Life Story Worksheet
GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC
Worksheet updated on January 3rd, 2025
Everyone has a story. In therapy, processing key events in a client’s life can help them heal. Processing key memories and events can help clients build an understanding of their challenges with mental health. Exploring life events that contribute to challenges can help with recovery from trauma, anger, anxiety, depressed mood, and more.
A helpful exercise for exploring a client’s history and challenges with mental health is allowing them to describe their life story. This can help identify key events that have affected them. It can also help them learn about themselves and what they need to heal.
About This Worksheet
Exploring a client’s life story is a powerful exercise that can help the therapist and the client. It explores the client’s development and assists with identifying any patterns that may contribute to their clinical condition.
A helpful way to explore a client’s life story is to help them identify events that are especially important to them. The Life Story worksheet instructs the client to reflect on 4 significant life events that have shaped their sense of identity. It is an expressive exercise in which the client reflects on events that may relate to their reason for seeking therapy.
This worksheet is great for adolescents and adults. It is best utilized in individual therapy sessions.
Instructions
On this worksheet, the client is asked to reflect on 4 significant life events that shaped how they grew into the person they have become. Instruct the client to list the events in order of occurrence. This will help to create a timeline of each significant point in the client’s life.
When the client is ready, review the 4 events with them and reflect on what each event means to the client. Ask exploratory questions, like How do you think these events are similar?” and “Why are these events so significant to you?”
Use the Life Story worksheet to start a conversation about how the life events have shaped the client’s identity and what they can focus on to resolve issues that affect their condition.
