NCE-ABE Exam Dumps - National Counselor Examination

In the Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice core area, counselors are taught to follow ethical procedures when addressing suspected ethical violations by colleagues, consistent with codes such as the ACA Code of Ethics. These standards state that when a counselor believes that another professional has violated an ethical standard, they should:

First attempt an informal resolution, when appropriate,

Approach the colleague directly, in a respectful, private manner,

Discuss the concern and encourage corrective action.

Only when informal resolution is not appropriate, not effective, or the violation is severe or poses immediate harm are more formal actions (e.g., reporting to supervisors, licensing boards, or professional organizations) recommended. In this situation, Counselor B’s behavior appears to violate confidentiality, but there is no indication that a direct, private conversation would be unsafe or impossible.

Therefore, in line with CACREP-aligned ethics instruction, Counselor A should first attempt to address the concern informally by speaking privately with Counselor B, making B the correct answer.

Within the Research and Program Evaluation core area, counselors are expected to understand how different research designs relate to questions of causality. Experimental designs are identified as the primary method for examining cause–effect relationships because they:

Use manipulation of an independent variable

Include control or comparison groups

Often use random assignment to reduce bias

Descriptive and correlational designs can show associations or describe variables but cannot establish causation because they do not control for alternative explanations in the same way. Therefore, consistent with CACREP’s emphasis on understanding experimental methods as the standard for testing causal hypotheses, the correct answer is D. An experimental design.

Within the Counseling and Helping Relationships core area, counselors are expected to understand and apply a range of evidence-based counseling strategies and interventions, including behavioral and cognitive-behavioral techniques for specific problems such as insomnia.

Paradoxical intention is a technique in which the counselor instructs the client to intentionally engage in, or exaggerate, the very symptom they fear or are trying to avoid (in this case, trying to stay awake instead of trying to fall asleep). This counters performance anxiety and reduces the pressure around the symptom.

Not A (Sleep education): Sleep education focuses on teaching about sleep cycles, sleep hygiene, and lifestyle factors, not instructing clients to do the opposite of their goal.

Not B (Mirroring): Mirroring is reflecting the client’s emotional or verbal content, not giving paradoxical directives.

Not D (Stimulus control): Stimulus control involves modifying environmental and behavioral cues that signal sleep (e.g., using the bed only for sleep), not asking the client to try to stay awake.

Therefore, the intervention described is best understood as paradoxical intention (C).

In the Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice core area, CACREP highlights counselors’ roles in prevention, psychoeducation, and developmental interventions, including creating and using media and materials that promote mental health, safety, and wellness.

Developmental/preventive media refers to educational materials or presentations (e.g., videos, brochures, classroom presentations, campaigns) designed to promote healthy development and prevent problems before they occur.

In option B, the counselor is facilitating the creation of a video about sexual violence to be shown in school classes. This is clearly a preventive educational tool (media) targeting a large audience to increase awareness, promote safety, and reduce risk—exactly what developmental/preventive media are used for.

Option A (compiling a referral list) is about resource referral, not the creation of media.

Option C (compiling a service report) is program evaluation/administrative documentation, not preventive media.

Option D (creating a needs assessment survey) is used to assess needs, not to directly deliver developmental/preventive content.

Therefore, the best example of a counselor preparing developmental/preventive media is B. Having students in a drama club create a video about sexual violence to show in school classes.

O D. creating a needs assessment survey to be distributed to potential clients.

Under Professional Counseling Orientation and Ethical Practice, CACREP-aligned ethics stress that:

Counselors have a clear duty to protect confidentiality,

But in group counseling, the leader cannot ethically guarantee that other members will maintain confidentiality.

The counselor must explain the limits of confidentiality and encourage members to honor group privacy.

Therefore, the group leader’s ethical obligation is to strongly encourage members not to share group discussions outside the group and to educate them about the importance and rationale for confidentiality. This is captured by Option B.

Option A is unethical because no counselor can guarantee that other members will keep information confidential.

Option C incorrectly suggests members should limit sharing only to non-counseling details, which is not how confidentiality is framed; the focus is on not sharing other members’ counseling-related disclosures.

Option D weakens the standard by suggesting that some sharing is acceptable if “discreet,” which conflicts with the usual ethical guidance to avoid sharing group members’ personal information at all.

Thus, B best reflects the ethical obligation of a group leader regarding confidentiality.

In the Social and Cultural Diversity core area, counselors study how gender roles and stereotypes affect individuals’ experiences at home, at work, and in society. A well-established theme is the “second shift” or “double burden”, where employed women are often expected to:

Perform paid work and

Take on a disproportionate share of caregiving and household responsibilities, such as child care, elder care, managing the home, emotional caretaking, etc.

These expectations are rooted in traditional gender norms that associate women with nurturing and caregiving roles, even when both partners are employed.

Educational (B) and supervisory (D) responsibilities are not systematically placed more on women because of gender stereotypes in the same pervasive way.

Financial (C) responsibilities are more often stereotypically associated with men as “breadwinners,” not women.

Thus, the type of responsibilities women are especially socialized to take on, compared with employed men, is caregiving (A).

In Human Growth and Development, especially in Adlerian and psychodynamic theory content, counselors learn that:

Compensation is a coping mechanism in which a person attempts to counterbalance perceived weaknesses or feelings of inferiority by emphasizing strengths in other areas.This directly matches the description of coping with feelings of inferiority and inadequacy, so A is correct.

The other terms reflect different mechanisms:

Displacement (B): redirecting emotions from a threatening target to a safer one.

Reaction formation (C): expressing the opposite of one’s true feelings.

Regression (D): reverting to earlier, more childlike behaviors under stress.

Therefore, the mechanism that best describes coping with feelings of inferiority is compensation.

Within Counseling and Helping Relationships, counselors must understand major counseling theories and their conceptualizations of emotional and behavioral problems.

Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), developed by Albert Ellis, holds that:

People do not simply become disturbed by events themselves; rather, they become disturbed by how they interpret the events through irrational or illogical beliefs.

These beliefs are often rigid (“musts,” “shoulds,” “have tos”) and self-maintained by ongoing self-talk and interpretations.

Emotional and behavioral disturbances are thus seen as the result of these self-sustained, irrational thought patterns, and counseling focuses on identifying, disputing, and replacing them with more rational beliefs.

Reality therapy (A) emphasizes choice, responsibility, and meeting basic needs, not primarily irrational beliefs.

Transactional analysis (C) focuses on ego states (Parent, Adult, Child) and life scripts.

Behavior therapy (D) emphasizes learned behaviors through conditioning and reinforcement, typically without the central emphasis on irrational beliefs as the main cause.

Therefore, the approach that specifically maintains that emotional and behavioral disorders stem from clients’ self-maintained illogical beliefs is Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (B).