AMFTRB’s official exam info:

• 180 multiple-choice questions

• 4-hour time limit

• 4 answer choices per question

• Computer-based testing

• Angoff scoring method (scaled pass score)

Domain Old % to New % Change

Practice of Systemic Therapy ~23% to ~23% ➖ No real change

Assessing / Diagnosing ~14% to ~16% ⬆️ Slight increase

Designing & Conducting Treatment ~12% to ~26% ⬆️ Major increase

Evaluating & Terminating ~18% to ~6% ⬇️ Major decrease

Crisis Management ~14% to ~12% ⬇️ Slight decrease

Ethics / Legal ~19% to ~17% ⬇️ Slight decrease

A therapist begins working with a new adult client in a community mental health setting. During the first session, the client starts sharing detailed trauma history. The therapist realizes they have not yet discussed limits of confidentiality or obtained informed consent. What should the therapist do NEXT?

a. Allow the client to continue sharing to build rapport, and address informed consent at the end of the session

b. Immediately pause the session to review informed consent, including limits of confidentiality, and obtain the client’s agreement to proceed

c. Document that the client voluntarily disclosed information and review informed consent at the next session

d. Redirect the client to less sensitive topics until informed consent can be formally completed later

A client says to the social worker, “I feel like no matter what I do, I keep disappointing my family. It’s like I can’t get anything right.” Which of the following responses by the social worker BEST demonstrates paraphrasing?

a. “Can you tell me more about what you mean by disappointing your family?”
b. “It sounds like you feel you’re not meeting your family’s expectations, no matter how hard you try.”
c. “You seem overwhelmed, and this may connect to patterns from your past relationships.”

Feeling anxious before the EPPP is completely common—even among highly prepared candidates. In fact, a certain amount of anxiety can be helpful (Yerkes-Dodson Law right?). The goal isn't to eliminate nervousness; it's to keep it from interfering with your performance.

Try these strategies to stay focused and confident on exam day:

✅ Trust Your Preparation
In the days leading up to the exam, resist the urge to learn entirely new content. Instead, review key concepts, practice applying test-taking strategies, and remind yourself of the work you've already put in.

✅ Have a Plan for Difficult Questions
You will encounter questions that feel unfamiliar. Expecting this ahead of time can reduce panic. Use your process: eliminate clearly incorrect answers, identify what the question is actually asking, and make the best choice with the information provided.

✅ Focus on One Question at a Time
Avoid thinking about how many questions remain or whether you've answered previous questions correctly. Your only job is to answer the question currently in front of you -- every question is an opportunity to reset and earn more points.

✅ Use Physical Strategies to Reduce Stress
Before and during the exam, pay attention to basic needs: get adequate sleep, eat something that will sustain your energy, stay hydrated, and take brief stretch breaks when allowed.

✅ Watch for Anxiety Traps
Thoughts such as "I'm failing," "I should know this," or "Everyone else is more prepared than I am" can quickly drain attention and working memory. When these thoughts appear, redirect your focus back to the question and your test-taking process. If needed, start with a deep breath, the same kind we teach our clients, to help your body calm and send oxygenated blood back to your brain.

Remember: Passing the EPPP is not about answering every question correctly. It's about consistently applying your knowledge and strategies across the entire exam. Trust your preparation, stay present, and give yourself permission to work through the test one question at a time.

You are not your cravings. True transformation isn't about white-knuckling through deprivation; it’s about creating space between the urge and your reaction so you can choose to act with intention. In this episode, host Sharlee Dixon sits down with Laura Elorza, a clinical psychologist dedicated to helping people break free from autopilot living and discover the difference between fleeting pleasure and genuine happiness. Laura is the mind behind Unconscious Moderation, a transformative platform that combines hypnotherapy, reflective journaling, and movement to help individuals reshape their relationship with alcohol, completely free of shame or labels. Drawing from her academic rigor, including a clinical psychology degree from Universidad EAFIT and a psychodynamically focused master’s from Universidad del Norte, Laura brings immense human-centered warmth to her work. Tune in as we explore how unconscious patterns drive our drinking habits, how to transition from coping to conscious moderation, and how to leverage mindful tools to build lasting change and discover true happiness.

A study in the Journal of Science cited a University of Chicago study in which psychologists used a writing exercise to reduce test anxiety. Based on the idea of using writing to combat worrying in depression, the researchers found they could “get rid of the relationship between test anxiety and performance.” They gave test-takers 10 minutes before an exam to write about their feelings and thoughts. They found that those students prone to test anxiety improved their test grades by nearly one grade point! Read more about the study here:

https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=118396

If you are prone to test anxiety, (and who isn’t!), and you want to free up your brainpower that gets occupied by testing worries and performance anxiety, and you desire to stay focused, here is what I would recommend you do:

Take 5-10 minutes before each daily study session and write about your thoughts and feelings regarding the study process and your licensure exam. Identify the core themes in your writings.

Over the weeks of preparation, watch the themes that are evident in your writings, and see if you can problem-solve ways to address any concerns. 

Watch to see if your worries and anxiety decrease over time; also, observe the benefit of reduced worry on your focus, memory, and recall.

On the day of your licensure exam, spend 5-10 minutes on this exercise, and then go pass your exam!

Below are some examples of active listening that include: Clarification, paraphrasing, reflections, and summarization. I deliberately left out interpretation and confrontation because there are so many factors and guidelines to those that they need their own post, so be on the lookout for more discussion on those topics in the coming weeks. Also, come next week for a question related to these topics below. 

Active listening requires you to, first, attend to a client’s verbal and nonverbal messages and, then, reflect back what you’ve heard and observed so that the client will know that his message has been understood accurately. Active listening skills are described below.

Clarification: Clarification is used in response to vague or unclear client messages. Using this skill is appropriate whenever you don’t understand a client’s message, would like a client to become more explicit, or wish to check your understanding of a client’s message. Clarification can also help a client to better understand what he has said.

Client: “Sometimes, I just want to get away from everything.”

Social worker: “Describe for me what you mean by ‘getting away from everything’.”

Paraphrasing: A paraphrase is a selective restatement of the main idea of a client’s message that resembles his message but is not identical to it. A paraphrase emphasizes the literal meaning of a client’s message (the content, rather than affect) and is expressed in fewer words than the client has used. For example:

Client: “I don’t want to get so wrapped up in my relationship with my girlfriend that I lose my ability to make my own choices and decisions.”

Social Worker: “Your independence is important to you.”

Particularly when used in conjunction with responses that highlight a client’s feelings, such as empathic responses, paraphrases are effective for encouraging a client to continue expressing himself. They can also be useful for bringing focus to an idea or situation that you would like the client to consider.

Reflection: The skill of reflection involves repeating or restating something a client has just said with an emphasis on the part of the message that is most helpful. Here are two examples of reflection:

Client: “Everything is so static in my life these days. I need things to change. The new things I try don’t work out the way I want them to. If I had a better job, I’d have some money to try more new things.”

Social Worker: “You’re ready for things to change in your life.” or

Social worker: “You feel frustrated in your efforts to change things.”

A key purpose of reflection is to build understanding. Reflection is effective for clarifying and showing clients what their here-and-now feelings are, which encourages them to continue expressing themselves. In this way, reflection helps clients understand their own feelings. Moreover, because reflection demonstrates your understanding of the client’s feelings, reflection is also a useful skill for establishing rapport.

Summarization: Summarization (summarizing) has several purposes and is used at different times in the intervention process. In all cases, however, its primary purpose is to tie together functionally related elements that occur at different times in the helping process.

Summarization can be used to highlight and pull together elements of what you and a client have discussed during the previous few minutes of an interview, with a focus on what is most relevant or significant. Summarization may be used in a similar way to recap a lengthy client message. Among other benefits, these uses of summarization are effective for bringing focus to an interview. For example, when a client rambles or brings up many different topics, you can identify one theme and narrow the discussion to focus on that theme. Summarization can also be used to tie together the factual and emotional components of several client messages, which is useful for helping a client see connections among several ideas or feelings he has expressed. Usually, this entails emphasizing themes or topics a client has repeatedly referred to in the current interview and/or in prior interviews. For example:

Client: “I can’t get along with my boss. He’s always telling me what to do. I know how to do the job better than he does. It’s not fair. This happens to me all the time, with every job I’ve ever had.”

Social worker: “It sounds like the main problem you have in jobs is that you don’t like bosses who exercise authority over you.”

In this example, the social worker has summarized more than one element of a message and appears to be referring to past messages as well. Finally, summarization may also be used to provide a smooth transition between topics, review progress made during an interview as it draws to a close, recap the highlights of a previous session, and review progress on tasks during the week between sessions. The latter applications are effective for providing focus and continuity between sessions.

Informed consent refers to the right of a client to be given adequate information about the treatment process and procedures before making the decision to participate in treatment. This includes information about the risks and benefits of treatment, the client’s rights and responsibilities, and the limits of confidentiality. 

Legally, the following three conditions must be met for consent to be truly informed. 

Capacity: Consent must be obtained from a person with the capacity to consent or the authority to consent for another person. (a) A client under the influence of alcohol or drugs or experiencing an acute psychotic episode does not presently have the mental capacity to consent to treatment. So, for example, if a client presents for therapy while under the influence of drugs, you should wait to obtain consent until after the client is sober. (b) If an adult has an intellectual disability or otherwise lacks the mental capacity to give informed consent, you should determine if the client has a conservator or someone acting under a legal power of attorney who is authorized to provide informed consent on the client’s behalf. If not, you should decline to provide services until one is appointed. (c) When the client is a minor, you will usually obtain informed consent from at least one of the minor’s parents or the legal guardian. (also know information about consent to treatment by unemancipated minors)

Comprehension: The client must be given adequate information and understand the information sufficiently to make an informed decision. This means that information about therapy must be presented in understandable language and that the client must have an opportunity to ask and receive answers to his/her questions.

Voluntariness: The client must give his/her consent freely (without coercion). Voluntariness may be an issue when, for example, a client had come for treatment at the request of a family member or other person. Obtaining informed consent from a client in this situation may require you to explore and address the client’s negative feelings about coming to therapy.. This may be necessary in order to ensure that the client’s consent is truly voluntary. The same thing is true when a client’s treatment has been mandated by a court or other legitimate authority.

The Trump administration is taking another look at ending biannual clock changes, with an eye toward making daylight saving time (DST), or the "summer clock," permanent.

On May 21, the House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent in a 48-1 vote, part of a largely bipartisan push to end twice-yearly clock changes.

Although gaining extra winter evening daylight might seem like a win, health experts say permanent daylight saving time could disrupt people's natural circadian rhythms.

Keep reading here.

Joel Snape’s article (What does stress really do to our bodies, 17 May) was informative regarding the physiology of stress, yet narrow in articulating the broader drivers of chronic stress in modern life. The piece frames stress largely through everyday frictions: hectic school runs, online arguments, forgotten shoes, driving fines and doomscrolling. It then suggests that stress management is primarily an individual regulatory issue: breathing patterns, rumination, resilience, therapy, exercise and self-care.

Keep reading here.