ASWB Clinical Practice Exam 2025 – Complete Study Resource

When a social worker seeks to normalize a client's feelings of inadequacy, the appropriate technique employed is validating. This approach involves acknowledging and affirming the client's emotions, helping them understand that what they feel is not unusual and that many people experience similar feelings. Validation serves to create a supportive environment where the client feels heard and understood, which can reduce feelings of isolation and shame associated with inadequacy.

In this context, validating the client's feelings helps them to accept and work through their emotions, realizing that experiencing such feelings can be a common human experience. This technique fosters an atmosphere of trust and safety, encouraging the client to express themselves more openly.

The other techniques—reflecting, paraphrasing, and clarifying—serve different purposes. Reflecting involves mirroring back what the client has said to enhance understanding. Paraphrasing means restating the client's words in a different way to confirm understanding, while clarifying involves asking questions to ensure comprehension of their message. While these techniques are valuable, they do not specifically aim to normalize feelings in the same way that validating does.