Free therapy worksheets are a resource for therapists and clients to use in order to maintain focus and to provide a goal for each session. If you’re looking for a way to create a more structured session with your clients, therapy worksheets could be the ideal solution.
The free worksheets on this page will help you and your clients stay on track during the therapy hour. They can also be used as homework assignments for your clients to use between sessions. Some worksheets are in-depth, others can be completed quickly.
The worksheets cover topics such as: addiction relapse prevention, trauma, self-esteem, self-compassion, OCD, social anxiety, and lots more. They are also an excellent way to help you provide psychological education to your clients.
If you’re just starting out in therapy or like a more structured approach anyway, these free therapy worksheets can help you feel more in control and competent during the session, helping you and your client stay focused on the task at hand.
All worksheets are in PDF format and are easily printable.
To note: these free therapy worksheets have been created by Mark Tyrrell from Uncommon Knowledge, with whom I have had training over the last 20 years and am now an affiliate. See my full affiliate disclosure document here.
Free Therapy Worksheet #1 – Relapse Prevention Planning
A vital component of any addiction treatment programme is relapse prevention. It’s all too easy for clients to slip back into smoking, drinking, drug taking, or gambling when they see others indulging or if they get triggered in some other way.
As if stopping the addiction wasn’t hard enough, staying stopped is often more challenging. But when clients have a plan in place (especially if you’ve helped them mentally rehearse it in hypnosis), they are more able to deal with triggering situations, strengthen their resolve, and commit to a life of freedom.
This 13 page relapse prevention worksheet will help your clients identify their triggers, be fully aware of the consequences of relapse (and how that makes them feel) and help them develop successful coping strategies. It also covers the very useful HOPE acronym, which, in itself, serves as a powerful way to steer clear of the addiction.
As this worksheet is quite in-depth, I suggest you begin the worksheet with your client in session then encourage them to complete it as a homework assignment and bring back to the next session.
Free Therapy Worksheet #2 – Trauma Education
As a therapist you’ll have a steady stream of clients coming to your office suffering from obvious symptoms of trauma or PTSD.
Others seek treatment for addiction, weight loss, depression, lack of confidence etc. unaware that those symptoms may be rooted in unresolved trauma. Indeed, it is suspected that at least 50% of people with addictions have unresolved trauma.
To Note: I’m not suggesting you go rooting around in your client’s memory storeroom looking for hidden traumas! This old Freudian/psycho-analysis approach has had it’s day. If there is a ‘hidden’ trauma it should become more apparent naturally in your discussions with your client.
RELATED CONTENT: See my page on how I treat PTSD with hypnotherapy
This free therapy trauma-education worksheet will provide your clients with the psychological understanding of what causes trauma and, more importantly, how to manage their responses (such as increased anxiety).
The worksheet will also point out the problems of certain therapeutic approaches in the treatment of trauma (such as Critical Incident De-Briefing) and the limitations of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Again, it’s an in-depth worksheet that might best be started in session and then completed by the client at home.
Learn the Rewind technique like thousands of other therapists…
Free Therapy Worksheet #3 – Low Self-Esteem
Along with people with addictions and traumas, another client entering your therapy room will exhibit a low opinion of themselves or, what might be termed, a ‘faulty self-perception’.
You can usually spot it from the get-go…
Lack of eye-contact, sometimes accompanied by a slumped posture, a dismissal of anything positive you might say, their tone of voice or the words they use to tell their story. And not forgetting the well-used mantra of a person with low self-esteem: “I’m not good enough.”
This free worksheet on low self-esteem will help you and your client come to a better understanding of this faulty perception and, more importantly, includes several ways to start them feeling better about themselves.
Remember, rather than being a goal in itself, your client’s self-esteem will improve naturally as a side effect of making certain changes in beliefs, feelings, thoughts, and actions. This is what this worksheet will help them to do and it makes for an excellent homework assignment after the first therapy session.
Free Therapy Worksheet #4 – Behavioural Approaches to Manage OCD
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is notoriously difficult to treat if you only use a thought-based approach (such as CBT). This is because OCD is more driven by emotion than thoughts.
RELATED CONTENT: The failure of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
Thus, a successful treatment of OCD needs to include not only an exploration of thoughts and beliefs but, more importantly, a new way of working with – and responding to – underlying emotions that drive the ritualistic and compulsive behaviours.
This free OCD worksheet will help your client come to a better understanding of their OCD and adjust their behavioural responses. It introduces the idea of OCD as a ‘bully’ and includes ‘Exposure and Response Prevention’ that will help your client feel the feeling without having to respond in the usual way.
Free Therapy Worksheet #5 – Emotional Regulation
In the section about OCD, above, I mentioned ‘working with’ emotions. This is imperative when it comes to the treatment of all psychological conditions. We need to help our clients come to a better way of being with and relating to these feelings.
Indeed, most clients you ever see will have developed symptoms that are, in themselves, an attempt to deal with difficult emotions. Obsessive rituals are an attempt to negate compulsions and intrusive thoughts. Addiction is often driven by underlying and unresolved emotional and/or traumatic incidents. Anger is often caused by a build up of resentment or unmet emotional needs.
This free therapy worksheet on emotional regulation will help your clients with a whole host of different psychological issues they present with. From Generalised Anxiety Disorder to depression, the worksheet will help your clients become clearer about their emotional patterns and develop a healthier response blueprint.
It also explains why emotions happen before thoughts and details the APET model (with a clear explanation of the process known as pattern-matching). Indeed, explaining the APET model itself has helped so many people I’ve treated over the years.
Get more free therapy worksheets
Download more free therapy worksheets to help your clients:
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Develop self compassion
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Reframe negative thoughts
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Explore their identity through self-reflection
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Overcome social anxiety
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Understand and manage impulses
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Navigate relationship challenges
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Meet their emotional needs better
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Recognise emotional triggers
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Develop radical acceptance
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Identify core beliefs
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Establish an attitude of gratitude
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Set personal boundaries
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Become more assertive
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And more
Check out 8 online therapy courses including the Rewind technique (to help your clients with trauma), Precision Hypnosis, How to Lift Depression, and Conversational Reframing
