We're back this month with more on Antisocial Personality Disorder. As discussed in our April blog, every other month we are covering a topic and comparing how that topic could show up on the exam in a recall vs. reasoning question. In February and March we covered Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Last month, we did a recall question on Antisocial Personality Disorder. So this month, we're taking that same topic (Antisocial Personality Disorder) and giving you a reasoning question to practice with. What do I need to know about Antisocial Personality Disorder? The biggest thing to keep in

This month’s blog focuses on a lesser known diagnostic category, which could appear on both the California MFT Clinical or AMFTRB exams; paraphilic disorders. While these disorders may not be seen frequently in clinical practice, they can show up on the exam. The 8 types of paraphilic disorders in the DSM 5 are: Voyeuristic: watching unsuspecting people who are naked, undressing, or engaging in sexual activities Exhibitionistic: exposing genitalia to unsuspecting people Frotteuristic: touching or rubbing non-consenting people Sexual masochism: engaging in acts meant to cause self pain or

This year, we’ve decided to try something new with our social work blogs to help highlight the different types of questions on the social work exams. When covering a new topic, we’ll take the first month to do a recall question on that topic. After that, the next month we’ll take the same topic and do a reasoning based question. While both the master’s level LMSW and clinical level LCSW ASWB exams have more reasoning than recall, you want to be prepared for both types of questions. For the months of April and May, we’ll cover the topic of Antisocial Personality Disorder. The last two months we

This month’s blog will focus on Freud’s theory of psychosexual development. Whether you are taking the MFT California Clinical Written Exam or the AMFTRB exam, you could see questions that test your knowledge on this topic. With that in mind, let’s do a quick review of Freud’s theory of psychosexual development and see how you do on our FREE practice question. As you may recall from grad school, Freud believed that personality development occurred in childhood. In brief, Freud’s theory of psychosexual development proposed that children moved through a series of five stages, each focused on a

Today we're back with more on Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). As mentioned in last month’s blog, every other month for the next several months, we are covering a topic and comparing a recall vs. reasoning question to highlight how the same topic can be tested in different ways. Last month’s blog highlighted a recall question on NPD. This month we are taking the same topic, but giving you a reasoning question to practice with. What do I need to know about Narcissistic Personality Disorder? When thinking about how a client with NPD may present, you want to first and foremost be thinking

This month’s blog will focus on the topic of case conceptualization. The ability of an MFT to conceptualize their client’s presenting issues and use that to inform their treatment plan has a direct relationship to the effectiveness of therapy. Case conceptualization is an integral part of our therapeutic work, and your understanding of it will be tested on the California MFT written clinical exam. What is case conceptualization? In short, it is the process used to understand our client’s presenting issues and offers a roadmap to guide the therapeutic process. We’ve written a more thorough

Over the next several months, we are going to be trying something new with our social work blogs to highlight the differences in the types of questions that show up on the ASWB exam. One month we are going to do a recall question of a topic. The next month, we are going to take the same topic, but do a reasoning question on that topic. Both the LMSW and LCSW exams have more reasoning than recall, however, you definitely want to be prepared for both. This month and next month, we are exploring the topic of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder

In last month’s ASWB exam prep blog, we covered the topic of consultation with colleagues. We discussed when to (and when not to) choose this answer option on the exam. Sometimes the exam will present you both with the answer option to 'consult with colleagues' as well as the option to 'seek supervision' ('consult with a supervisor'). When this happens, which answer option should you choose? And in what other scenarios is seeking supervision appropriate? Consult with colleagues or seek supervision: which is best? The answer the ASWB is most often looking for when some form of consultation is

The prevalence of telehealth for mental health counseling has been on the rise in recent years. However, since COVID-19 stay-at-home orders were implemented in early 2020, telehealth services have grown exponentially. As a consequence, the number of questions I receive on this topic are higher than ever before. These questions fall into two general categories. First, test-takers seek to better understand our legal and ethical obligations related to telehealth. Second, test-takers are concerned about the COVID-related waivers and how they could appear on the California MFT licensing exams. In

On the ASWB exams (both LMSW and LCSW), there are many reasoning based scenario questions that offer the answer option ‘consult with colleagues.’ I’ve had a number of social workers email me coaching questions about this, sharing their difficulty in identifying when this is the right answer and when it’s not. Sometimes consultation will be the correct answer and other times it will not, which can make this answer option feel challenging. The good news is, there are some clear guidelines to follow for these questions. Today’s blog covers some of the scenarios when you want to choose this answer