Your FREE CPCE Flashcards 2026 – 250+ Cards

The ethical principle of respecting a client's right to self-determination and to make their own choices.

The ethical principle of doing no harm; generally considered the most fundamental when principles conflict.

The ethical principle of actively promoting the client's well-being and good.

The ethical principle of treating clients fairly and equitably.

The ethical principle of being loyal, honest, and keeping commitments to the client.

Autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, and fidelity — the foundation of counseling ethical decision-making.

The client's voluntary agreement to counseling after disclosure of its nature, goals, fees, confidentiality limits, and rights; an ongoing process.

The counselor's duty to protect client information; its limits are disclosed during informed consent.

A legal protection, held by the client, that keeps confidential communications from being disclosed in legal proceedings.

The duty to take reasonable steps to protect an identifiable victim from a client's serious, imminent threat of violence.

The legal duty to report reasonable suspicion of abuse or neglect of a child, elder, or dependent adult, overriding confidentiality.

A second role with a client beyond the professional one (social, business, sexual) that risks impaired judgment or exploitation.

The range of services a counselor is competent and legally permitted to provide; practicing outside it is unethical.

The American Counseling Association's ethical standards that govern professional counseling practice.

Licensure is a state legal credential to practice; certification is a non-governmental recognition of meeting a standard (e.g., NCC).

Recognition that a counseling program meets the standards of CACREP, the field's accrediting body.

A stepwise process: identify the problem, review the code, apply moral principles, weigh options, consult/document, then act and evaluate.

The ethical principle of being truthful and honest with clients.

The professional responsibility to maintain one's own wellness to practice competently and avoid impairment and burnout.

A relationship in which a supervisor oversees and develops a counselor's clinical work to protect clients and build competence.

The ethical duty of programs and supervisors to ensure that only competent, fit candidates enter and remain in the profession.

Acting to address barriers and systemic inequities that affect clients' access, growth, and well-being.

A crossing is a benign, sometimes helpful deviation from the norm; a violation harms or exploits the client.

Professional negligence — a breach of the standard of care that causes harm to a client.

A subpoena requests records (privilege may be asserted); a valid court order can legally compel disclosure.

Counseling's identity is rooted in prevention, development, and wellness, not just treating pathology.

The level of skill and care a reasonably competent counselor would provide in similar circumstances.

Consent generally rests with a parent/guardian; counselors still seek the minor's assent and protect their interests.

The federal law setting privacy and security standards for protected health information.

Fidelity is keeping promises and loyalty; veracity is being truthful — both are ethical principles.

Mandatory ethics is minimum compliance with the code; aspirational ethics strives for the highest good of the client.

When a client is at imminent risk of suicide, the counselor must act to protect them — a limit to confidentiality.

Written client authorization required before sharing confidential information with a third party.

Counselor awareness of own biases, knowledge of clients' worldviews, and skills for culturally responsive counseling (Sue & Sue).

An ongoing, learner stance of openness and self-reflection toward each client's culture and identity.

The way a person perceives and interprets the world, shaped by culture, values, and experience.

Emic = understanding behavior from within a specific culture; etic = applying universal, cross-cultural standards.

The process of cultural and psychological change from contact between cultures (e.g., assimilation, integration).

A subtle, often unintentional verbal or behavioral slight that communicates a hostile or negative message to a marginalized person.

Stages of Black racial identity development: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion-emersion, internalization, internalization-commitment.

A model of how White individuals develop a nonracist identity through contact, disintegration, reintegration, and autonomy.

The idea that overlapping identities (race, gender, class, etc.) combine to shape unique experiences of privilege and oppression.

The Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies — the field's current framework for culturally competent practice.

Unearned advantages a person receives based on membership in a dominant social group.

Systemic, unjust use of power that disadvantages marginalized groups.

An overgeneralized, fixed belief about a group applied to its individual members.

Prejudice is a biased attitude; discrimination is biased behavior or action.

Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, assuming one's own is superior.

Collectivist cultures prioritize group harmony and interdependence; individualist cultures prioritize personal goals and autonomy.

Wrenn's term for treating one's own cultural assumptions as universal and ignoring cultural variation.

Multicultural competence as three dimensions: awareness, knowledge, and skills.

Working to address inequities and advocate for marginalized clients at individual and systemic levels.

An acculturation strategy of adopting the dominant culture while shedding one's culture of origin.

A system of attitudes and institutions that privileges heterosexuality and marginalizes LGBTQ+ people.

Discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities.

D'Andrea & Daniels's framework of 10 cultural factors counselors should consider (religion, economic status, sexual identity, etc.).

Hays's framework of cultural influences (age, disability, religion, ethnicity, social status, sexual orientation, indigenous heritage, national origin, gender).

Adapting assessment and interventions to fit the client's cultural context, values, and worldview.

Psychological strain that results from the demands of adapting to a new culture.

Social categorization into the group one identifies with vs. others, affecting bias and behavior.

Unconscious attitudes or stereotypes that affect understanding, actions, and decisions.

Whether a person attributes outcomes to internal effort or external forces; culturally influenced.

Maintaining one's heritage culture while also participating in the dominant culture (often the healthiest strategy).

Attending to clients' spiritual and religious values as part of culturally responsive, holistic care.

Gender identity is one's internal sense of gender; sexual orientation is one's pattern of attraction — distinct constructs.

Eight lifespan crises from trust vs. mistrust through integrity vs. despair; each resolution yields a virtue.

Erikson's first stage (infancy): consistent care builds trust; neglect breeds mistrust.

Erikson's adolescent stage: forming a coherent sense of self vs. confusion about one's role.

Sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages of cognitive development.

Piaget's first stage (0–2): learning through senses and action; object permanence develops.

The understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight (Piaget, sensorimotor stage).

Piaget's stage (2–7): symbolic thought and language, but egocentrism and lack of conservation.

Piaget's stage (7–11): logical thought about concrete events; conservation and reversibility develop.

Piaget's stage (11+): abstract and hypothetical reasoning.

Assimilation fits new information into existing schemas; accommodation changes schemas to fit new information (Piaget).

Three levels (preconventional, conventional, postconventional) of moral reasoning, each with two stages.

Kohlberg's first level: reasoning based on obedience/punishment and self-interest.

Kohlberg's highest level: reasoning based on the social contract and universal ethical principles.

Early bonds between infant and caregiver form an internal working model that shapes later relationships.

From the Strange Situation: secure, anxious-avoidant, anxious-ambivalent, and disorganized attachment.

Needs from physiological → safety → love/belonging → esteem → self-actualization; lower needs come first.

Maslow's highest need: realizing one's full potential and becoming all one is capable of becoming.

The zone of proximal development: the gap between what a learner can do alone and with guidance (scaffolding).

Temporary support a more capable other provides to help a learner master a task (Vygotsky).

Nested environmental systems — micro, meso, exo, macro, chrono — that shape development.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance — not strictly linear.

The debate over how genetics (nature) and environment/experience (nurture) shape development.

An individual's innate, biologically based behavioral and emotional style, present early in life.

Learning by association (Pavlov): a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response (e.g., bell → salivation).

Learning through consequences (Skinner): reinforcement increases behavior; punishment decreases it.

Reinforcement increases a behavior's frequency; punishment decreases it; both can be positive (add) or negative (remove).

The capacity to adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, or significant stress.

A preoperational child's inability to take another's perspective (Piaget).

Understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in shape or appearance (Piaget, concrete operational).

Learning by observing and imitating models; includes reciprocal determinism and self-efficacy.

Bandura's concept of one's belief in their ability to succeed at a specific task.

Erikson's school-age stage: developing competence through achievement vs. feelings of inadequacy.

Six personality/environment types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional; fit = congruence.

The match between a person's type and their work environment; greater congruence predicts satisfaction.

Career as implementation of self-concept across five stages and multiple life roles (Life-Career Rainbow).

Super's term for readiness to make appropriate career decisions for one's developmental stage.

Match person traits to job factors through true reasoning — the foundation of vocational guidance.

Learning experiences and chance events (planned happenstance) shape career paths.

Krumboltz's idea of turning unplanned events into career opportunities through curiosity and persistence.

People narrow career options early by sex-type, prestige, and interests, then compromise.

Early needs and parent–child relationships steer people toward person-oriented or non-person-oriented careers.

A Holland-based career interest inventory clients can self-administer and score.

A widely used interest inventory based on Holland's RIASEC types.

The U.S. Department of Labor's occupational information database used in career counseling.

Super's depiction of the life roles a person plays across the lifespan (child, student, worker, parent, etc.).

A clear, stable picture of one's goals, interests, and talents related to career.

What a person seeks from work (e.g., achievement, autonomy, security) that guides career choice.

Confidence in one's ability to make and follow through on career decisions.

Career choice as a developmental process with fantasy, tentative, and realistic periods.

Aligning measured individual traits with the requirements of occupations.

The arrangement of RIASEC types; adjacent types are most similar, opposite types most different.

Lent, Brown & Hackett's theory: self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and goals drive career behavior.

Resources for coping with current and anticipated career tasks, transitions, and traumas (Savickas).

A conversation with someone in a field of interest to gather career information.

A family-tree tool used to explore intergenerational influences on a client's career.

Aptitude is capacity to learn a skill; interest is preference — both inform career fit.

Holland 'doers' — practical, hands-on people who like tools, machines, and the outdoors.

Holland 'thinkers' — analytical, intellectual people who like ideas and problem-solving.

Holland 'creators' — expressive, original people who like unstructured, creative work.

Holland 'helpers' — people who like teaching, counseling, and helping others.

Holland 'persuaders' — assertive people who like leading, selling, and influencing.

Holland 'organizers' — orderly people who like data, detail, and structured tasks.

Helping clients with career exploration, decision-making, transition, and adjustment across the lifespan.

A historical occupational reference now largely replaced by O*NET.

The collaborative, trusting bond between counselor and client; one of the strongest predictors of outcome.

Accurately sensing and reflecting a client's inner world as if it were your own.

Warm, non-judgmental acceptance of the client as a person of worth, regardless of behavior (Rogers).

The counselor being real and transparent — outward responses match inner experience (Rogers).

Empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence — necessary and sufficient for client change.

Rogers's nondirective approach in which the counselor's core conditions drive the client's growth.

The client's unconscious redirection of feelings about past figures onto the counselor.

The counselor's emotional reaction to the client; must be managed through self-awareness and supervision.

Structured, present-focused therapy that changes distorted thoughts and maladaptive behaviors.

Beck's systematic errors in thinking (e.g., catastrophizing, all-or-nothing) that fuel distress.

Ellis's model: an Activating event filtered through a Belief produces the emotional Consequence; dispute irrational beliefs.

Ellis's rigid 'musts' and 'shoulds' that cause emotional disturbance in REBT.

Therapy that makes the unconscious conscious through free association, dream analysis, and interpretation.

Unconscious strategies (denial, projection, repression, rationalization, etc.) that protect against anxiety.

Freud's structures: the id (drives), the ego (reality), and the superego (conscience/morals).

Individual psychology emphasizing social interest, lifestyle, birth order, and overcoming inferiority.

Present-focused therapy emphasizing awareness, the here-and-now, and techniques like the empty chair.

A Gestalt experiment in which the client dialogues with an imagined person or part of self.

Choice-theory approach focused on present choices and responsibility; uses the WDEP system.

Glasser's reality therapy process: Wants, Doing/Direction, Evaluation, Planning.

Therapy addressing meaning, freedom, isolation, and death (Frankl, Yalom, May).

Goal-oriented model using the miracle question, exceptions, and scaling (de Shazer & Berg).

An SFBT technique asking the client to describe life if the problem were suddenly solved.

Approach (White & Epston) that externalizes the problem and helps clients re-author their stories.

Collaborative method (Miller & Rollnick) that resolves ambivalence and evokes change talk using OARS.

Prochaska & DiClemente's transtheoretical stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance.

Foundational counseling skills: attending, questioning, paraphrasing, reflecting feeling, and summarizing.

A microskill that mirrors the client's emotion so they feel understood.

Restating the content of what the client said in the counselor's own words.

Open questions invite elaboration; closed questions elicit brief, specific answers.

Therapy applying learning principles (conditioning, reinforcement) to change behavior.

A behavioral technique pairing relaxation with a graded hierarchy of feared stimuli to reduce anxiety.

Client behavior that opposes the work of counseling; often a signal to adjust the approach or repair the alliance.

The bond plus agreement on the goals and tasks of counseling.

Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning — the stages a group moves through.

The orientation stage: members are polite, anxious, and dependent on the leader.

The conflict stage: resistance and competition for roles; the leader manages conflict.

The cohesion stage: trust and norms develop; deeper self-disclosure and real work begin.

The work stage: the group is productive and interdependent toward its goals.

The termination stage: members consolidate gains and process ending the group.

Eleven curative factors of groups (e.g., universality, cohesion, instillation of hope, catharsis).

Yalom's factor: realizing one is not alone and others share similar struggles.

The sense of belonging, trust, and 'we-ness' that makes a group therapeutic; the group analog of the alliance.

Yalom's factor: seeing others improve builds the belief that change is possible.

A group leadership skill connecting one member's experience to another's to build cohesion.

A group leadership skill that stops harmful or counterproductive behavior in the group.

Tactfully stopping a member who is rambling or dominating to protect the group's time.

Inviting a quiet or withdrawn member into the group's interaction.

A group focused on teaching information and skills (e.g., stress management) to prevent problems.

A group focused on interpersonal problem-solving, growth, and the here-and-now.

A group addressing more severe or chronic psychological problems, often longer-term.

A group organized to accomplish a specific task or goal (e.g., a committee).

Focusing on the immediate interactions and feelings in the group as they occur.

Two leaders sharing a group; offers modeling and broader perspective but requires coordination.

The shared, often unspoken rules that govern group members' behavior.

Synonyms for Yalom's mechanisms through which group members benefit.

The ethical pre-group task of selecting members likely to benefit and not harm the group.

Leaders cannot guarantee it because members are not bound by the code; this limit is disclosed up front.

Authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire (Lewin); democratic is generally most effective.

The therapeutic release of strong emotion within the group (a Yalom factor).

Yalom's factor: members benefit from helping one another.

Yalom's factor: the group re-enacts and heals early family dynamics.

The Association for Specialists in Group Work — the ACA division setting group-work standards.

Process is how the group interacts (dynamics); content is what is discussed (topic).

Moreno's method of measuring relationships and attractions/rejections within a group.

Cohesion is the bond among members and to the group; the working alliance is the bond with the leader.

The consistency of a test's results across time, items, or raters.

Whether a test actually measures what it claims to measure.

Consistency of scores when the same test is given to the same people at two times.

How well a test's items measure the same construct (e.g., Cronbach's alpha).

A statistic estimating internal-consistency reliability; values closer to 1.0 indicate higher reliability.

Agreement between different raters scoring the same responses.

The degree to which a test's items represent the full domain it is meant to measure.

How well test scores predict or correlate with an outcome (concurrent or predictive).

The degree to which a test measures the theoretical construct it claims to.

Concurrent correlates with a current criterion; predictive forecasts a future one.

An estimate of how much an observed score would vary across repeated testings due to error.

The symmetric, bell-shaped distribution where mean, median, and mode coincide.

A measure of how spread out scores are around the mean.

The percentage of scores in a distribution at or below a given score.

A standard score expressing how many standard deviations a raw score is from the mean (mean 0, SD 1).

A standard score with a mean of 50 and a standard deviation of 10.

Measures of central tendency: the average, the middle value, and the most frequent value.

A test that compares a person's score to those of a norm group.

A test that compares a person's score to a fixed standard or mastery level.

A structured snapshot of a client's current functioning: appearance, mood, thought, perception, cognition, insight, judgment.

The American Psychiatric Association's current diagnostic manual used to determine mental health diagnoses.

Distinguishing among disorders with overlapping symptoms to identify the most accurate one.

Objective tests (MMPI) have fixed responses; projective tests (Rorschach, TAT) elicit open responses to ambiguous stimuli.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory — a widely used objective personality/psychopathology test.

A projective test using inkblots to assess personality and thought process.

The Wechsler Adult and Children's Intelligence Scales — major individual IQ tests.

Administering and scoring a test under uniform conditions so results are comparable.

Aptitude predicts future learning/performance; achievement measures what has already been learned.

An asymmetric distribution; positive skew has a right tail, negative skew a left tail.

A band around a score (built using the SEM) within which the true score likely falls.

Sensitivity is the rate of correctly identifying true positives; specificity, true negatives.

Systematic error that gives one group an unfair advantage or disadvantage on a test.

The variable the researcher manipulates to observe its effect.

The outcome variable measured to see the effect of the independent variable.

The default claim that there is no effect or no difference; statistical tests try to reject it.

The claim that there is an effect or difference, accepted if the null is rejected.

The probability of obtaining results as extreme as observed if the null hypothesis were true.

Results unlikely due to chance, typically when p is below the alpha level (e.g., .05).

The threshold (often .05) for rejecting the null hypothesis; the Type I error rate.

A false positive — rejecting a true null hypothesis (concluding an effect exists when it doesn't).

A false negative — failing to reject a false null hypothesis (missing a real effect).

The probability (1 − beta) of correctly detecting a real effect; increased by larger samples.

A measure of how two variables move together, ranging from -1.0 to +1.0; does not prove causation.

Correlation shows association; only controlled experiments with random assignment support causal claims.

A measure of the magnitude of a difference or relationship, independent of sample size.

A design with manipulation of the IV and random assignment, allowing causal inference.

A design that lacks random assignment but still compares groups or conditions.

Placing participants into conditions by chance, equalizing groups and supporting causal inference.

The extent to which a study supports a causal claim, free of confounds.

The extent to which findings generalize to other people, settings, and times.

An extraneous variable that influences both the IV and DV, threatening internal validity.

Research exploring meaning and experience through words and themes (e.g., interviews, case studies).

Research that measures variables numerically and analyzes them statistically.

A statistic comparing the means of two groups.

Analysis of variance — a statistic comparing means across three or more groups.

A statistic testing associations between categorical variables.

Selecting participants from a population; random sampling supports generalizability.

Dividing a population into subgroups and sampling from each to ensure representation.

Reliability is consistency of measurement; validity is accuracy and soundness of inferences.

Institutional Review Board — reviews research to protect human participants' rights and welfare.

Participants' voluntary, informed agreement to take part in a study.

A research design tracking one participant (or a few) across baseline and intervention phases.

Systematic assessment of a program's design, implementation, and outcomes to inform decisions.

In a skewed distribution, the mean is pulled toward the tail; the median is more robust.