The ultimate guide to finding a therapist
GoodTherapy has worked collaboratively with top experts to create the ultimate guide to choosing the right therapist.
This worksheet starts by explaining different types of therapy and guides users through various exercises designed to help people seeking therapy understand how to find the right therapist and prepare for their first session.
Download the FREE Guide to Finding a Therapist
Anxiety can mean nervousness, worry, or self-doubt. Sometimes, the cause of anxiety is easy to spot, while other times it may not be. Everyone feels some level of anxiety once in a while. But overwhelming, recurring, or “out of nowhere” dread can deeply impact people. Below are free resources and worksheets for anxiety.
Starting the Conversation Around Suicide
Having a conversation about suicide is never easy.
Suicide has been deemed a major public health crisis within countless countries, states, and cities. Many places have also declared the warning signs that often lead to suicide — loneliness, depression, or addiction, for instance — an issue of epidemic-level proportions.
With September designated as Suicide Prevention Month, it’s important to remind ourselves and others of what to look for, how to help loved ones at risk, and educate the public on ways to mitigate it.
Download a FREE Worksheet on Starting the Conversation Around Suicide
Coping with Holiday Grief
Holiday flicks, advertisements, and social media reinforce the holidays as a joyous time void of longstanding tensions, loneliness, or grief. After all, colleagues don’t dish about their untimely breakups at the company party, and families don’t brag about bitter feuds in their annual Christmas cards.
But many times, that’s the unfortunate reality of the holidays. And when you’ve lost a loved one — or perhaps you’re estranged from someone you care about — feelings of grief are typically exacerbated.
Let’s look at the connection between holidays and grief, how to cope and ways to support people during the holiday season.
Download a FREE Resource on Coping with Holiday Grief
Decatastrophizing
Decatastrophizing is a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) technique that involves questioning your thoughts and beliefs about a situation. By learning to accurately assess situations and consciously reframing negative thoughts, individuals can alleviate some of the pressures associated with this cognitive distortion.
Download a FREE Decatastrophizing Worksheet
Cognitive Distortions
When we feel anxious or overwhelmed, we tend to have negative thoughts that feed into our feelings. Catastrophizing can be an incredibly detrimental cognitive distortion that can negatively impact a person’s mental well-being. When someone is catastrophizing, they are essentially convinced that the worst possible outcome is not only possible but also probable.
This type of thinking can lead to a significant amount of stress, anxiety, and fear as they continuously focus on the negative. It’s important to recognize that catastrophizing can be a vicious cycle that feeds into itself, making it increasingly difficult to break free.
Download a FREE Cognitive Distortions Worksheet
Exposure Therapy
Exposure Tracking Homework
Living with anxiety and fear can be emotionally exhausting and restrict us from experiencing the world around us. However, it is encouraging to know that there is a process that can help uslearn to live a more fulfilling and satisfying life by conquering our fears and anxieties.
Exposure tracking is a methodical way to face our fears. It is a gradual approach that allows us to develop resilience and confront our fears systematically. Through documenting our experiences and tracking our progress, we can get a better understanding of our triggers and work on reducing our anxiety and overwhelm. By facing our fears, we can start to chip away at the hold they have on us and rediscover the joys of everyday life.
With patience and perseverance, our exposure therapy tracking worksheet can be a powerful tool for managing anxiety and leading a more fulfilling life.
Download a FREE Exposure Tracking Log
Exploring your Worries
Exploring Worries Homework
Anxiety usually causes individuals to think the worst outcome is destined to happen. This can make it hard to think objectively or problem-solve effectively.
When experiencing such thoughts, it’s essential to take a step back, breathe deeply, and try to evaluate the situation objectively. When you are anxious about something, try and think about the most likely scenario. Intentionally focus your thoughts on what is most likely to happen, not everything that could happen.
Our anxiety worksheet can help you gain perspective and focus on the most likely outcomes. By taking control of one’s thoughts, it’s possible to reduce the impact of anxiety and maintain a healthy and balanced mindset.
Download a FREE Worksheet on Exploring Your Worries
What Could vs What Will Happen
R.A.I.N Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a state of nonjudgmental awareness of what’s happening in the present moment, including awareness of one’s own thoughts, feelings, and senses. RAIN is a mindfulness practice that will help you focus on the present and cope with uncomfortable thoughts and emotions.
Practicing Gratitude
Whether you’re struggling with depression or just feeling down, practicing gratitude can be a powerful tool to help manage your feelings and improve happiness and wellbeing.
Intentionally recognizing and appreciating the good things in our lives helps us access positive emotions such as joy, love, contentment, compassion, and hope. It also helps us appreciate what we have in life despite our struggles.
A consistent practice of expressing gratitude can also lead to building self-esteem, improving relationships, enhancing empathy and compassion, reducing stress, and even improving physical health.
Download a FREE Guide to Practicing Gratitude
Download FREE Gratitude Exercises
How to Support Someone with Depression
Supporting people with depression can be a challenge.
Depression is often perceived as an individual’s personal struggle, but its ripples can have a profound impact on the lives of those close to them. Family and friends frequently find themselves lost and emotionally strained as they try to cope with their loved one’s struggles.
When supporting someone battling depression, it is equally important that the mental and emotional needs of the caregiver are also met. Fortunately, there are practical and meaningful ways can provide support while also taking care of yourself.
Our worksheet offers practical and meaningful strategies that can make a difference for both the person battling depression and those surrounding them. Understanding the proper ways to support a person struggling with depression can greatly enhance the support network’s ability to help their loved one through this difficult journey.
Download a FREE Worksheet on How to Support Someone with Depression
Men’s Mental Health Resources
Public discourse on what it means to “be a man” is often at odds with behaviors like expressing difficult emotions or seeking professional help for mental health struggles. These misinformed ideas of masculinity are often instilled at an early age and are common throughout our social networks, professional lives, and even the pop culture we consume.
But the more men feel comfortable openly discussing such issues, the more we can dispel such myths associating “needing help” with “weakness”. Men are less likely to seek therapy, but it’s not because they are suffering from mental health conditions at lower rates than women.
How to Talk to Men About Mental Health
Automatic Thought Record
The power of our thoughts extends far beyond just shaping our perception of reality; they can control how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. Many times, these thoughts occur automatically, slipping into our consciousness without us even realizing their presence.
These automatic thoughts left unexamined, can greatly impact our emotional well-being, often in detrimental ways. This is especially true when they’re irrational and harmful, as is the case with mental illnesses like depression.
Through consistent practice, individuals can develop a greater awareness of their own thought patterns, allowing them to cultivate a healthier, more positive mindset that directly influences their overall emotional well-being.
Our worksheet provides individuals with exercises designed to help identify negative automatic thoughts and replace them with more rational ones.
Download a FREE Worksheet on Automatic Thought Record
How to Challenge Negative Thinking
Anxiety and depression can be debilitating mental health issues. Often, these issues arise from irrational negative thoughts and beliefs that are not rooted in reality. It can be difficult to combat negative thoughts and beliefs on our own.
Fortunately, there are ways to challenge these negative thoughts and beliefs so that we can ultimately change them for the better. Getting the habit of challenging and exploring negative thinking is an effective way of both identifying and ultimately changing them.
Download a FREE Worksheet on How to Challenge Negative Thinking
Download a FREE Worksheet on Challenging Negative Thoughts
Coping Skills for Depression
Developing positive coping skills are an invaluable way to reduce the symptoms of depression. They can be used in the moment, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, or they can be incorporated into your daily life.
Our worksheet is designed to introduce four coping techniques that have been proven to help relieve depression-related symptoms:
- behavioral activation
- social support
- gratitude journaling
- practicing mindfulness
While no two people experience depression in exactly the same way or require the same coping strategies, our worksheet provides a starting place where individuals can explore which coping skills work best for them.
Download a FREE Guide for Depression Coping Skills
Download a FREE Worksheet on Coping Skills for Depression
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below.
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