnosing - ✔✔Non-pathologizing and systemic focus.
✔✔Bowen Goals of Therapy - ✔✔1. Decrease Anxiety
2. Increase levels of differentiation.
Focus on working through underlying process and conflicts, not symptom reduction.
✔✔Bowen Person to Person Relationships - ✔✔When one is differentiated and can talk
rationally to another person without blaming the other or triangulating.
✔✔Bowen Emotional Cut-Off - ✔✔Minimizing contact with family. It may decrease
anxiety but does not resolve fusion. May be denial of importance of family and an
exaggerated sense of independence.
✔✔Bowen Nuclear Family Emotional Process (Undifferentiated Ego Mass) - ✔✔People
tend to select spouses that are the same level of differentiation. Less differentiation =
More fusion =
1. Reactive emotional distance
2. Dysfunction in spouse
3. Overt marital conflict
4. Project unto children
✔✔Bowen Relationship Experiment - ✔✔A technique that helps clients experience what
it's like to act counter to their usual emotionally driven responses. Helps people discover
their ability to move against the ways emotions are driving them.
✔✔Bowen Therapist Stance - ✔✔Coach - Helps clients start process of self-discovery
and differentiation.
✔✔Bowen Process Questions - ✔✔Designed to slow people down, diminish anxiety,
and start them thinking. Structured to encourage clients to think about the processes
within the family and about their roles.
✔✔Bowen Therapist Position - ✔✔I position, coaches to make "I statements". Therapist
may model this behavior while remaining neutral and not emotionally reactive to avoid
triangulation. *Non-anxious presence*
✔✔Bowen Multi-generational Transmission Process - ✔✔Emotional responses are
passed down through generations. Least differentiated child will marry undifferentiated
person and subsequent generations will be less differentiated.
✔✔Bowen Assessment - ✔✔Genogram - Symbolic chart of family. Tracks multi-
generational family processes and tracks changes in triangles.
AND SOLUTIONS GRADED A+
✔✔Object-Relations Therapy Goals - ✔✔Develop insight and work through unresolved
conflict. Eventually, individuals develop healthy egos and begin to relate to others
maturely without projection.
✔✔Object-Relations Therapy Structure - ✔✔1. Assess early childhood experiences and
current and past relationships. Explore current relationship style.
2. Foster insight and begin working through.
3. Individual begins to experiment with developing new behaviors and ways to interact.
Fosters later experiences that can re-shape internalized objects.
✔✔Object-Relations Assessment - ✔✔Non-Structured. Explores:
-Early childhood experiences and the clients' interpretations of them.
-Past and present relationship with caregivers.
-Current relationship style and where they are struggling with healthy relationships.
✔✔Object-Relations Introject - ✔✔Internalized objects become introjects, and are split
into being either all-good or all-bad.
✔✔Object-Relations Countertransference - ✔✔The therapist's tendency to attribute
qualities that reflect unresolved grievances from a previous relationship onto a client.
✔✔Object-Relations Transference - ✔✔Tendency of individuals to attribute qualities to
other individuals that reflect unresolved grievances from a previous relationship.
✔✔Object-Relations Interpretation - ✔✔Therapist's hypothesis about the influence of
the client's past experiences on their current behaviors and struggles.
✔✔Object-Relations Working Through - ✔✔After insight is achieved, working through
process entails translating insight into more desirable and constructive ways of being.
✔✔Object-Relations Insight - ✔✔The process of raising unconscious forces to
awareness, allowing clients to better understand how underlying dynamics impact their
behavior and relationships.
✔✔Object-Relations Projective Identification - ✔✔Each parent projects the remnants of
their repressed object relationships onto the child. The child then internalizes these
projections into becoming significant components of their personality.
✔✔Object-Relations Object - ✔✔An individual's collective distortions based upon his or
her subjective experiences and perceptions of another person, typically an internalized
representation of a parent/caregiver based on repeated interactions throughout early
childhood.
,✔✔Object-Relations Projection - ✔✔When a child is born, each parent projects
fragments of repressed object relationships onto the child.
✔✔Object-Relations Main Contributor - ✔✔James Framo
✔✔Bowen Differentiation - ✔✔Differentiated individuals are able to react to the world
rationally and enter into relationships while balancing competing needs for belonging
and individuality.
Opposite is emotionally fused and ruled by emotions.
✔✔Bowen Dysfunction - ✔✔Comes from lack of differentiation. Symptoms come from
when stress exceeds a persons ability to handle it or when the level of anxiety exceeds
the system's ability to bind it.
✔✔Bowen Family Projection Process - ✔✔Undifferentiated parents transmit immaturity
to children.
When stress overwhelms, one parent may become emotionally distant, the other may
become overly involved with the child.
✔✔Bowen Triangles - ✔✔Smallest stable unit in system. Forms out of the anxiety of a
2-person system; to stabilize the relationship a third party is drawn in.
✔✔Bowen Solid-Self - ✔✔An individual who is more differentiated and is able to
function based on personally defined set of values, beliefs, convictions and life
principles.
✔✔Bowen Pseudo-Self - ✔✔An individual who is not differentiated and may be fused
with another person. Does not reason from own internal values but borrows from others.
✔✔Bowen Societal Emotional Process - ✔✔Society influences how families function.
Bowen believed that the more differentiated individuals and families resist destructive
social influences (sexism, racism, etc.)
✔✔Bowen Therapy Structure - ✔✔1. Assessment Phase - Patterns of togetherness and
individual exploration of family of origin.
2. Genogram Phase
3. Differentiation Phase
✔✔Bowen Going Home Again - ✔✔Technique that encourages clients to go home and
experience family of origin without emotional reactivity. Researches emotional cut-offs.
identifying triangles, etc.
✔✔Bowen Primary Contributor - ✔✔Murray Bowen
, ✔✔Bowen Diagnosing - ✔✔Non-pathologizing and systemic focus.
✔✔Bowen Goals of Therapy - ✔✔1. Decrease Anxiety
2. Increase levels of differentiation.
Focus on working through underlying process and conflicts, not symptom reduction.
✔✔Bowen Person to Person Relationships - ✔✔When one is differentiated and can talk
rationally to another person without blaming the other or triangulating.
✔✔Bowen Emotional Cut-Off - ✔✔Minimizing contact with family. It may decrease
anxiety but does not resolve fusion. May be denial of importance of family and an
exaggerated sense of independence.
✔✔Bowen Nuclear Family Emotional Process (Undifferentiated Ego Mass) - ✔✔People
tend to select spouses that are the same level of differentiation. Less differentiation =
More fusion =
1. Reactive emotional distance
2. Dysfunction in spouse
3. Overt marital conflict
4. Project unto children
✔✔Bowen Relationship Experiment - ✔✔A technique that helps clients experience what
it's like to act counter to their usual emotionally driven responses. Helps people discover
their ability to move against the ways emotions are driving them.
✔✔Bowen Therapist Stance - ✔✔Coach - Helps clients start process of self-discovery
and differentiation.
✔✔Bowen Process Questions - ✔✔Designed to slow people down, diminish anxiety,
and start them thinking. Structured to encourage clients to think about the processes
within the family and about their roles.
✔✔Bowen Therapist Position - ✔✔I position, coaches to make "I statements". Therapist
may model this behavior while remaining neutral and not emotionally reactive to avoid
triangulation. *Non-anxious presence*
✔✔Bowen Multi-generational Transmission Process - ✔✔Emotional responses are
passed down through generations. Least differentiated child will marry undifferentiated
person and subsequent generations will be less differentiated.
✔✔Bowen Assessment - ✔✔Genogram - Symbolic chart of family. Tracks multi-
generational family processes and tracks changes in triangles.
