Family Therapy II Practice Exam

Paradigms set the basic stance on three linked questions: what is real (ontology), what counts as valid knowledge about that reality (epistemology), and how we go about investigating and knowing it (methodology). This is why the option describing reality, knowledge, and method best captures what a paradigm defines. Because a paradigm guides what phenomena are considered, how we interpret them, and which methods are acceptable to use, it directly shapes inquiry and practice. The other options touch important areas in practice and study, but they are not the fundamental triad that a paradigm delineates: ethics, law, and policy are normative domains influenced by paradigms; diagnosis, treatment, and outcome are clinical processes; and language, culture, and context are contextual factors rather than the core structural dimensions of a paradigm.