NBCC NCE-ABE - National Counselor Examination

A work sample is a screening or assessment technique in which an applicant is asked to perform a task that closely resembles an actual job duty. In this case, writing a response to a commonly encountered situation in that counseling setting simulates the type of clinical writing, judgment, and communication the job requires.

Thus, C. A work sample is the correct term.

Why the other options are incorrect:

A. Structured interview involves a standardized set of interview questions asked face-to-face or virtually, not a written job-task simulation.

B. Content analysis is a research or evaluation method used to analyze written, verbal, or media material, not the name of a screening tool itself.

D. Role-play would involve acting out the situation, usually live or via video, rather than writing a response.

Knowledge of different assessment and screening methods, including work samples, fits within Intake, Assessment and Diagnosis competencies, since counselors must understand assessment strategies used in both clinical and organizational contexts.

Career construction counseling (Savickas) is a narrative, meaning-based approach to career development. Its central activity is helping clients tell, explore, and organize their life stories in a way that reveals recurring life themes and preferred ways of being in the world. These themes then guide career choices and roles that feel coherent and meaningful.

Thus, option C. Identifying life themes is correct, as it captures the core narrative task of career construction counseling.

A. Analyzing temperament fits more with trait-based or psychometric approaches.

B. Documenting experience may occur, but it is secondary to making sense of those experiences through themes.

D. Practicing interview skills is a useful career skill-building task but is not the central activity of career construction counseling.

NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas expect counselors to understand major career theories and approaches, including narrative and constructivist models that emphasize life themes, meaning-making, and storytelling in career development.

Effective treatment planning is described as a dynamic, ongoing process. Counselors are expected to regularly review treatment goals and progress and revise the plan as needed to reflect the client’s current status.

When a client meets treatment goals earlier than expected, the most appropriate step is to revisit the treatment plan, confirm which goals have been successfully achieved, and then:

Decide whether to add new goals,

Shift focus to maintenance or relapse prevention, or

Begin planning for termination if appropriate.

Option C captures this responsibility to review and revise the treatment plan based on actual client progress.

A (changing medication) is a medical decision and may or may not be relevant; it is not the primary treatment-planning response.

B (referral to group) could be appropriate in some cases, but it should follow a thoughtful treatment-plan review.

D (understanding attitude toward treatment) may be clinically useful, but again it is not the primary, required next step in structured treatment planning.

This directly reflects the Treatment Planning work behavior: monitoring progress and modifying plans to ensure services remain appropriate and goal-directed.

During intake, assessment, and diagnosis, counselors are expected to collaborate with clients, involve them actively in understanding what is being assessed, and explain the purpose and implications of diagnosis. This includes:

Using the client’s self-report as an essential source of data.

Inviting questions and feedback about symptoms and diagnostic impressions.

Promoting transparency and shared understanding rather than a “secret” label.

Therefore, involving the client actively (A) best reflects ethical and competent diagnostic practice.

B. Conceal the diagnosis from the client is inconsistent with informed consent and collaborative practice.

C. Discuss treatment alternatives is important but is more central to treatment planning after diagnosis, not to the diagnostic process itself.

D. Accept any previous diagnosis without reassessment ignores the responsibility to re-evaluate current functioning, context, and symptoms.

This fits NBCC expectations that counselors use diagnosis thoughtfully and collaboratively as part of a larger assessment process.

Within the Core Counseling Attributes domain, counselors are expected to demonstrate an ability to accurately understand and reflect the client’s emotional experience. Empathy involves communicating back to the client an accurate awareness of their internal world, especially their feelings, meanings, and emotional nuances.

Option A reflects this essential skill: the counselor expresses an understanding of what the client is feeling, allowing the client to feel heard, validated, and emotionally understood. This is central to building the therapeutic relationship and promoting client growth.

Why the other options are incorrect:

B. Nod their head frequently: This is a nonverbal attending skill, but nodding alone does not establish empathy or convey an understanding of the client’s emotional experience.

C. Open posture: Although helpful for rapport and presence, posture alone does not demonstrate emotional understanding and therefore is not empathy by itself.

D. Provide a detailed summary: Summarizing is a useful skill, but a detailed summary may focus on content rather than the client’s emotional experience, and therefore does not fully represent empathy.

The NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas emphasize that empathy involves accurately perceiving and clearly communicating the client’s emotional state, making option A the correct answer.

The term “outsider witness groups” comes specifically from narrative therapy. In this approach, clients tell and re-author their stories, and selected others (outsider witnesses) listen to these stories and then respond by sharing what moved or resonated with them. This process:

Brings in social resources and supportive witnesses.

Strengthens the client’s preferred identity and alternative story.

Helps the client feel seen and supported in a broader community context.

Thus, option D. Narrative therapy is correct.

Adlerian therapy (A) uses family constellation, early recollections, and encouragement, but not outsider witness groups as a standard technique.

Gestalt therapy (B) emphasizes experiential awareness, here-and-now work, and empty-chair techniques.

Community psychology (C) incorporates social systems and resources but does not specifically use “outsider witness groups” as conceptualized in narrative therapy.

NBCC Counselor Work Behaviors expect counselors to know the distinctive concepts and methods of major counseling theories, including narrative therapy’s use of outsider witnesses to support client change.

Reality therapy, grounded in choice theory, emphasizes that clients are responsible for their choices and can learn to make more effective ones. In group counseling, the approach focuses on:

What members are doing and thinking in the present.

Encouraging effective action plans.

Acknowledging feelings but emphasizing choices and behaviors.

Personal responsibility and evaluation of whether current behavior is helping members meet their needs.

Option D accurately reflects this: reality therapy groups highlight actions, thinking, feelings, and individual choice, with particular attention to behavior and responsibility within the group context.

Why the others are incorrect:

A. Nondirective stance: Reality therapy is typically active and directive, not nondirective; the leader is engaged, confronts inconsistencies, and helps members plan.

B. Emphasis on the analysis of resistance: Rather than deeply analyzing “resistance,” reality therapy focuses on what the member is willing to do now and helping them design realistic, responsible plans.

C. The leader outlines a strategy: In reality therapy, the counselor helps members formulate their own plans; the leader does not simply prescribe or impose a strategy.

This matches NBCC Counselor Work Behavior Areas for group work and interventions, which expect counselors to understand how theoretical orientation shapes the focus of group sessions, the leader’s role, and the type of change process emphasized.

Transference is a core relationship phenomenon in counseling in which a client unconsciously redirects feelings, expectations, and patterns from important early relationships (often parents or caregivers) onto the counselor. A common form of this is when the client begins to relate to the counselor as if the counselor were a parental figure—idealized, critical, abandoning, overprotective, or nurturing in ways that mirror their early experiences.

This makes B the best answer: it captures the classic understanding of transference as the client viewing and reacting to the counselor in a parental role.

A (wanting a counselor who shares their culture) is a preference about counselor characteristics and is more related to cultural competence and matching, not transference.

C (developing strong emotions) is too broad; clients can have strong feelings without it being transference. Transference specifically involves repetition of earlier relational patterns.

D (wanting a counselor with the same diagnosis) is again a preference for perceived similarity, not an unconscious displacement of past relationship dynamics.

Recognizing and working with transference appropriately is part of the counselor’s core counseling attributes (self-awareness, relationship skills, and understanding of interpersonal processes) as outlined in professional counselor work behaviors.

In accountability and program evaluation, counselors are expected to use data that reflects actual client change to demonstrate effectiveness. Within professional practice, the most powerful and persuasive evidence is outcome data, because it shows:

What changed for clients (e.g., improved career decision-making, job placement, satisfaction with career choice).

The degree to which program goals and client objectives were met.

The impact of services on client functioning and development.

By comparison:

Input data focuses on what resources went into the program (e.g., staff, time, materials).

Context data describes the environment or client population characteristics.

Process data shows what was done (activities, number of sessions), but not whether it worked.

NBCC-aligned counselor work behaviors emphasize using results-focused (outcome) data for accountability to stakeholders and for improving services, which is why outcome data has the greatest impact.

In the intake, assessment, and diagnosis domain, counselors must distinguish among common mental disorders based on symptom patterns. Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by:

Excessive anxiety and worry occurring more days than not

Worry that is difficult to control

Concerns that are broad and diffuse, often about everyday events or activities

Associated symptoms such as restlessness, fatigue, muscle tension, irritability, and sleep disturbance

This is captured by Option D: continual yet diffuse and overly-intense reactions to day-to-day stress.

The other options describe different clinical patterns:

A: A persistent lack of enthusiasm with fatigue is more characteristic of depressive disorders.

B: Overconcern with bodily functioning and possible ailments fits somatic symptom–related or illness anxiety presentations, not classic GAD.

C: Repetitive thoughts and ritualistic actions are typical of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Thus, the symptom pattern most consistent with generalized anxiety disorder is D.