AHPC Licensure Exam flashcards

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

Informed consent elements

Core elements include the nature and goals of counseling, techniques used, risks and benefits, right to withdraw, fee structure, confidentiality limits, and counselor credentials - documented before services begin.

Tarasoff duty to protect

When a client poses a serious threat to an identifiable third party, the counselor must take reasonable protective steps such as warning the victim, notifying law enforcement, or arranging hospitalization.

Boundary crossing vs. violation

A boundary crossing is a deviation from standard practice that may be benign or growth-enhancing; a boundary violation is exploitative or harmful to the client and is always unethical.

Rogers core conditions

Carl Rogers identified congruence (genuineness), unconditional positive regard, and accurate empathic understanding as the necessary and sufficient relational conditions for therapeutic change.

Multiple relationship risk factors

Risk rises with greater power differential, longer duration, unclear termination, and likelihood of exploitation; not all multiple relationships are unethical, but all require careful evaluation.

Privileged communication holder

Legal privilege belongs to the client, not the counselor; the counselor may assert privilege on the client's behalf but cannot waive it without client authorization.

Ethical decision-making steps

Identify the dilemma, consult the code of ethics and law, seek supervision or consultation, weigh cultural factors, choose and document an action, then evaluate the outcome.

Supervisor gatekeeping role

Clinical supervisors protect client welfare and the profession by evaluating trainee competence, providing feedback, and intervening or remediating when supervisees are not ready for independent practice.

Sue cultural competence dimensions

Sue, Arredondo, and McDavis describe three dimensions: awareness of one's own biases, knowledge of the client's worldview, and skills in culturally appropriate intervention strategies.

Racial identity development stages

Sue and Sue's model: Conformity, Dissonance, Resistance and Immersion, Introspection, and Integrative Awareness; movement is not strictly linear and regression can occur.

Microaggression types

Microassaults are deliberate and overt; microinsults are unintentional demeaning communications; microinvalidations negate or dismiss the client's lived experience.

Etic versus emic perspectives

Etic perspectives assume universal, culture-general processes; emic perspectives examine culture-specific, within-group meanings. Competent practice integrates both rather than assuming universality.

Piaget concrete operational stage

Ages roughly 7 to 11; children achieve conservation, reversibility, and classification, but reasoning remains tied to concrete objects rather than abstract hypotheticals.

Erikson identity vs. role confusion

The adolescent psychosocial task of forming a coherent sense of self; successful resolution yields fidelity, while failure produces confusion about identity and future roles.

Kohlberg postconventional level

Moral reasoning based on social contract and universal ethical principles rather than rules or approval; it is the highest level and is not universally reached.

Bronfenbrenner ecological systems

Development occurs within nested systems: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem, each shaping the individual through different levels of environmental influence.

Berry acculturation strategies

Integration, assimilation, separation, and marginalization, determined by whether the individual maintains heritage culture and participates in the host culture.

Reliability versus validity

Reliability is consistency of measurement; validity is whether a test measures what it claims. A test can be reliable without being valid, but cannot be valid without reliability.

Standard error of measurement

SEM = SD × square root of (1 minus reliability); it estimates the spread of scores around a true score and is used to build confidence intervals around observed scores.

Classical test theory equation

Observed score equals true score plus error (X = T + E); error is assumed random and normally distributed, so repeated measurement averages toward the true score.

Concurrent versus predictive validity

Concurrent validity compares a test to a criterion measured at the same time; predictive validity compares it to a criterion measured in the future. Both are forms of criterion validity.

Major depressive disorder threshold

At least five symptoms present for two weeks or more, including depressed mood or anhedonia, causing clinically significant distress or impairment.

Generalized anxiety disorder threshold

Excessive anxiety and worry more days than not for at least six months, about multiple domains, with difficulty controlling the worry and associated symptoms.

Mental status exam domains

Appearance, behavior, speech, mood, affect, thought process and content, perception, cognition, insight, and judgment - the standard framework for documenting clinical presentation.

Deviation IQ conventions

Standard scores with a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15; intellectual disability involves deficits in intellectual and adaptive functioning with onset in the developmental period.

Type I versus Type II error

Type I (alpha) is rejecting a true null hypothesis, a false positive; Type II (beta) is failing to reject a false null, a false negative. Power equals 1 minus beta.

Internal validity threats

History, maturation, testing effects, instrumentation, selection bias, attrition, and regression to the mean can all undermine causal inference in an experimental design.

Correlation and shared variance

The correlation coefficient r ranges from minus one to plus one and measures linear association; r squared is the proportion of variance shared between two variables.

Holland RIASEC typology

A career theory matching personality types - Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional - to work environments to predict satisfaction and persistence.

Super life-span theory

Super proposed that career development unfolds across life stages (growth, exploration, establishment, maintenance, decline) and that people occupy multiple life roles simultaneously.

Group stages

Groups progress through forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning; leaders screen members and establish norms primarily during the forming stage.

Formative versus summative evaluation

Formative evaluation occurs during program implementation to improve delivery; summative evaluation occurs after completion to judge overall outcomes and effectiveness.