Your ethics professor spent an entire semester drilling one message into your head: avoid dual relationships. They're boundary violations waiting to happen. They compromise objectivity. They create conflicts of interest. Don't do it.
Then you see this ASWB question: A social worker in a rural community encounters a client at the only AA meeting in town. The client waves and approaches to talk. What should the social worker do FIRST?
And suddenly you're frozen. Because every answer that involves "avoiding" the relationship feels wrong, but every answer that involves engaging feels like it violates everything you learned about boundaries.
Welcome to the ethics of rural practice, where the textbook rules meet messy reality and the ASWB wants to know if you can tell the difference.
In urban or suburban settings, dual relationships are usually avoidable. You can shop at a different grocery store than your clients. Your kids probably don't go to school together. You're unlikely to serve on the same community board or worship at the same small church. The professional boundary is relatively easy to maintain.
Rural practice throws all of that out the window.
In communities with one grocery store, one gas station, one school, and maybe two churches, you will see your clients everywhere. Your child's teacher might be your client. The person who fixes your car might be in your therapy group. The volunteer fire department you join because it's your civic duty includes three people on your caseload. These aren't boundary violations—they're Tuesday.
Here's what students get wrong: they think the ASWB is testing whether you know dual relationships are bad. That's not the question. The exam is testing whether you can distinguish between unavoidable dual relationships that you manage ethically and problematic dual relationships that exploit or harm clients.
That distinction matters enormously, and it shows up repeatedly in exam questions that students consistently misread.
Not all dual relationships are created equal. The NASW Code of Ethics actually acknowledges this. It says social workers should avoid dual relationships where there's risk of exploitation or harm to clients—but it recognizes that in some communities, dual relationships are unavoidable.
So what makes one dual relationship ethically problematic and another one just a fact of rural life?
Exploitation or harm. If the dual relationship puts the client at risk of being exploited, manipulated, or harmed, it's problematic. This includes relationships where you have power over the client in both roles (like being their therapist and their landlord) or where the relationship could reasonably compromise your professional judgment.
Avoidability. If you could reasonably avoid the dual relationship but choose not to, that's a red flag. Joining the same gym as your client when there are other gyms in town is different from shopping at the only grocery store where you both live.
Client vulnerability. The more vulnerable the client, the more careful you need to be. Dual relationships with clients in crisis, clients with significant power imbalances, or clients who might struggle to maintain boundaries require extra scrutiny.
Your motivation. Are you entering or maintaining this dual relationship primarily for your own needs or convenience? That's exploitative. Or is it genuinely unavoidable given the community context?
The ASWB tests your ability to weigh these factors quickly. Questions about dual relationships rarely have obvious answers—they have two reasonable-sounding options where one handles the ethical complexity appropriately and one doesn't.
When you hit a dual relationship question on the exam, run through this framework:
Step one: Is harm likely? Not possible—likely. Any relationship carries some risk, but is this dual relationship reasonably likely to harm the client or compromise your professional judgment? If yes, you need to avoid it or address it immediately. If no, keep analyzing.
Step two: Is it avoidable? Could you realistically avoid this situation without isolating yourself from the community or creating even bigger problems? In a city of 500,000, yes. In a town of 1,500, maybe not. The exam will make this clear through context clues.
Step three: What's the power dynamic? Are you in a position of power over the client in the second relationship too? Multiple power imbalances (like being both therapist and employer, or therapist and supervisor) create much higher risk than incidental encounters in the community.
Step four: How do you manage it? If the dual relationship is unavoidable and not inherently harmful, what's your plan for managing boundaries, documenting decisions, obtaining consultation, and keeping the client's welfare central? The exam wants to see that you know how to navigate complexity, not just avoid it.
Most students stop at step one or two. They see "dual relationship" and immediately look for the answer that involves complete avoidance or referral. But many rural practice questions are testing steps three and four—can you manage the complexity ethically?
Let's work through scenarios that mirror actual exam questions:
Scenario one: The grocery store encounter. You run into a client at the only grocery store in town. They wave and approach you with their family.
Students often pick answers about avoiding eye contact, quickly leaving the store, or firmly redirecting the client to discuss things only during sessions. These responses treat a normal community encounter like a boundary violation.
The better answer acknowledges the client briefly and naturally, following their lead on whether to chat or simply say hello, while keeping any conversation appropriate for a public setting. You live in the same small community. Pretending you don't know each other creates more awkwardness and signals to the client that there's something shameful about receiving services.
Scenario two: The community board. You serve on a nonprofit board and discover a new member is your client. The client seems uncomfortable but doesn't say anything.
Students frequently pick answers about immediately resigning from the board or insisting the client withdraw. But those answers don't consider whether either action is necessary or fair.
The better answer involves discussing the situation privately with the client, exploring their comfort level, considering what roles you each play on the board and whether conflicts are likely, and potentially seeking consultation. You might need to recuse yourself from certain decisions or resign if conflicts can't be managed—but that determination requires conversation and assessment, not automatic withdrawal.
Scenario three: The social relationship. A former client who completed treatment six months ago invites you to a community event. Several of your current clients will also be there.
This is where students really struggle. Some pick answers that refuse all social contact with former clients ever. Others pick answers that accept the invitation without considering the impact on current clients who might see you socializing with someone they know was in treatment.
The better answer weighs multiple factors: How long since treatment ended? What was the nature of treatment? What's the likelihood of needing to resume treatment? How might your presence together affect other clients? Is this truly a community event where many people will be present, or is it a small gathering? The exam won't always give you enough information to make a perfect decision—it wants to see that you consider the relevant factors.
The NASW Code of Ethics is more nuanced about dual relationships than most students remember. Let's look at what it actually says:
Standard 1.06(c): "Social workers should not engage in dual or multiple relationships with clients or former clients in which there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the client."
Notice: "risk of exploitation or potential harm." Not "any dual relationship ever." The code acknowledges that some dual relationships are unavoidable and focuses on preventing harm.
Standard 1.06(d): "When dual or multiple relationships are unavoidable, social workers should take steps to protect clients and are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries."
This is the standard most relevant to rural practice. It explicitly says when dual relationships are unavoidable, your job is to manage them appropriately—not to abandon the client or isolate yourself from the community.
Standard 1.06(c) continues: "Dual or multiple relationships can occur simultaneously or consecutively."
This matters for questions about former clients. The ethical considerations don't magically disappear the day treatment ends, but they do change over time. A former client you saw for three sessions two years ago is different from a client you worked with intensively for eighteen months who terminated last month.
When you're reviewing practice questions, pull out your code of ethics and actually read Standard 1.06 in full. Many students are working from a simplified version they remember from school that's more restrictive than what the code actually requires.
Here's what makes these questions so hard: the ASWB isn't asking about simple boundary violations. Those are easy to spot and students usually get them right. Don't date your clients. Don't borrow money from clients. Don't hire clients as your personal employees. Clear violations, clear answers.
The exam tests the gray areas where reasonable social workers might disagree. Should you attend a funeral for a client's family member when the entire small town will be there? Should you accept a gift from a client's family when refusing might be culturally offensive? Should you refer a client to a colleague 60 miles away to avoid a potential dual relationship, even though that creates a significant barrier to the client receiving services?
These questions don't have objectively right answers in the abstract. They have better and worse ways of approaching the ethical dilemma. The exam rewards answers that show sophisticated ethical reasoning: weighing multiple factors, prioritizing client welfare, seeking consultation, documenting decisions, and managing relationships rather than simply avoiding complexity.
Students who think about ethics in black-and-white terms struggle with these questions. Students who can hold complexity do better.
Start by examining your own assumptions about dual relationships. When you review practice questions, notice whether you're automatically looking for the answer that involves the most distance or avoidance. That instinct serves you well for clear boundary violations, but it leads you astray on rural practice scenarios.
Look for these clues that a question is testing rural practice ethics specifically:
For these questions, the right answer usually involves:
Pay attention to qualifiers in the answer options. "Never" and "always" are red flags in dual relationship questions. "Discuss with the client," "seek consultation," and "establish boundaries" are often part of correct answers for unavoidable dual relationships.
The difference between knowing this framework and applying it correctly under exam conditions is the difference between passing and failing the ethics portion of the ASWB. You need to practice making these judgment calls quickly, with incomplete information, when two answers both sound reasonable.
Try a practice exam that includes realistic rural practice scenarios with the kind of ethical ambiguity you'll face on test day. Pay attention to how the rationales break down the decision-making process—that's what you need to internalize before you sit for the actual exam.
The exam isn't testing whether you memorized "dual relationships are bad." It's testing whether you can navigate the ethical complexity of real social work practice. That's a different skill, and it requires different preparation.
Right now, get SWTP's online practice exams at a reduced price. Just $39. Get additional savings when buying more than one exam at a time-- less than $30 per exam!
Keep going till you pass. Extensions are free.
To receive our free study guide and get started!