Worksheets
Pair this with the daily metaphor-practice log. The week-end reflection is where the client integrates which metaphor became actually theirs.
Decisional-balance work for the behaviour the client knows is bad for them but keeps doing. Externalising the trade-off shows them why the behaviour persists.
One significant act of kindness per week beats daily small ones for mood. Plan it, do it, write back what happened.
Personal examples of each common cognitive distortion. The psychoeducation worksheet that builds the vocabulary before any thought-record work begins.
Seeking-forgiveness half of the structured forgiveness process. Seven fields that force the client to name the harm before the apology.
A short repeating log for clients who are ready to catch a thought, name the distortion, and replace it. Built for in-the-moment use, not Sunday-evening journaling.
DBT opposite-action skill tracked across the week. The log builds the evidence base the urge keeps insisting won't show up.
Graded exposure with the ladder and the completed-steps log on a single worksheet. The actual-versus-predicted distress data is what the cognitive work runs on.
Defusion through absurdity. Bypasses the seriousness defence that keeps cognitive restructuring stuck. Not for trauma or active crisis.
Values and roles distilled to a one-sentence purpose. The lever is the gap between the values named and the life the client is currently living.
The companion log to the humour list. Before-and-after anxiety scores show whether the defusion is actually loosening the worry or just being performed.
Goal decomposition with dates and an obstacles section that pushes for the internal ones, not just the external. The dates are what makes the next session productive.
Daily PMR with mood-before and mood-after slider. The data tells you whether the relaxation response is engaging or whether something is blocking it.
The granting half of the structured forgiveness process. Holds the distinction between forgiving and reconciling, which clients tend to collapse.
Importance versus difficulty for each thing the client wants from a partner. The gap exposes the conflict zones and the quietly missing pieces.
Gratitude works clinically when the entries include the action component. Without it, the practice degrades into rote compliance.
Two weeks of structured sleep data. The methods column and the hours-versus-tiredness gap are where the diagnosis usually lives.
A grief-symptom checklist for clients past the six-month mark whose grief isn't moving normally. Useful for prolonged grief screening and for naming what the client has been carrying.
Three categories: immediate, anticipatory, daily. The daily column is where the real prevention work happens, and it's the column most clients skip.
Graded social exposure for clients who avoid small talk by dismissing it as meaningless. The duration column counts thirty seconds as a successful exposure.
Personal rituals outperform public ones in grief work because they restore agency. The worksheet helps the client design their own rather than inherit ones that don't fit.
Predicted effectiveness rarely matches lived effectiveness. The tracker is what tells you which soothing activities actually work for this client.
Behavioural activation for the social dimension. Pick a small number of doable activities, push for the relational ones over the safer parallel-presence ones.
The companion to the grounding techniques list. The tracker is what tells you which techniques actually work for this client, in their own week, with real data.
Late-treatment relapse-prevention worksheet. The early-warning section matters most because clients who only notice trouble post-crash relapse more deeply.
For clients who already know what helps but don't do it. The three-week tracking is the intervention, not the planning.
The starter menu the client builds for themselves before any acute episode. Match technique intensity to dissociation severity.
Sort the stressors. Some are fixed, some are changeable, and naming the difference is half the work for clients stuck in helplessness.
Functional analysis of a single upsetting event. The split between what the client wanted to do and what they did surfaces the impulse-action gap.
Language for asking directly. The worksheet that turns vague resentment about well-meaning support into specific requests the client can voice.
Recent life events, including the 'good' ones the client stopped counting. Useful at intake and any time symptoms are diffuse.
Awe widens the self-focused mind. The exercise maps where the client reliably feels it and plans to seek more of it.
The specific person for each kind of support. Blank categories and over-relied-on names are both clinical material.
Real I-statements rehearsed for specific people. The structure exposes accusations dressed as I-statements and forces what the client actually wants into view.
Personalised distress-tolerance tools, prepared in calm and reachable in crisis. Build it with the client in session, not as homework.
A written, witnessed commitment to a specific behavior change. The witness is the working part. Without one, the contract degrades into journaling.
Intake worksheet that covers symptoms, life areas, and the actual goal for treatment. The how-will-you-know question is the most predictive item in the form.
The cost column does the work. Clients see what each harsh judgment of others is costing them, and the cost is almost always larger than the protection.
A self-rating of social and emotional skills paired with concrete examples. The examples force the cognitive filter to engage with actual evidence rather than global self-image.
The foundational behavioural activation tool for depression. Mastery and pleasure ratings expose the gap between perceived flatness and actual variation.
The full Beck thought record. Use it after the client is comfortable with the shorter log, and read the re-rated emotion at the end as the data point that opens next session.
Self-attack catalogued and tracked across a week. The cost column shows what the inner critic is taking from the client's actual life.
A week of logging surfaces patterns clients are convinced don't exist. Run before any cognitive or behavioural intervention to find the structure.
Laura King's prospective writing exercise, structured across five domains. Useful when standard goal-setting has stalled because the client can't imagine a future.
End-of-treatment review and monthly progress check. The one-thing-that-mattered-most answer is often what the therapist didn't predict.
Values clarification with a concrete plan attached. The rating exposes the gap between what the client says matters and what they're actually investing in.
Plan and tracker on the same worksheet. The gap between planned and actual is the data, and it shows up in week one.
A planned behavioural experiment for facing anxiety without the usual safety behaviour. The point is data, not endurance.
Structured review of any mental health app the client wants to add to their toolkit. Forces past the marketing to check usability, evidence, and privacy.
Self-monitoring alone reduces safety behaviours. The result column is what breaks the protective belief, in the client's own data.
Active listening rehearsed against a real conversation, with structured reflection. The reflection is where the learning happens, not the technique list.
Informal mindfulness practice tracked daily. The right entry-point for clients who won't commit to formal sitting practice but will eat lunch with their phone away.
The identification worksheet that runs before any safety-behaviour work. Most clients under-report on first pass. Expect to revisit it as treatment progresses.
Predicted versus actual enjoyment, captured for the activities the depressed client used to like. Anhedonia distorts both anticipation and recall.
The worksheet that surfaces the gap between how the client treats a hypothetical friend and how they treat themselves. The gap is the working material.
Seven-day correlation log for clients whose mood is being shaped by intake patterns they haven't connected to their symptoms.
Stop guessing what'll get the client moving. The rating across ten strategies tells you which to lean on, and the low scores tell you what's blocking them.
The client describes themselves, then asks two or three trusted people to write back. The gap is therapeutic in either direction.