1. Which of the following statements is NOT true with respect to counselor competence?
a. Practitioners are required to practice within the boundaries of their competence.
b. Only when the therapist completes a doctoral program are they competent to practice with all specialties.
c. The practitioner can develop competency by working with professionals with more experience.
d. Conferences, workshops, and continuing education are means toward developing competency.
2. According to the authors, a good training program encourages students to:
a. build on their life experiences and personal strengths and provides opportunities for expanding self-awareness.
b. emphasize skill training without consideration of personal development.
c. achieve a high enough GPA to pursue a doctorate.
d. specialize in one theory with the techniques and strategies that are unique to that theory.
3. As a part of the process of screening candidates for a therapist training program, counselor educators should
complete all of the following EXCEPT:
a. provide candidates with information about what will be expected of them.
b. encourage candidates to screen the program to ensure a good fit.
c. placemostoftheemphasisoncandidates’GREscores.
d. inform candidates they are expected to engage in self-disclosure and to participate in various self-growth
activities.
Chapter8—ProfessionalCompetenceandTraining
4. From an ethical perspective, counselor educators and trainers are expected to present varied theoretical positions.
Training programs would do well to offer students:
a. a variety of therapeutic techniques and strategies that can be applied to a wide range of problems with diverse
clients.
b. the opportunity to specialize in one theoretical approach.
c. a program with few bureaucratic constraints when teaching.
d. the opportunity to learn to diagnose clients to fit the basic concepts of the theory being taught.
5. The skills and training required to effectively and appropriately treat clients in a specific area of practice, and is both
an ethical and legal concept, is the definition for:
a. formative assessment.
b. summative assessment.
c. therapist competence.
d. techniques.
6. Registry is generally a voluntary listing of individuals who use a title or provide a service. ________ represents the
least degree of regulation of professional practice.
a. Certification
b. Licensure
c. Registration
d. Accreditation
Chapter8—ProfessionalCompetenceandTraining
7. _____________ is an end point evaluation typically completed at the end of a professional program or when
applying for licensure status.
a. Formative assessment
b. Summative assessment
c. Therapist competence
d. Technique
8. In___________,theSupremeCourtconsideredthatthestudenthadbeeninformedofthefaculty’sdissatisfaction
with her clinical performance, and the student knew that unless she made significant improvement in this area, she
would be dismissed from the program. The Court held that the decision to dismiss the student from medical school
wasbasedonacarefulanddeliberateevaluationbythefaculty,andthusthestudent’sdismissalwasnotaviolation
of her constitutional rights.
a. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz
b. Shuffer v. Trustees of California State Universities and Colleges
c. Jablonski v. the United States
d. Hedlund v. Superior Court
9. Most professional organizations support efforts to:
a. require pro bono work at the rate of at least 20 percent of the work week for all professionals.
b. write regulations that encourage competition.
c. make continuing education a mandatory condition of re-licensing.
d. require personality tests from all practitioners to ensure that those who enter the field are in good mental
health.
Chapter8—ProfessionalCompetenceandTraining
10. ___________ is an organized system by which practitioners within a profession assess one another’s services.
a. Networking
b. Mentoring
c. Monitoring
d. Peer review
11. Barriers to dismissing a student who demonstrates dysfunctional interpersonal behavior from a training program
include all of the following EXCEPT:
a. lack of adequate procedures in place to support a dismissal decision.
b. concern about the heightened resistance or defensiveness in the trainee.
c. fear of legal reprisal by the institution.
d. thepotentialforreceivingcriticismfromotherfacultymemberswhowerenotinvolvedinthetrainee’s
remediation.
12. In ______________, the court held that a faculty may require students to complete special requirements as long as
the
requirements are not arbitrary.
a. Board of Curators of the University of Missouri v. Horowitz
b. Shuffer v. Trustees of California State Universities and Colleges
c. Jablonski v. the United States
d. Hedlund v. Superior Court
13. Referring clients to other professionals is:
a. appropriate when counselors do not have the clinical training or expertise to work with certain clients.
b. unethical since it leaves the client feeling abandoned.
c. indicative of poor character.
d. illegal in some states.
14. According to the American School Counseling Association, in order to apply our knowledge and skills competently:
a. professional school counselors must be perfectly healthy.
b. professional school counselors monitor emotional and physical health and practice wellness to ensure optimal
effectiveness.
c. self-care routines must be rigidly adhered to by professional school counselors on a daily basis.
d. professional school counselors must attend to physical and emotional well-being more often than mental or
spiritual well-being.
15. Even though mental health professionals may not intend to harm clients, _________ is often a major contributing
factor in causing harm.
a. incompetence
b. unconscious impulses of an aggressive nature
c. participation in a training program that is not CACREP accredited
d. a decreased emphasis on ethics in training programs
16. According to the American Counseling Association, counselors practice only within the boundaries of their
competence, based on:
a. their knowledge, skills, and practices in the following areas: foundations, diversity and politics, assessment,
research and evaluation, and diagnosis.
b. psychology does not currently have methods to readily or reliably assess the performance of professional
functions.
c. peer review boards or other appropriate bodies.
d. their education and training, supervised experience, state and national professional credentials, and appropriate
professional experience.
17. To qualify as a substance abuse counselor, the CACREP (2009) standards identify specific knowledge, skills, and
practices in all of the following areas EXCEPT:
a. personal substance abuse experience.
b. counseling, prevention, and intervention.
c. diversity and advocacy.
d. research and evaluation.
18. When a practitioner has a license, he or she is:
a. competent to work with all populations.
b. competent to work with populations he or she had never worked with before.
c. not competent to work with all populations.
d. finally exempt from having his or her competence evaluated.
19. ___________isadevelopmentallyinformedprocessthatprovidesusefulfeedbackduringone’strainingand
throughoutone’sprofessionalcareer.
a. Formative assessment
b. Summative assessment
c. Developmentally-informed assessment
d. Technique assessment
20. Those who are responsible for educating and training mental health professionals are ethically and professionally
obligated to:
a. focus exclusively on mentoring trainees.
b. invest all of their efforts into mentoring trainees and being advocates for them and their clients.
c. balance their roles as advocate and mentor of trainees with their gatekeeping role.
d. focus exclusively on their gatekeeping responsibilities.
21. When therapists extend the boundaries of their practice, or when they branch out into an area requiring specialty
competence, they should:
a. be sufficiently prepared if they read books and journal articles pertaining to the new specialty area.
b. seek consultation with a competent practitioner.
c. return to graduate school and receive another degree.
d. gain competence on their own before consulting with other professionals.
22. ______________ is a voluntary attempt by a group to promote a professional identity.
a. Certification
b. Licensure
c. Registration
d. Accreditation
23. Training programs have a responsibility to complete all of the following EXCEPT:
a. honor their commitment to the students they admit.
b. protect future consumers who will be served by those who graduate.
c. screen candidates so the public will be protected from incompetent practitioners.
d. continue evaluating students up to five years after graduation.
24. When a therapist believes referring a client to be the appropriate course of action due to a lack of competence in the
client’s issue:
a. it would be considered unethical to not refer to a more competent therapist.
b. itistheclient’schoicewhethertoacceptordeclinethetermination.
c. it is the therapist’s choice to decide when and if termination should take place.
d. the therapist should only refer the client if a conflict has been created.
25. ____________ statutes determine and govern professional practice.
a. Certification
b. Licensure
c. Registration
d. Accreditation
26. A school counselor was working with Quan, whose presenting problem was anxiety pertaining to academic success
incollege.Thiswaswithinthescopeoftheschoolcounselor’straining.However,duringthecourseoftherapy,
Quanbecameverydepressedandengagedinselfmutilationandotherformsofselfdestructivebehavior.Quan’s
counselor recognized that these symptoms and behaviors reflected a problem area that was outside the scope of his
practice. Ethical practice required that the school counselor:
a. attempt to work with Quan’s problems and only refer if he becomes suicidal.
b. have another school employee present in all sessions after the discovery is made.
c. makeareferraltoanotherprofessionalwhoiscompetenttotreatQuan’sproblems.
d. make a referral to a substance abuse counselor because all client’s with these symptoms are self-medicating.
27. ____________ is a basic component of practitioner competence.
a. Competence
b. Techniques
c. Accreditation
d. Training
28. Ifeachprofessionalorganizationdevelopedspecificguidelinespertainingtostudents’successfulcompletionofa
program, faculty in training programs:
a. would not have to work as hard to help students understand the material.
b. would then have the backing of their professional association in determining the evaluation procedures to be
used when decisions regarding retaining or dismissing students are made.
c. would have the correct information needed to train students to become therapists.
d. would be able to give the students the guidelines to study without training them.
29. Students should be advised as early as possible if their behavior is problematic, and:
a. they should be given direction and opportunities to improve problem areas.
b. they should be terminated from the program immediately.
c. they should be ridiculed in a public arena.
d. they should be allowed to continue without further direction.
30. Continuing professional education is important because:
a. the continuing education schools are in need of the income.
b. some practitioners did not receive the information in their educational program; until they attend continuing
education programs, they cannot be held responsible for their actions.
c. apractitioner’slevelofcompetencemaydiminishovertime;changesinlawspertainingtomentalhealth,
evolving ethical standards, and new trends in professional and evidence-based practices continue to be made.
d. the information they reveal has never been shared in academic programs before.