One common stressor I’ve seen with students I tutor is that oftentimes they are under a sort of pressure (to varying degrees) from their places of employment, and/or themselves to pass the exam. Sometimes passing the licensing exam means being able to keep their current job, or becoming employed at all.
One of the most striking ideas I encountered in all of my graduate school reading assignments was one attributed to Dan Siegel, “We feel, therefore we learn.” (Source) In other words, we must connect to something before we integrate it as part of ourselves. One of my favorite professors loved Dan Siegel and his research and… Read More Learning with Emotion and through Relationship
“You need to make mistakes in rehearsal because that’s how you find out what works and what doesn’t.” – Clarke Peters Some time ago, I had written a post about battling text anxiety. One of the hopeful takeaway points is that if you’ve graduated from your MSW program, you already know this stuff. The test,… Read More Dress Rehearsal: Taking A Full Practice Exam
It seems to be a rite of passage that when you enter social work school, you’ll have that one (or several) professor(s) who will say, “you know you’re not going to make a lot of money, right?” The class will usually have a mixture of reactions. Many will laugh, one or several people will vocalize social work… Read More Money and Social Work
One of the very first pieces of advice that I tell students (and although I’m not affiliated with the ASWB, I think that they would agree with me too) is that the number one thing to avoid doing on the exam is using “tricks” or “tips.” Sometimes this impulse comes from attending well-intentioned bootcamps that will… Read More Magic Tricks: What Not To Do For The Exam
Pop quiz time! A social worker is doing an intake assessment at an inpatient psychiatric unit with a 45 year-old male client, who states he is Godzilla. The client has no known history of substance abuse, which resulted negative during toxicology. Medical rule out for any other neurological conditions is also negative. What is the… Read More Magical Thinking: Delusions, Reality, and Treatment.
In a world of ZocDoc reviews, where “Yelp for people” is even considered a debate, and where more practitioners are turning to an online presence for marketing, it becomes increasingly more challenging for clinicians to clarify boundaries beyond the consultation room. At the very least, maintaining the “analytic anonymity” that the early psychoanalysts encouraged their… Read More Social Media, Texting, Boundaries, and the Consultation Room
Our clients most often come to us at their most vulnerable state when we first meet them. One of the toughest calls for social workers is determining when and how to make a suicide assessment. What is the short answer for the exam and practice? Always. Assessment is an ongoing process during engagement, treatment, and… Read More Suicide Assessment: Assessing through the Grays by Balancing Risk and Protective Factors
For those social workers trained under the older DSM IV-TR, the changes in the DSM-5 can seem like an overwhelming roadblock to preparing for the licensing exam. The DSM-5 brings with it many changes, and many of the posts on this blog will address each change piece by piece. Before looking at the “meat and… Read More DSM-IV TR versus DSM-5: Turned on its Axes
Summer is coming to an end, and what an eventful summer it has been, both in the United States and in the social work world: With marriage equality legalized in all 50 States for just over a month, what will this mean for social workers in practice, most who are already working with LGBT individuals?… Read More The Genderbread Person: Gender, Sexuality, the DSM, and the Social Work Exam
