MFT National Exam|236 Complete Q’s
and A’s
Detriangulation - -Bowen: The process by which an individual removes self
from emotional field of two others
- Formulation - -A therapeutic hypothesis about what is responsible for
creating and maintaining a client's presenting problem
- Process - -How members of a family or group relate; in contrast to content,
which is what they talk about
- Treatment contract - -An explicit agreement between the client and
therapist that specifies the terms of therapy, including things such as
frequency and length of sessions, who is to attend, and fees
- Differentiation of self - -Bowen: Psychological seperation of intellect and
emotions and independence of self from others; opposite of fusion; major
goal of therapy
- Emotional cutoff - -Bowen: term for flight from an unresolved emotional
attachment
- Family life cycle - -Systems theory and Bowen: stages of fam life from
separation from parents to marriage, children, growing older, retirement, to
death
- Family of origin - -Bowen: a person's parents and siblings: usually refers to
the original nuclear family of an adult
- Fusion - -Bowen: Blurring of psychological boundaries between self and
others and a contamination of emotional and intellectual functioning;
oppositive of differentiation
- Genogram - -Bowen: Schematic diagram of family system; major
technique
- I-position - -Bowen: Statement acknowleding one's personal opinions
rather than blaming others or moralizing; both clients and therapist can use
- Multigenerational transmission process - -Bowen: projection of varying
degrees of immaturity to different children in the same family; the child who
is most involved in the family emotional process emerges with the lowest
level of differentiation and passes problems on to succeeding generations
, - Process questions - -Bowen: Designed to help family members think about
their own reactions to what others are doing; major therapy technique
- Relationships experiments - -Bowen: Suggestions for trying new ways of
responding to family stresses, designed more to help family members
understand how emotional processes work than to solve problems; major
therapy technique
- Triangle - -Bowen: a 3 person system; the smallest stable unit of human
relations; technique of therapy is to neutralize this
- Triangulation - -Bowen: Detouring conflict between two people by
involving a third person, stabilzing the relationship between the original pair,
but freezes conflict in place
- Undifferentiated family ego mass - -Bowen: early term for emotional
"stuck-togetherness" or fusion in the family, especially prominent in
schizophrenic families
- Emotional fusion - -Bowen: often the major problem in families; grows out
of an instinctual need for others but is an unhealthy distortion of the need,
based on anxious attachment
- Coaching - -Bowen: therapist hopes to avoid taking over for clients or
becoming embroiled in family triangles; asking questions designed to help
people figure out family emotional processes and their role in them
- Murray Bowen - -Bowen Family Systems Therapy
- Philip Guerin - -Student of Murray Bowen
- Circular causality - -Systems theory and Strategic: idea that events are
related through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles
- Circular questioning - -Systems theory and Strategic: method of
interviewing developed by the Milan Associates in which questions are asked
that highlight differences among family members
- Communications theory - -Systems theory and Strategic: study of
relationships in terms of the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages
- Cybernetics - -Systems theory and Strategic: study of control processes in
systems, especially analysis of the flow of information in closed systems
, - Directives - -Strategic: homework assignments designed to help families
interrupt homeostatic patterns of problem-maintaining behavior
- Double bind - -Strategic: a conflict created when a person receives
contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important
relationship and cannot leave or comment; Milton Erickson's technique of
prescribing resistance
- Family homeostasis - -Strategic: tendency of families to resist change to
maintain a steady state
- Family ritual - -Strategic: technique used by Milan Associates that
prescribes a set of actions designed to change a family system's rules
- Family rules - -Strategic: Descriptive term for redundant behavioral
patterns
- Feedback loops - -Systems theory and Strategic: return of a portion of the
output of a system, especially when used to maintain the output within
predetermined limits (negative feedback) or to signal a need to modify the
system (positive feedback)
- First order change - -Systems theory and Strategic: superficial change in a
system that stays invariant; mild adjustments in systems but system
basically stays the same
- Function of symptoms - -Systems theory and Strategic: Idea that
symptoms are often ways to distract or protect family members from
threatening conflicts
- General systems theory - -Strategic: biological model of living systems a
whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input and output
from the environment; developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
- Hierarchical structure - -Strategic and Structural: Family functioning based
on clear generational boundaries, whereby the parents maintain control and
authority
- Identified patient - -Systems theory and Strategic: the symptom bearer or
official patient
- Invariant prescription - -Strategic: technique developed by Mara Selvini
Palazzoli in which parents are directed to mysteriously sneak away together
- Meta communication - -Strategic: every message has two levels, report
and command; the implied command or qualifying message
and A’s
Detriangulation - -Bowen: The process by which an individual removes self
from emotional field of two others
- Formulation - -A therapeutic hypothesis about what is responsible for
creating and maintaining a client's presenting problem
- Process - -How members of a family or group relate; in contrast to content,
which is what they talk about
- Treatment contract - -An explicit agreement between the client and
therapist that specifies the terms of therapy, including things such as
frequency and length of sessions, who is to attend, and fees
- Differentiation of self - -Bowen: Psychological seperation of intellect and
emotions and independence of self from others; opposite of fusion; major
goal of therapy
- Emotional cutoff - -Bowen: term for flight from an unresolved emotional
attachment
- Family life cycle - -Systems theory and Bowen: stages of fam life from
separation from parents to marriage, children, growing older, retirement, to
death
- Family of origin - -Bowen: a person's parents and siblings: usually refers to
the original nuclear family of an adult
- Fusion - -Bowen: Blurring of psychological boundaries between self and
others and a contamination of emotional and intellectual functioning;
oppositive of differentiation
- Genogram - -Bowen: Schematic diagram of family system; major
technique
- I-position - -Bowen: Statement acknowleding one's personal opinions
rather than blaming others or moralizing; both clients and therapist can use
- Multigenerational transmission process - -Bowen: projection of varying
degrees of immaturity to different children in the same family; the child who
is most involved in the family emotional process emerges with the lowest
level of differentiation and passes problems on to succeeding generations
, - Process questions - -Bowen: Designed to help family members think about
their own reactions to what others are doing; major therapy technique
- Relationships experiments - -Bowen: Suggestions for trying new ways of
responding to family stresses, designed more to help family members
understand how emotional processes work than to solve problems; major
therapy technique
- Triangle - -Bowen: a 3 person system; the smallest stable unit of human
relations; technique of therapy is to neutralize this
- Triangulation - -Bowen: Detouring conflict between two people by
involving a third person, stabilzing the relationship between the original pair,
but freezes conflict in place
- Undifferentiated family ego mass - -Bowen: early term for emotional
"stuck-togetherness" or fusion in the family, especially prominent in
schizophrenic families
- Emotional fusion - -Bowen: often the major problem in families; grows out
of an instinctual need for others but is an unhealthy distortion of the need,
based on anxious attachment
- Coaching - -Bowen: therapist hopes to avoid taking over for clients or
becoming embroiled in family triangles; asking questions designed to help
people figure out family emotional processes and their role in them
- Murray Bowen - -Bowen Family Systems Therapy
- Philip Guerin - -Student of Murray Bowen
- Circular causality - -Systems theory and Strategic: idea that events are
related through a series of interacting loops or repeating cycles
- Circular questioning - -Systems theory and Strategic: method of
interviewing developed by the Milan Associates in which questions are asked
that highlight differences among family members
- Communications theory - -Systems theory and Strategic: study of
relationships in terms of the exchange of verbal and nonverbal messages
- Cybernetics - -Systems theory and Strategic: study of control processes in
systems, especially analysis of the flow of information in closed systems
, - Directives - -Strategic: homework assignments designed to help families
interrupt homeostatic patterns of problem-maintaining behavior
- Double bind - -Strategic: a conflict created when a person receives
contradictory messages on different levels of abstraction in an important
relationship and cannot leave or comment; Milton Erickson's technique of
prescribing resistance
- Family homeostasis - -Strategic: tendency of families to resist change to
maintain a steady state
- Family ritual - -Strategic: technique used by Milan Associates that
prescribes a set of actions designed to change a family system's rules
- Family rules - -Strategic: Descriptive term for redundant behavioral
patterns
- Feedback loops - -Systems theory and Strategic: return of a portion of the
output of a system, especially when used to maintain the output within
predetermined limits (negative feedback) or to signal a need to modify the
system (positive feedback)
- First order change - -Systems theory and Strategic: superficial change in a
system that stays invariant; mild adjustments in systems but system
basically stays the same
- Function of symptoms - -Systems theory and Strategic: Idea that
symptoms are often ways to distract or protect family members from
threatening conflicts
- General systems theory - -Strategic: biological model of living systems a
whole entities that maintain themselves through continuous input and output
from the environment; developed by Ludwig von Bertalanffy
- Hierarchical structure - -Strategic and Structural: Family functioning based
on clear generational boundaries, whereby the parents maintain control and
authority
- Identified patient - -Systems theory and Strategic: the symptom bearer or
official patient
- Invariant prescription - -Strategic: technique developed by Mara Selvini
Palazzoli in which parents are directed to mysteriously sneak away together
- Meta communication - -Strategic: every message has two levels, report
and command; the implied command or qualifying message
