A Quick, Accurate Way to Measure Your Mental Wellbeing
WHO’s 5-Step measure tells you what you need to know first. And the missing link.
How are you feeling?
It’s the archetypal psychology question. All therapists ask it, although we have many different ways of going about it.
Personally, I shy away from saying “tell me how you feel.” Maybe I’ve just seen too many movies where the therapist — always the cringey one with an earnest expression and bad clothes — asks about feelings.
But back to the story.
When I first meet my clients I get them to fill out a couple of questionnaires. One is a generic measure of wellbeing that I’ve put together based on my work with many kinds of people.
It’s not a diagnostic tool, but more a depression/anxiety/wellbeing mashup that provides surprisingly accurate measure of people’s general level of life satisfaction.
The results generally don’t surprise people. But it helps them to think clearly about themselves and the current state of their lives.
It also helps me immensely as it offers up a baseline for our work.
“Well-being cannot exist just in your own head. Well-being is a…
