Examination Glossary Flashcards
Abreaction
An emotional release after recalling a painful experience that has been repressed because it was not tolerable to the conscious mind. A therapeutic effect sometimes occurs through partial or repeated discharge of the painful affect.
Absolute Poverty
The possession of meager income and assets so that the person cannot maintain a subsistence level of income.
Access Provision
Actions taken by social agencies to ensure that their services (or a program’s services) are available to the target population. Examples include educating the public about the service, establishing convenient referral procedures, and having ombudsperson services to deal with obstacles to getting services
Accommodation (Piaget)
The modification of existing cognitive schemas to incorporate new knowledge
Acculturation
The cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture. Includes the degree to which a member of a culturally diverse group within a society accepts and adheres to the behaviors, values, attitudes, etc of his/her own group and the dominant (majority) group. Contemporary models of acculturation view it as an ongoing process and emphasize that individuals can take on the values, attitudes and behaviors of their new culture without abandoning those of their indigenous culture
Active Listening
Helping skills that require social workers to, first, attend to a client’s verbal and nonverbal messages and, then, reflect back what they have heard so that the client will know that his/her message has been in understood accurately. Active listening skills include encouragers, clarification, paraphrase, reflection, and summarization, and exploring silences
Activities of a Daily Living
Social worker refer to the ability or inability to perform activities of daily living (ADLs) as a measurement of a person’s functional status. ADL criteria are useful for clients with physical disabilities, clients who are elderly, and clients who have chronic diseases or serious mental disorders (i.e. Schizophrenia)
Acute Stress Disorder
The diagnosis of acute stress disorder requires the development of at least nine symptoms following exposure to actual or threatened death, severe injury, or sexual violation in at least one of four ways (direct experience of the event; witnessing the event in person as it happened to others; learning that the event occurred to a close family member or friend; repeated or extreme exposure to aversive details of the event). Symptoms can be from any of five categories (intrusion, negative mood, dissociative symptoms, avoidance symptoms, arousal symptoms) and have a duration of three days to one month
Adaptation (Piaget)
According to Piaget, cognitive development occurs when a state of disequilibrium brought on by a discrepancy between the person’s current understanding of the world and reality is resolved through adaptation, which involves the processes of assimilation and accommodation.
Additive Empathetic Responding
Empathetic responses that reach beyond the factual aspects and surface feelings of a client’s message to also reflect its implied content and underlying feelings. Because they are interpretive, these responses can increase a client’s awareness of his/her feelings and new ways of resolving a problem
Adjustment Disorders
The adjustment disorders involve the development of emotional or behavioral symptoms in response to one or more identifiable psychosocial stressors within three months of the onset of the stressor(s). Symptoms must be clinically significant as evidenced by the presence of marked distress that is not proportional to the severity of the stressor and/ or significant impairment in functioning, and they use remit within six months after termination of the stressor or its consequences
Administrative Supervision
Supervision function concerned with providing the work structure and agency resources workers need to perform their jobs effectively
Adult Protective Services (APS)
Social, medical, legal, residential, custodial and other services provided for adults who are unable to provide this care for themselves and have no friends, family, etc who can provide the care. Individuals who receive these services are typically unable to act for themselves which places them at risk for being harmed or harming others. Eligibility or need for service is usually determined by the courts
Advance Directive
A legal document though which an individual makes her/his wishes known about healthcare in the event that s/he should become incapacitated and unable to communicate these wishes.
Advocate
A social worker role that involves working with and on behalf of clients to ensure that the receive the services and benefits to which they are entitled and that the services are delivered in ways that protect their dignity
