Behavioral activation first — then everything else.
Ten depression worksheets covering the highest-evidence interventions: behavioral activation, cognitive triad work, Stanley-Brown safety planning, sleep-mood loop, and relapse prevention. Free, printable, client-facing.
Behavioral Activation Schedule
Two weeks of mastery, pleasure, connection
Daily schedule with three domains and mood ratings — the highest-evidence single intervention for depression.
Rumination Interrupt Protocol
Attention shift, not argument
Distinguish rumination from problem-solving; five-step interrupt with a tracking log.
Anhedonia Reactivation Worksheet
Prediction vs actual pleasure
Two-week schedule of used-to-love activities with predicted vs actual pleasure ratings.
Cognitive Triad Worksheet
Self, world, future — depression's three lenses
Beck's triad in your own words, with a less-distorted rewrite of each.
Stanley-Brown Safety Plan
Highest-evidence brief suicide intervention
Six-step safety plan: warning signs, coping, distraction, help, professionals, means restriction.
Sleep-Mood Loop Worksheet
Fix wake time first
Track the bidirectional loop and commit to three non-negotiables that anchor circadian rhythm.
Values Reconnection Worksheet
Widen the narrow
Name five values, find the starved one, take three tiny actions in its direction this week.
Depression Psychoeducation
What it is; what treatment does
Plain-language explanation of depression as a mood disorder with cognitive, behavioral, physical, and social effects.
Depression Relapse Prevention Plan
Early warning signs + maintenance stack
Personal early-warning signs in order they appear, plus non-negotiable weekly maintenance stack.
Activity-Mood Log
Data beats memory
Two weeks of activity and mood-before/after ratings to reveal what reliably moves mood.
Depression Behavioral Experiment
Let mood data decide, not the prediction
Test depression's prediction with one small activity and compare predicted vs actual enjoyment and mastery.
Depression Morning Routine Plan
The lever that outperforms motivation
A five-step protected morning sequence — light, water, movement, contact, one small task — designed for depressed weeks.
Pleasant Activities Menu & Schedule
Action pulls mood, not the other way around
Build a personalized menu of sparks, small mastery tasks, and sensory pleasures, then schedule the week.
Depression Core Beliefs Worksheet
Weigh the absolute, draft a truer rule
Drag 'I'm worthless / nothing changes / I'm a burden' into the open, weigh evidence, and rewrite.
Depression Safety Plan (Plain Language)
Written when steady, ready when you're not
Warning signs, internal coping, people, professionals, and environmental safety — the Stanley-Brown structure in plain English.
PHQ-9 Weekly Tracker
8 weeks of PHQ-9 totals — the trend individual sessions can't show
An 8-row log of weekly PHQ-9 totals with severity band reference, plus reflection prompts on what changed the weeks the score dropped or rose. Includes the item-9 safety-trigger reminder.
How to Create a Safety Plan
The six Stanley-Brown steps, in order
A step-by-step guide to building a suicide safety plan with a client: warning signs, internal coping, distraction, people to tell, professional contacts, and means restriction — with drafting space for each step and an end-of-session checklist.
Safety Plan for Suicidal Ideation
What changes when ideation is current
Clinical guidance for safety planning with active suicidal ideation: the four ideation questions, a specific means-restriction agreement, responses when a client is reluctant, higher-risk periods, and a week of intent tracking.
Crisis Plan vs Safety Plan
Two documents, two jobs
How a client-held safety plan differs from a shared crisis plan, a relapse prevention plan, and a no-suicide contract — plus advance preferences recorded while the client is well.
Frequently asked questions
What are depression worksheets used for?+
They target the two mechanisms with the strongest evidence behind them: behavioural activation, which schedules valued activity ahead of motivation rather than waiting for it, and cognitive work on the automatic thoughts that maintain low mood. Alongside those sit activity and mood tracking, rumination interruption, and — where risk is present — a safety plan.
Which depression worksheet should I start with?+
Behavioural activation, almost always. It is the single most effective self-help structure in depression and it does not require the client to think clearly first, which matters because concentration is usually impaired. Add a thought record once activity has lifted enough for cognitive work to be possible.
Why does behavioural activation come before thought records?+
Because depressed clients are often too cognitively slowed to argue with their own thinking, and because action produces the disconfirming evidence a thought record needs. Waiting to feel motivated before acting inverts the actual sequence — mood follows activity far more reliably than activity follows mood.
How do I use these with a client who won't complete anything?+
Shrink the ask until it is nearly trivial and do the first one in session. Non-completion in depression is usually the illness rather than resistance, so a page requiring five minutes and no decisions will land where a full week's schedule will not. Anhedonia means the reward for completing homework is missing, so build the reward into the session.
Do these replace medication or treatment for severe depression?+
No. They support psychological treatment and are not a substitute for it, and severe depression, psychotic features, or significant suicidality all warrant psychiatric involvement and consideration of a higher level of care.
Is the safety plan appropriate for any clinician to use?+
The Stanley-Brown Safety Planning Intervention is designed to be used across settings — ED, primary care, therapy. Any suicidality warrants collaboration with a qualified clinician and consideration of higher levels of care.
Also built for this work
Try the Behavioral Activation Planner interactive tool
Send it to your client between sessions and see what comes back before your next appointment.
Built for Depression therapists
See the worksheets, trackers, and between-session flows designed for your practice.