DSST Fundamentals of Counseling flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Frank Parsons

Early 20th-century Boston engineer credited with founding vocational guidance; his trait-and-factor model matched individual characteristics to occupational requirements and influenced the guidance movement.

Trait-and-factor counseling

Directive approach developed by Williamson at Minnesota that analyzes a client's traits and matches them to occupational factors; counselor leads appraisal and interpretation.

National Defense Education Act

1958 U.S. law passed after Sputnik that funded school counselor training and testing, greatly expanding the counseling profession in schools.

Rogers' 1942 landmark

Carl Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942, introducing nondirective client-centered counseling and shifting the field away from advice-giving toward relationship-based practice.

ACA name change

The American Personnel and Guidance Association, founded in 1952, became the American Counseling Association in 1992, reflecting the broadening scope of professional counseling.

CACREP

Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, established in 1981, which accredits counselor education programs and standardizes training requirements.

Community Mental Health Centers Act

1963 U.S. law that funded community mental health centers and moved counseling beyond schools into community agencies serving broader populations.

NBCC

National Board for Certified Counselors, founded in 1982, which administers the National Counselor Examination and grants national counselor certification.

Core counselor functions

Individual and group counseling, assessment and appraisal, consultation, coordination, referral, and program development or evaluation; these define the counselor's professional role.

Triadic consultation

A consultative model in which the counselor works with a parent, teacher, or agency on behalf of a third party, the client, rather than treating only the client directly.

Referral decision rule

Refer when a problem exceeds the counselor's competence, training, or legal scope; continue coordinating care rather than terminating the relationship abruptly.

Confidentiality limits

Recognized exceptions include imminent danger to self or others, suspected child or vulnerable adult abuse, court order, and client waiver of confidentiality.

Informed consent elements

Disclosure of counseling's nature, risks, benefits, alternatives, fees, confidentiality limits, and the client's right to withdraw at any time before or during services.

ACA relationship prohibition

The ACA Code of Ethics prohibits sexual or romantic relationships with current clients and their family members, and for at least five years after termination with former clients.

Dual relationship rule

Counselors avoid multiple relationships that risk impairment or exploitation; if unavoidable, they document safeguards, monitor for harm, and seek supervision.

Record retention

Counselors store records securely, retain them per state law and agency policy, and release them only with written client authorization or legal mandate.

Unconditional positive regard

Rogers' core condition of prizing the client as a person regardless of behavior; it is acceptance of the person, not approval of every action.

Empathy

The counselor's sensing of the client's internal frame of reference as if it were their own, while retaining the "as if" quality that prevents overidentification.

Congruence

Rogers' genuineness condition: the counselor's outward communication matches inner experience; incongruence is perceived by clients and undermines trust.

Working alliance

Bordin's pantheoretical bond between client and counselor composed of agreement on goals, agreement on tasks, and an emotional bond.

Transference

The client's projection of past relational patterns and feelings, often toward parents, onto the counselor, which can be interpreted therapeutically.

Countertransference

The counselor's own unresolved feelings and reactions to the client; must be recognized and managed through supervision to protect the client.

Reflection of feeling

A microskill in which the counselor restates the emotional content of the client's message, conveying empathic understanding and helping the client clarify feelings.

Boundary crossing

A deviation from standard professional practice judged by whose needs it serves and whether it risks harm; crossings may be benign, violations are exploitative.

Psychoanalytic structure

Freud's model of id, ego, and superego, with unconscious conflict and defense mechanisms; techniques include free association, dream analysis, and interpretation.

Adlerian therapy

Approach emphasizing inferiority feelings, striving, birth order, and social interest; goal-oriented and future-focused, using early recollections and lifestyle analysis.

Conditions of worth

Rogers' term for conditional acceptance in childhood that creates incongruence between the real self and self-concept; person-centered therapy aims to remove them.

Systematic desensitization

Wolpe's behavioral technique pairing progressive relaxation with a graduated hierarchy of anxiety-provoking stimuli to extinguish a conditioned fear response.

Ellis' ABCDE model

REBT framework: Activating event, Belief, Consequence, Dispute of irrational beliefs, and Effect; targets absolutistic thinking such as musts and shoulds.

Beck's cognitive therapy

Approach targeting automatic thoughts, cognitive distortions, and schemas; uses collaborative empiricism, thought records, and behavioral experiments to test beliefs.

Gestalt empty chair

Perls' technique in which the client dialogues with an imagined person or part of the self to resolve unfinished business and increase present awareness.

Glasser's reality therapy

Choice theory approach using WDEP (Want, Doing, Evaluate, Plan) to help clients meet basic needs through responsible present-focused choices, rejecting excuses.