LCSW TERMS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
aversion therapy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Any treatment aimed at reducing the attractiveness of a
stimulus or a behavior by repeated pairing of it with an aversive stimulus. An example of this is treating
alcoholism with Antabuse.
biofeedback - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Behavior training program that teaches a person how to control
certain functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and muscular tension. _____ is often
used for Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Anxiety Disorders.
extinction - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Withholding a reinforcer that normally follows a behavior. Behavior
that fails to produce reinforcement will eventually cease.
flooding - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A treatment procedure in which a client's anxiety is extinguished by
prolonged real or imagined exposure to highintensity feared stimuli.
in vivo desensitization - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Pairing and movement through a hierarchy of anxiety,
from least to most anxiety-provoking situations; takes place in "real" setting.
modeling - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Method of instruction that involves an individual (the model)
demonstrating the behavior to be acquired by a client.
rational emotive therapy (RET) - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A cognitively oriented therapy in which a social
worker seeks to change a client's irrational beliefs by argument, persuasion, and rational reevaluation
and by teaching a client to counter self-defeating thinking with new, nondistressing self-statements.
shaping - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Method used to train a new behavior by prompting and reinforcing
successive approximations of the desired behavior.
systematic desensitization - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An anxiety-inhibiting response cannot occur at the
same time as the anxiety response. Anxiety-producing stimulus is paired with relaxation-producing
response so that eventually an anxiety-producing stimulus produces a relaxation response. At each step
a client's reaction of fear or dread is overcome by pleasant feelings engendered as the new behavior is
reinforced by receiving a reward. The reward could be a compliment, a gift, or relaxation.
,time out - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Removal of something desirable—negative punishment technique.
token economy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A client receives tokens as reinforcement for performing
specified behaviors. The tokens function as currency within the environment and can be exchanged for
desired goods, services, or privileges.
closed system - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Uses up its energy and dies.
differentiation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Becoming specialized in structure and function.
entropy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Closed, disorganized, stagnant; using up available energy.
equifinality - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Arriving at the same end from different beginnings.
homeostasis - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Steady state.
input - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Obtaining resources from the environment that are necessary to attain
the goals of the system.
negative entropy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Exchange of energy and resources between systems that
promote growth and transformation.
open system - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A system with cross-boundary exchange.
output - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A product of the system that exports to the environment.
subsystem - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A major component of a system made up of two or more
interdependent components that interact in order to attain their own purpose(s) and the purpose(s) of
the system in which they are embedded.
,suprasystem - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An entity that is served by a number of component systems
organized in interacting relationships.
throughput - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Energy that is integrated into the system so it can be used by the
system to accomplish its goals.
role ambiguity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Lack of clarity of role.
role complementarity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The role is carried out in an expected way (i.e., parent-
child; social worker-client).
role discomplementarity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The role expectations of others differ from one's own.
role reversal - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅When two or more individuals switch roles.
role conflict - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Incompatible or conflicting expectations.
ethnocentrism - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An orientation that holds one's own culture, ethnic, or racial
group as superior to others.
stratification - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Structured inequality of entire categories of people who have
unequal access to social rewards (e.g., ethnic _____, social _____).
pluralism - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A society in which diverse members maintain their own traditions
while cooperatively working together and seeing others' traits as valuable (cultural _____—respecting
and encouraging cultural difference).
comorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Existing with or at the same time; for instance, having two different
illnesses at the same time.
, contraindicated - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Not recommended or safe to use (a medication or treatment
that is _____ would not be prescribed because it could have serious consequences).
delusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅False, fixed belief despite evidence to the contrary (believing
something that is not true).
disorientation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Confusion with regard to person, time, or place.
dissociation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Disturbance or change in the usually integrative functions of
memory, identity, perception, or consciousness (often seen in clients with a history of trauma).
endogenous depression - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Depression caused by a biochemical imbalance rather
than a psychosocial stressor or external factors.
exogenous depression - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Depression caused by external events or psychosocial
stressors.
folie à deux - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Shared delusion.
hallucinations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Hearing, seeing, smelling, or feeling something that is not real
(auditory most common).
hypomanic - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Elevated, expansive, or irritable mood that is less severe than full-
blown manic symptoms (not severe enough to interfere with functioning and not accompanied by
psychotic symptoms).
postmorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Subsequent to the onset of an illness.
premorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Prior to the onset of an illness.
psychotic - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Experiencing delusions or hallucinations.
aversion therapy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Any treatment aimed at reducing the attractiveness of a
stimulus or a behavior by repeated pairing of it with an aversive stimulus. An example of this is treating
alcoholism with Antabuse.
biofeedback - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Behavior training program that teaches a person how to control
certain functions such as heart rate, blood pressure, temperature, and muscular tension. _____ is often
used for Attention-Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Anxiety Disorders.
extinction - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Withholding a reinforcer that normally follows a behavior. Behavior
that fails to produce reinforcement will eventually cease.
flooding - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A treatment procedure in which a client's anxiety is extinguished by
prolonged real or imagined exposure to highintensity feared stimuli.
in vivo desensitization - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Pairing and movement through a hierarchy of anxiety,
from least to most anxiety-provoking situations; takes place in "real" setting.
modeling - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Method of instruction that involves an individual (the model)
demonstrating the behavior to be acquired by a client.
rational emotive therapy (RET) - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A cognitively oriented therapy in which a social
worker seeks to change a client's irrational beliefs by argument, persuasion, and rational reevaluation
and by teaching a client to counter self-defeating thinking with new, nondistressing self-statements.
shaping - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Method used to train a new behavior by prompting and reinforcing
successive approximations of the desired behavior.
systematic desensitization - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An anxiety-inhibiting response cannot occur at the
same time as the anxiety response. Anxiety-producing stimulus is paired with relaxation-producing
response so that eventually an anxiety-producing stimulus produces a relaxation response. At each step
a client's reaction of fear or dread is overcome by pleasant feelings engendered as the new behavior is
reinforced by receiving a reward. The reward could be a compliment, a gift, or relaxation.
,time out - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Removal of something desirable—negative punishment technique.
token economy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A client receives tokens as reinforcement for performing
specified behaviors. The tokens function as currency within the environment and can be exchanged for
desired goods, services, or privileges.
closed system - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Uses up its energy and dies.
differentiation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Becoming specialized in structure and function.
entropy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Closed, disorganized, stagnant; using up available energy.
equifinality - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Arriving at the same end from different beginnings.
homeostasis - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Steady state.
input - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Obtaining resources from the environment that are necessary to attain
the goals of the system.
negative entropy - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Exchange of energy and resources between systems that
promote growth and transformation.
open system - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A system with cross-boundary exchange.
output - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A product of the system that exports to the environment.
subsystem - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A major component of a system made up of two or more
interdependent components that interact in order to attain their own purpose(s) and the purpose(s) of
the system in which they are embedded.
,suprasystem - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An entity that is served by a number of component systems
organized in interacting relationships.
throughput - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Energy that is integrated into the system so it can be used by the
system to accomplish its goals.
role ambiguity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Lack of clarity of role.
role complementarity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The role is carried out in an expected way (i.e., parent-
child; social worker-client).
role discomplementarity - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅The role expectations of others differ from one's own.
role reversal - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅When two or more individuals switch roles.
role conflict - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Incompatible or conflicting expectations.
ethnocentrism - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅An orientation that holds one's own culture, ethnic, or racial
group as superior to others.
stratification - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Structured inequality of entire categories of people who have
unequal access to social rewards (e.g., ethnic _____, social _____).
pluralism - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅A society in which diverse members maintain their own traditions
while cooperatively working together and seeing others' traits as valuable (cultural _____—respecting
and encouraging cultural difference).
comorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Existing with or at the same time; for instance, having two different
illnesses at the same time.
, contraindicated - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Not recommended or safe to use (a medication or treatment
that is _____ would not be prescribed because it could have serious consequences).
delusion - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅False, fixed belief despite evidence to the contrary (believing
something that is not true).
disorientation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Confusion with regard to person, time, or place.
dissociation - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Disturbance or change in the usually integrative functions of
memory, identity, perception, or consciousness (often seen in clients with a history of trauma).
endogenous depression - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Depression caused by a biochemical imbalance rather
than a psychosocial stressor or external factors.
exogenous depression - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Depression caused by external events or psychosocial
stressors.
folie à deux - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Shared delusion.
hallucinations - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Hearing, seeing, smelling, or feeling something that is not real
(auditory most common).
hypomanic - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Elevated, expansive, or irritable mood that is less severe than full-
blown manic symptoms (not severe enough to interfere with functioning and not accompanied by
psychotic symptoms).
postmorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Subsequent to the onset of an illness.
premorbid - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Prior to the onset of an illness.
psychotic - CORRECT ANSWER✅✅Experiencing delusions or hallucinations.
