With Feeling: "I Will Pass the Social Work exam!"

Will you pass the social work exam? Depends upon who you ask. Your enemies, frenemies, and detractors may be rooting against you and doubt you can do it. Don't join them in their small-minded games! You can and you will pass the social work exam.

Repeat this to yourself: "I will pass the social work exam!"

I can't hear you! "I will pass the social work exam!"

With feeling! "I will pass the social work exam!"

Now, make it happen. Yes, you'll have to study. Yes, you'll have to refuse an invitation or two. Yes, it'll be a drag for a while. There will be practice tests, maybe study groups. You may have to take the exam more than once (no big deal!). There will be confusion and missteps and dejection and fatigue. But then, finally, you'll be ready, you'll go in, you'll endure the four-hours, the 170 questions (including some impossible-seeming ones), and at the end of it all, you'll hit submit. And you'll have your answer.

What's it going to say? 

Don't ask your inner doubter. Don't ask the haters. Ask your can-do, confident, social work warrior self.

The answer: pass.

Social and Political Action

When was the last time you read over the NASW Code of Ethics through to the end? Here's a section that you'll find there:  Social and Political Action. It's worth a review. It's something that's likely to be on exam writers' minds and so may show up on the exam. Take a look:

(a) Social workers should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully. Social workers should be aware of the impact of the political arena on practice and should advocate for changes in policy and legislation to improve social conditions in order to meet basic human needs and promote social justice.

(b) Social workers should act to expand choice and opportunity for all people, with special regard for vulnerable, disadvantaged, oppressed, and exploited people and groups.

(c) Social workers should promote conditions that encourage respect for cultural and social diversity
within the United States and globally. Social workers should promote policies and practices that demonstrate respect for difference, support the expansion of cultural knowledge and resources, advocate for programs and institutions that demonstrate cultural competence, and promote policies that safeguard the rights of and confirm equity and social justice for all people.

(d) Social workers should act to prevent and eliminate domination of, exploitation of, and discrimination against any person, group, or class on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, marital status, political belief, religion, immigration status, or mental or physical ability.

Quick Quizzes for Social Work Exam Preppers

How well do you have the DSM understood? How about the NASW Code of Ethics? The Pass the ASWB Exam blog is standing by to put your knowledge to the test. Or, should we say, the quiz.

On the blog, find a series of quick quizzes designed to help you strengthen and identify weak spots in your knowledge. Take, for example, these three diagnoses. Do you know them right away just from a clipped definition? (A clipped definition, or less, is all you're likely to find on the ASWB Exam.)

1. Intrusion symptoms, avoidance, and cognitive alterations following exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury, or sexual violence.

2. In children, a consistent pattern of inhibited, emotionally withdrawn behavior, emotional and social disturbance following extremes of insufficient care.

3. Disruption of identity characterized by two or more distinct personality states with recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events.

That's from Name That Diagnosis IV (answers there).

As the blog repeatedly states, the quick quizzes are not what you'll find on the real social work exam. (For questions in the style of the actual exam, check out SWTP.)  But these helpful nonetheless. Enjoy them. And enjoy your ever-growing social work knowledge and wisdom.

New NASW Code of Ethics

There's not a lot of new to the social work licensing exam. They test you on social work basics, on DSM fundamentals, and on the NASW Code of Ethics. But this year, one of those has changed. The NASW has published a new edition of the code. That means new things to learn and new things to expect on the ASWB exam.

To get up to speed on the changes--mostly regarding the use of tech in social work--read the code itself, take a look at one of these summaries, or give a listen to Social Work Podcast chats on the subject. Or just skip those and start taking practice tests.

However you approach it, if you're social working and/or social work exam prepping, it's got to be faced. Dive in!

Free Exam Practice

It used to be that everything cost something. News, information, entertainment. The internet has changed that. We've grown accustomed to free and steady updates of news, gossip, and cat videos. Why shouldn't the same apply to social work licensing exam help? Well, it does!

Here, via SWTP, is a series of free practice questions. Each question comes with some explanation about content and how to work your way to the right answer. Plus, a link to other sites to get more (free) information on the topic. Click "DSM" or "Ethics" under the questions if you want to focus just on those. Otherwise, the link will get you the whole batch of free questions. Edge your way back through blog time and on toward your eventual licensing exam success!

The 6 Core Values of Social Work to Remember for the Social Work Exam

According to the NASW Social Work Code of Ethics, the 6 core values of social work are:

1. Service- to provide help, resources,  and benefits to help people achieve maximum potential
2. Social Justice- to uphold equal rights, protection, opportunity, social benefits to everyone
3. Dignity and worth- every person is unique and worthwhile

4. Importance of human relationships- to value the exchange between social worker and client

5. Integrity-maintain trustworthiness 

6. Competence-practice within the scope of known skills and abilities

They really are such beautiful values for a profession, don't you think?

Don't forget to be proud of choosing such a helpful and worthwhile profession and make sure to study up on the Code of Ethics found here. And also remember that practice really helps lock all this information--you're going to pass the exam!

The Top 4 Goals of Analytic Therapy

Carl Jung is well known for his analytic therapy where the idea of the collective unconscious and the personal conscious came about. He believed that our past does not dictate who we are but rather can be reintegrated and changed with our future selves. This development of self knowledge by reflection from the past is a key goal in Analytic Therapy. It also is not a brief therapy and oftentimes clients are in therapy for a number of years.

The top 4 goals are as follows:

1)Reclaiming parts of the self through looking back on the past

2)Diving into the unconscious (dreams and emotional analysis) and conscious

3)Learning to become self aware

4)Bringing the past and present together

Learn more about Analytic Therapy by clicking here