Behavioral Activation Worksheet PDF: 4 Printable Sheets

A behavioral activation worksheet only helps if a client with almost no energy will fill it in. The four sheets on this page are written to your client in plain words and kept short enough to finish on a bad day: an activity and mood log with mastery and pleasure ratings, a values-to-activities sheet with a list of activity ideas, a weekly activity schedule, and a sheet for working out what got in the way. Print this page or save it as a PDF, and go through the first sheet with your client in session.

Around the worksheets is the part for you: what behavioral activation is and where it came from, what the evidence shows (from Jacobson's 1996 component analysis to a 2026 meta-analysis of 105 trials), how to introduce it, the barriers that come up and how to handle them, adaptations for low energy, chronic pain, teens and telehealth, how to track progress with the PHQ-9, and how to write it up in a progress note.

Every client in this article is invented. Any resemblance to a real person is a coincidence.

How to print this page or save it as a PDF

On a computer: press Ctrl+P (Windows) or Cmd+P (Mac).
On a phone: open your browser's share menu and choose Print.
To keep a PDF: in the print window, choose "Save as PDF" as the printer. You can then send the file to a client or keep it with your other handouts.
To print only the worksheets: check the print preview for the pages from "Worksheet 1" to "End of the worksheets", and enter just those pages as the page range. Print Worksheet 1 once for each day the client will track.
If the cookie notice is still open, choose an option first, so it doesn't print across the bottom of every page.

What behavioral activation is

Behavioral activation (BA) is a structured behavioral treatment for depression. Its starting point is that depression often follows a life change: a loss, a move, an illness, a job ending, months of stress. The things that used to bring enjoyment, a sense of accomplishment or contact with other people fall away. People cope by pulling back: staying in bed, canceling plans, putting off tasks. Pulling back brings short-term relief, but it also cuts off the experiences that could lift mood, and lower mood makes pulling back more likely. BA works on that loop from the outside in. The client plans specific activities, including the ones depression is pushing them to avoid, does them, and watches what happens to their mood.

The approach grew from Peter Lewinsohn's work in the 1970s on depression and the loss of rewarding experiences, and from the activity scheduling with mastery and pleasure ratings in Aaron Beck's cognitive therapy (Dimidjian et al., 2011). It became a treatment in its own right after Neil Jacobson and colleagues' component analysis. They randomly assigned 150 outpatients with major depression to the behavioral activation part of cognitive therapy alone, BA plus work on automatic thoughts, or full cognitive therapy, and found no evidence that the full treatment did better, at the end of treatment or at the 6-month follow-up (Jacobson et al., 1996).

Christopher Martell, Michael Addis and Jacobson then set out BA as a standalone treatment in Depression in Context (2001), with the focus on what a behavior does for the person, avoidance in particular. Martell, Sona Dimidjian and Ruth Herman-Dunn's Behavioral Activation for Depression: A Clinician's Guide (first edition 2010, second edition 2022) is the best-known clinician's manual. Two of its principles sum up the approach: "You can change how you feel by changing what you do," and "Structure and schedule activities in order to follow a plan, not a mood." A briefer version built around life areas and values, the Brief Behavioral Activation Treatment for Depression, was revised in 2011 (BATD-R; Lejuez et al.).

BA is more than "do more nice things":

Activities are chosen for what they do.Some bring pleasure, some a sense of mastery, some connection; the best move the client toward what matters to them.
Avoidance is the main target.The manual's TRAP (Trigger, Response, Avoidance Pattern) and TRAC (Trigger, Response, Alternative Coping) help a client see the loop and plan another way through it.
Rumination is treated as a behavior too.The client learns to notice it, ask what it does for them, and bring attention back to the activity in front of them.
Plans are small, specific and checked.Each activity has a time, a place and a size, and every session starts with what happened.

What the evidence says about behavioral activation for depression

As good as medication for more severe depression, in one trial.Dimidjian and colleagues randomly assigned 241 adults with major depression to BA, cognitive therapy, antidepressant medication or pill placebo. Among the more severely depressed, BA did about as well as medication, and both did significantly better than cognitive therapy (Dimidjian et al., 2006). It's a single trial, so treat it as one strong finding, not a settled ranking.
Lasting effects.In the two-year follow-up of that trial's responders, people treated with BA or cognitive therapy did at least as well as those who stayed on medication, and BA "may be nearly as enduring as cognitive therapy" (Dobson et al., 2008).
Large effects against control conditions, with a caution.An early meta-analysis of activity scheduling found a pooled effect of 0.87 against control conditions across 16 studies, and almost no difference from cognitive therapy (Cuijpers et al., 2007). A 2014 update of 26 trials found a similar effect against controls (0.74), but most studies were of low quality (Ekers et al., 2014).
Effects shrink in better studies.In 22 trials of individual BA, the effect against control conditions was 0.85, and 0.56 when only the 9 studies at low risk of bias were counted (Cuijpers et al., 2023).
The largest review so far.A 2026 meta-analysis of 105 trials (13,933 patients) found an effect of 0.67 for adult outpatients against control conditions, still significant 12 months after randomization, with no significant difference from other psychotherapies. The results varied widely between studies, and there were too few trials to judge BA for children and adolescents, or against medication (Cuijpers et al., 2026).
No sign of a difference from CBT, and simpler to deliver.A network meta-analysis of 45 trials found no difference in effect between BA, cognitive restructuring and full CBT (Ciharova et al., 2021). In the COBRA trial, 440 adults were randomly assigned to BA from junior mental health workers or CBT from psychological therapists, and BA was not worse on the PHQ-9 at 12 months (Richards et al., 2016).
Some effect on anxiety.Across 28 studies, BA improved anxiety as well as depression and activation against inactive controls. There was no evidence that including a discussion of values made BA more effective (Stein et al., 2021).
Recommended in guidelines.The American Psychological Association's 2019 depression guideline recommends behavioral therapy for adults, describing its focus as "having the person re-engage more frequently in activities they once found pleasurable" (APA).

In practice: BA is a well-supported first-line option for adult depression. It is about as effective as other established therapies rather than better than them, and it's easier to learn and deliver. The evidence for children and teens is thinner (see the adaptations below).

Worksheet 1: What I did and how it felt

Your activity and mood log

For the next week, write down what you do each hour, then rate it. You don't need to change anything yet. The point is to notice how what you do and how you feel are connected. Fill it in two or three times a day instead of all at night, when it's harder to remember. Use one sheet for each day.

How to rate

Mood:0 (the worst you feel) to 10 (the best you feel).
M for mastery:0 to 10, how much it felt like an accomplishment, given how you felt at the time. Getting dressed on a hard day can be an 8.
P for pleasure:0 to 10, how much you enjoyed it.

Day and date: ______________________

6 to 7 AM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
7 to 8 AM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
8 to 9 AM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
9 to 10 AM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
10 to 11 AM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
11 AM to noon: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
Noon to 1 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
1 to 2 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
2 to 3 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
3 to 4 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
4 to 5 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
5 to 6 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
6 to 7 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
7 to 8 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
8 to 9 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
9 to 10 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
10 to 11 PM: ________________ Mood ___ M ___ P ___
11 PM to 6 AM: ________________ Mood ___

At the end of the day

When was my mood highest, and what was I doing? ______________________
When was my mood lowest, and what was I doing? ______________________
Something I put off or avoided today: ______________________
One small thing I'd like to do more of: ______________________

Worksheet 2: What matters to me, and what I could do

Values and activities

Depression makes it hard to know what you want. This sheet starts with what matters to you instead. For each area, write what matters to you there, then one easy, one medium and one harder activity that fits it. An activity is something you could do, with a clear start and end: "call my brother for 10 minutes," not "be a better brother." Skip any area that doesn't fit your life right now.

Relationships: family, partner, friends

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

Work, school or volunteering

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

Home and daily tasks

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

Health and body: sleep, food, movement

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

Fun, interests and creativity

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

Faith, spirit or community

What matters to me here: ______________________
An easy activity (10 minutes or less): ______________________
A medium activity: ______________________
A harder activity: ______________________

My activity ladder

Pick 10 activities from this sheet or the ideas below, and list them from easiest (1) to hardest (10). You'll start at the bottom of the ladder.

______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________
______________________

Behavioral activation activities list: ideas if you're stuck

These are ideas, not a to-do list. Pick the ones that fit your life and what matters to you, and change them to suit you.

Small wins

Make the bed
Wash the dishes from one meal
Open one piece of mail or answer one message
Pay one bill
Put in one load of laundry
Clear one surface, such as a table or counter
Cook a simple meal

Enjoyment

Listen to three songs you used to love
Sit outside with a drink for 10 minutes
Watch one episode of a show you like, then stop
Read a few pages of a book or magazine
Draw, color, knit, build or fix something
Take a bath or a long shower
Bake something

Connection

Text one person "thinking of you"
Call someone for 10 minutes
Have coffee with a friend or neighbor
Play a game with your kids or a friend
Go to a class, group, service or meeting
Walk a dog, yours or a friend's

Moving your body

Walk around the block
Stretch for five minutes
Dance to one song
Do some gardening
Go to a park

Things that matter

Help someone with a small task
Volunteer for an hour
Spend time on a faith or spiritual practice
Learn something for 15 minutes: a video, a lesson, a recipe
Plan something to look forward to
Do one step of a task you've been putting off

If you have almost no energy

Sit up and open the curtains
Drink a glass of water
Step outside for two minutes
Put on clean clothes
Eat something, even something small
Send one short message

Worksheet 3: My plan for the week

Weekly activity schedule

Choose one or two activities a day, starting at the bottom of your ladder. Be specific: what, when, where, with whom and for how long. Do them because they're on the plan, not because you feel like it. Mood often catches up after the action, not before it. Afterward, mark whether you did it and rate your mood from 0 to 10.

Week of: ______________________

Monday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Tuesday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Wednesday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Thursday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Friday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Saturday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

Sunday

Activity 1, time and place: ______________________
Activity 2, time and place: ______________________
Done? Yes / Partly / Not this time
Mood before ___ after ___

At the end of the week

What helped my mood most: ______________________
What got in the way (use Worksheet 4): ______________________
What I'll keep, change or try next week: ______________________

Worksheet 4: When a plan doesn't happen

Working out what got in the way

Missing a planned activity isn't failure. It's information, and it's often the most useful thing to bring to your next session. Fill this in for any activity that didn't happen.

The activity I planned: ______________________
What I did instead: ______________________
What was happening just before (the trigger): ______________________
What I felt or thought: ______________________
How what I did instead helped right then: ______________________
What it cost me later: ______________________

What got in the way? Circle any that fit.

Too tired, or no energy
I forgot
The step was too big
Wrong time of day
I waited to feel like it
Worry about how it would go, or about other people
Thinking it wouldn't help, or that I'd fail
Stuck in my head, going over and over things
Pain or a health problem
Money, transport, childcare or time
Someone or something else stopped me
Other: ______________________

Next time

A smaller first step: ______________________
A better day and time: ______________________
A reminder I'll use (phone alarm, note, a person): ______________________
Someone who could do it with me or help: ______________________
My if-then plan: if ____________ happens, then I will ____________.
How sure am I that I'll do it, from 0 to 10? ______ If it's under 7, make the step smaller.

If things get worse

If your mood drops a lot, you stop being able to manage daily tasks, or you have thoughts of hurting yourself, tell your therapist. If you might hurt yourself or someone else, or you're in danger, call or text 988 (the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US) or call 911.

End of the worksheets. The rest of this page is for therapists.

How to introduce behavioral activation in session

BA works best when the client understands the model in their own terms before any homework. A sequence that fits most outpatient work:

Map the client's own loop (session 1 or 2). Ask what changed in their life, what they stopped doing, what they do instead, and what that does to their mood over a day and over a month. Write it in their words.
Give the rationale in a few sentences (script below), and check how it lands.
Start monitoring with Worksheet 1. Fill in the first few hours of today together, so the client leaves knowing how. Agree on when they'll fill it in, for example after lunch and before bed.
Review the log together. Look for links between mood and activity, the best and worst times of day, and what got avoided. Be curious, not judging, and value a half-finished log: it still shows something.
Build the ladder with Worksheet 2. Start from what matters to the client, then turn each value into small, concrete activities ranked by difficulty.
Schedule with Worksheet 3, the activity scheduling worksheet. Start small and early on the ladder: one or two activities a day. Set the details in session (day, time, place, how long) and rehearse the first step.
Start every session with the plan. Review what happened before anything else, and use Worksheet 4 for whatever didn't. If homework isn't reviewed, clients soon stop doing it.
Move up the ladder and target avoidance. Name the client's TRAPs, plan alternatives, and treat rumination as something to notice and step out of.
Plan for after therapy. In the last sessions, write down which activities helped most, the client's early warning signs, and what they'll restart if mood starts to slip.

How long it takes varies. APA's guideline says adults receive 20 to 24 weekly sessions of behavioral therapy on average, while trials have used shorter courses, such as eight sessions in a telehealth trial for older veterans (Egede et al., 2015).

A rationale you can read aloud and adapt:

Wording to copy12 lines

When people are depressed, they often stop doing thethings that used to give them a lift or a sense ofgetting things done. That makes sense: everything feelsharder. But doing less usually leads to feeling worse,and feeling worse leads to doing even less.In this work, we'll first notice what you do and howyou feel, hour by hour. Then we'll plan small, specificactivities that matter to you, and you'll do themwhether or not you feel like it. Mood often catches uplater. Each week we'll look at what helped and what gotin the way, and adjust the plan together.Does that fit what's been happening for you?

Common barriers and how to fix them

"I didn't do any of it." Review it anyway, without judgment, and use Worksheet 4. The usual cause is a step that was too big or too vague. Cut it to something the client rates 7 or higher out of 10 for confidence. Our BIRP note examples include a BA session where the plan didn't work and was cut to a single ten-minute walk.
"I did it and felt nothing." Mood often lags behind action, and one try proves little; the manual's ACTION steps ask clients to try a new behavior more than once before deciding whether it helps. Look at the mastery rating as well as pleasure, and ask where their attention was during the activity. Being stuck in their head often explains the flat rating.
Nothing feels enjoyable. Lead with mastery and routine (meals, sleep, getting up at the same time) and with values, and treat small changes in ratings, from 2 to 3, as real data.
"I'll do it when I feel better." This is the loop BA targets. Go back to the client's own log: did mood come first, or the activity?
Avoidance dressed up as rest. Ask what a behavior does, not what it looks like. A nap can restore or can avoid; the log and the TRAP questions sort out which.
Rumination. Name it as a behavior with a trigger and a cost. Plan what the client will do when they notice it, such as moving their attention to the details of the task in front of them.
Too much, too soon. Some clients plan a full week after one good day and then crash. Hold the ladder: a few activities done beats many planned.
Practical obstacles. Money, transport, childcare, shift work and pain are real. Problem-solve together, pick activities that cost little, and fit them into the life the client has.
Forgetting. Anchor each activity to something that already happens ("after my morning coffee"), and set phone reminders in session.
Not getting better despite good effort. Recheck the formulation and look at what's on the schedule: activities that are too easy, done for others' sake, or cut off from the client's values rarely shift mood. Look for medical problems, substance use and other diagnoses, consider a medication evaluation, and bring the case to consultation.

Adaptations: low energy, chronic pain, teens and telehealth

Low energy and severe depression

Start with monitoring alone, or one activity a day.
Break tasks down until the first step is almost too easy: "shower" becomes "stand under the water for two minutes."
Use the log to find the client's best time of day and schedule there.
Put routines first: getting up, meals and sleep at regular times give the rest of the plan something to hang on. With a client who has bipolar disorder, regular routines matter even more; our guide to CBT for bipolar disorder covers mood monitoring and early warning signs.
Encourage a medical check if fatigue is new, severe or unexplained. Thyroid problems, anemia, sleep apnea and medication side effects can all look like depression.
In severe depression, consider more frequent sessions, involve a support person with consent, discuss a medication evaluation, and assess risk at every session.

Chronic pain

Plan activity by quota (time, amount or goal) rather than by how much pain the client is in, the "operant" approach to activity pacing. Common parts of pacing plans include planning ahead, cycles of activity and rest, and alternating activities or positions. Confidence in the evidence for pacing interventions is still very low (Antcliff et al., 2026).
Start below what the client can manage on an average day, so good days don't turn into overdoing it and paying for it later.
Keep the value and change the form: watching a grandchild's game from a chair still serves "being there for my family." A pilot of values-based BA for chronic pain in primary care found it feasible and acceptable, with less pain interference at follow-up, in a single group without a comparison (Hooker et al., 2020).
Add a pain rating to Worksheet 1 if it helps, but judge success by whether the activity happened, not by the pain score.
With the client's consent and a signed release of information, coordinate with their physician or physical therapist.

Teens

Bring parents in. In the Adolescent Behavioral Activation Program, parents joined at least two sessions to share their view, hear the model from their teen and support the plan at home (McCauley et al., 2016).
Agree at the start what parents will and won't see on the worksheets.
Use the teen's own tools: phone notes, calendar reminders, a photo of each activity done.
Choose activities from their world: school, sports, music, friends, online games with friends. Ask what screen time does for them (connection or avoidance) instead of banning it.
Simplify the ratings for younger clients: 0 to 5, or faces.
Expect thinner evidence. A 2024 meta-analysis of four randomized trials (156 young people) found a small effect (Tindall et al., 2024). Track outcomes closely and screen for risk regularly. For conversation starters, see our therapy questions for teens.

Telehealth

BA works by video. In a trial of 241 older veterans with major depression, eight sessions of BA by home telemedicine were not worse than the same treatment in person (Egede et al., 2015).
Send the link to this page before the session, or share the worksheet on screen. The client keeps their copy and reads out their ratings or holds the sheet up to the camera.
If a client wants to send you a photo of a sheet, agree on how first. Our article on whether Gmail is HIPAA compliant covers what HHS allows when you email clients and what to set up before you do.
Use the home setting: plan an activity the client starts as soon as the call ends, such as a walk to the mailbox.
Confirm where the client is at the start of every session. HHS guidance says professionals must "be licensed or legally permitted to practice in the state where the patient is located," and that "All providers should establish and maintain an emergency plan" (HHS, Licensure for behavioral health). Our telehealth consent form covers both.

Measuring progress with the PHQ-9 and the worksheets

The PHQ-9. Give it at intake and every two weeks, which matches its two-week recall period. Totals of 5, 10, 15 and 20 mark mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe depression (Kroenke et al., 2001), and a change of 5 points is the smallest change estimated to be clinically meaningful for one person (Löwe et al., 2004). Our PHQ-9 scoring calculator adds up the total and shows the severity band, in your browser, without saving anything.

Item 9 comes first. Any answer above 0 on item 9 (thoughts of being better off dead or of self-harm) calls for a suicide risk assessment that day, whatever the total. If a safety plan is needed, our safety plan template has a printable six-step version.

An activation measure, if you want one. The Behavioral Activation for Depression Scale (BADS, 25 items, Kanter and colleagues) and its 9-item short form, the BADS-SF, were built to track when and how clients become activated during BA (Manos et al., 2011). Get either one from its published source instead of a copy online.

The worksheets are data too. Track a few numbers each week:

Share of planned activities done.
Average daily mood from Worksheet 1 or 3.
How far up the ladder the client has climbed.
Avoided activities from Worksheet 4, and whether the same TRAP keeps coming up.

When to change course. If several weeks of consistent practice haven't moved the PHQ-9 or daily functioning, review the plan with the client, check the formulation, look again for medical problems, substance use or another diagnosis, and consider a medication evaluation, more frequent sessions, a different treatment or consultation. If the client is getting worse, act sooner.

How to note behavioral activation in a progress note

"Did behavioral activation homework" tells a reviewer almost nothing. A useful note shows what was planned, what happened, what you did about it and what comes next:

The intervention by name:behavioral activation, plus the part you used (activity monitoring, values work, activity scheduling, avoidance analysis, problem solving).
Adherence in numbers:activities planned and done since last session.
Patterns from the log:when mood was highest and lowest, and what the client was doing.
Avoidance named:the trigger, response and avoidance pattern, and the alternative you planned.
Measures:the PHQ-9 total next to the last one, item 9, and what you asked about risk.
The plan:the specific activities scheduled, with days and times, linked to a treatment plan objective.

An example in DAP format. Invented client: a 44-year-old bus driver we'll call Marcus, who moved to a new city for work, in his fifth video session of behavioral activation for depression.

Wording to copy27 lines

Data: Session 5 of behavioral activation, by video.Client joined from home in Ohio, alone. Weekly schedulereview: 6 of 9 planned activities done (3 walks of20 minutes, cooked dinner twice, church on Sunday).Skipped both planned calls to his brother: "I didn'twant him to hear me like this." Mood log: lowest 2/10on evenings alone after work; highest 6/10 at churchand while walking. PHQ-9 today 14 (19 at intake, 16two weeks ago); item 9 scored 0; denied thoughts ofsuicide or self-harm when asked directly.Interventions: reviewed the mood log with client andlinked mood to activity; mapped the skipped calls as anavoidance pattern (trigger: evening alone; response:shame; avoidance: phone off); planned an alternative(text first, then a 10-minute call); scheduled nextweek's activities with days, times and places.Assessment: Mood is higher on days with movement andcontact with others; evenings alone are the low point,and avoiding his brother keeps him isolated. PHQ-9 down5 points since intake, now moderate. Engaged, completingmost planned activities. Continued treatment neededfor goal 1.Plan: 9 activities this week, including a text to hisbrother Tuesday, a 10-minute call Thursday at 7 pm, andone evening activity outside the apartment. Continuethe mood log. PHQ-9 again in 2 weeks. Next session in1 week, by video.

In BIRP, the log review and scheduling go under Intervention and the completed activities and ratings under Response. In SOAP, the PHQ-9 and what you observed go in Objective and the client's account of the week in Subjective. Our treatment plan template shows BA objectives with baselines you can write each note against, our DAP notes examples include a risk note written in full, and the progress notes cheat sheet has clinical words for interventions and client response.

How this works in TranqBay

TranqBay is practice software for therapists in private practice: a practice website, online booking, video sessions and session notes in one place. Here is where behavioral activation fits.

The PHQ-9 before each session. TranqBay's form library has ready-made templates you can send a client for a session, including the PHQ-9 and GAD-7, plus intake and consent forms. The client fills them in online and the answers wait with the session. TranqBay doesn't score them; add up the total, or use the PHQ-9 calculator linked above, and record it in your note.
Video sessions are end-to-end encrypted and HIPAA-ready. TranqBay provides a Business Associate Agreement that applies when you accept the Terms, with no separate document to sign.
Session notes come in BIRP, DAP, SOAP or GIRP format, or as a blank note in your own words. The structured formats are part of the advanced note templates, which some plans include.
The worksheets live on this page. Send your client the link, or print them.

If depression is a large part of your caseload, your practice website is where a client reads how you work before booking. A plain line such as "I use behavioral activation, a structured, well-researched approach to depression" tells them what to expect. practice.tranqbay.health shows the website designs made for therapy practices and the booking page a client would use, so you can see where that line would sit.

Frequently asked questions about behavioral activation worksheets

What is a behavioral activation worksheet?

A form clients use between sessions to track what they do and how they feel, choose activities that matter to them, schedule those activities and work out what got in the way. Together the four sheets on this page cover a full course of BA.

Is there a behavioral activation worksheet PDF I can download?

This page works as one. Print it, or choose "Save as PDF" in your browser's print window. Set the page range to the worksheet pages if you only want the client handouts.

What are some behavioral activation activities?

Anything specific the client can do that brings a sense of accomplishment, enjoyment or connection, or that fits what matters to them: a ten-minute walk, a call to a friend, paying one bill, cooking a meal, a service or class. The best ones come from the client's own values and their activity log, not a generic list. The list on this page works as a pleasant activities list for when they're stuck.

What is the difference between activity scheduling and behavioral activation?

Activity scheduling, planning activities ahead and rating them, is the core technique, and an activity schedule is also a standard part of CBT for depression. Behavioral activation is the full treatment built around it: the model of depression, activity monitoring, values, scheduling, and work on avoidance and rumination.

What do mastery and pleasure ratings mean?

Mastery is how much an activity felt like an accomplishment, rated against how the client felt at the time. Pleasure is how much they enjoyed it. Rating both shows that a chore can lift mood even when it isn't fun.

How long does behavioral activation take?

It depends on the client. APA's guideline gives an average of 20 to 24 weekly sessions for behavioral therapy in adults, and some trials have used eight. Review progress every few weeks with the PHQ-9 and the worksheets.

Does behavioral activation work for anxiety?

It was built for depression. A meta-analysis found it also reduced anxiety symptoms in people with depression, though less than it reduced depression. For an anxiety disorder on its own, use a treatment designed for it.

Who developed behavioral activation?

Neil Jacobson and colleagues developed modern BA after their 1996 study, building on Peter Lewinsohn's behavioral work from the 1970s. Christopher Martell, Sona Dimidjian and Ruth Herman-Dunn wrote the best-known clinician's guide, and Carl Lejuez and colleagues developed a brief version, BATD.

Before your next session

Print Worksheet 1, fill in the first hour of today with your client, and agree when they'll complete the rest. Next week, start with the log, and let what it shows decide what goes on the schedule.

If you want booking, video sessions and session notes in one place, see how TranqBay works for private practice: you can look at the practice website designs and the booking page your clients would use. If you're deciding whether to join, this page explains how joining TranqBay works.

Sources

24 sources

Research 20Books 1Associations 1HHS 1988 Lifeline 1

Research20

Updated October 25, 2026. Found it useful? Send it to a colleague.