Journal prompts for therapy
The useful work between sessions is mostly noticing, and noticing evaporates by Thursday. These prompts are for catching what you would otherwise arrive without, and for the things that only occur to you on the way home.
How to use these
Two entries a week does it: one straight after the session, one the day before the next. Bring the page, or do not; it is yours either way.
Straight after the session
Written on the way home, while it is still loud. Ten minutes here is worth an hour of trying to reconstruct it on Thursday.
- What came up after you left last time?
- What did you not say, and what stopped you?
- What landed today that you were not expecting?
- What did you disagree with, quietly?
- What word did they use that you keep turning over?
- What felt uncomfortable, and was it the useful kind?
- What did you understand today that you already knew?
- What do you want to have thought about before next time?
The week in between
Noticing, not analysing. The raw observation is more useful in the room than the tidy conclusion you drew from it.
- What has been loud this week?
- What happened this week that you want to bring?
- What pattern did you catch yourself in?
- What set you off, and what was actually underneath it?
- What did you notice in your body this week, and when?
- Who did you find difficult this week, and what is familiar about that?
- What did you do differently, even slightly?
- What did you say no to, or wish you had?
The longer arc
Once a month or so. These are the ones that show you the distance, which is invisible week to week.
- What went better than it would have a year ago?
- What are you avoiding talking about?
- What would you want to be different in three months?
- What do you want from the next session, in one sentence?
- What are you doing well that you have not given yourself any credit for?
- What have you stopped doing that you used to think was simply who you are?
- What are you hoping therapy will fix that may not be its job?
- What would you like to be able to say out loud by the end of the year?
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