Depression Support Toolkit

What this is

About the workbook

Most self-help material assumes you have the energy to do it. This one does not. The steps are deliberately small, because the point is to interrupt the withdraw-then-feel-worse loop rather than to fix everything.

Includes behavioural activation planning scaled to a day where getting up was already the hard part.

What is in the pack

Nineteen printable pages, split between pages you read and pages you write on. Three education pages open it: "Depression Is Not Laziness", "The Depression Spiral", and "Depression's Favorite Lies", which names six thinking traps — the all-or-nothing lens, the hopeless forecast and the should hammer among them — and sets an honest answer beside each one.

The rest is worksheets: The Minimum Viable Day, an Activity Menu, a Tiny Steps Planner, a 7-Day Activity and Mood Log, Catching the Inner Critic, The Evidence Check, The Self-Compassion Break, The Connection Plan, a Small Wins Log, My Hard-Day Plan, an Early Warning Signs and Support Plan, a Weekly Reflection, and a sheet of Pocket Encouragement Cards. A short How to Use page opens the pack and an information page closes it.

How it asks to be used

The How to Use page is explicit about order. Start with one page, not the whole pack. Read the education pages when there is a little room, beginning with "Depression Is Not Laziness". On the heaviest days, skip all of it and go straight to The Minimum Viable Day, which the pack describes as the whole toolkit compressed into one checklist: seven basics, pick any three.

Two instructions are about timing rather than content. Fill in My Hard-Day Plan on an okay day, so the deciding is already done by the time it is needed. And print extra copies of the worksheets before you start, because the planners, logs and thought records are built to be reused. The page also says a half-filled sheet beats a blank one.

The approach behind it

The pack states what it is built on: behavioural activation and cognitive behavioural (CBT) principles. The Depression Spiral page lays out the loop it is working against — low mood, so you do less, so there are fewer good moments, so mood drops further — and sets out the pack's central claim that with depression action comes before motivation rather than after it.

The activation side is the Activity Menu, which sorts small options into pleasure, mastery, connection and movement, and the Tiny Steps Planner, which shrinks a task down to a first step of under five minutes. The CBT side is the two thought records. Catching the Inner Critic walks five steps from what happened, to the critic's exact words, to naming which of the six lies it is, to what you would say to a friend. The Evidence Check puts one recurring thought on trial with evidence for and against, then asks for a balanced thought you can actually believe. Both ask you to rate your belief before and after.

Print-again pages and read-once pages

The three education pages are read-once. Everything after them is meant to come off the printer more than once — the pack says to print a fresh copy of Catching the Inner Critic each time the voice gets loud, and a fresh Weekly Reflection every week.

The two logs run on fixed spans. The 7-Day Activity and Mood Log gives you a row per day for a planned tiny activity and a mood rating out of ten before and after. The Small Wins Log runs fourteen days, one line for what you did and one word for how it felt. Two pages are cut-outs: the five-step Hard-Day Plan card, and six Pocket Encouragement Cards to cut along the dashed lines.

What this is

The closing page states it plainly. This is an educational self-help resource sharing general information and skills; it is not psychotherapy, counselling or medical care, and it is not intended to diagnose or treat anything. Nothing in it scores you or returns a verdict — the ten-point ratings exist so you can compare one of your own days against another, not to place you anywhere.

The Early Warning Signs and Support Plan is where the pack draws its own line. It asks you to write down what changes first for you, what has helped before, who you would tell, and which professional supports you have, then lists the signals that mean it is time to step past a workbook. Crisis numbers appear in several places, and the pack is clear that any question about medication belongs with your doctor.

Who this is for, and who should wait

The toolkit is for someone in a low stretch who has very little energy to spend and a lot of guilt about what is not getting done. It is built to be used one page at a time, and its heaviest-day page asks for any three of seven basics; that is the level it meets you at. It is also for a person already in therapy who wants something to do between sessions, and for someone waiting for a first appointment.

There are situations where it should not be the first move, and the toolkit says so on its second page: if the thoughts include hurting yourself or not wanting to be here, the workbook is not the tool for that moment — call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7), or 911 in an emergency, and come back to the pages afterwards. If low mood arrived with a bereavement, a diagnosis, or a loss that is only weeks old, or if it has stayed heavy for months without lifting, bring the toolkit to a clinician or a doctor rather than working it alone. Any question about medication belongs with a doctor. It is educational material: nothing in it screens for depression or treats it.

How it fits with therapy at TEO

The toolkit runs on behavioural activation and cognitive behavioural (CBT) skills — the tiny-steps planner and the activity log on one side, the inner-critic and evidence-check sheets on the other. Those are the same two levers a CBT-informed therapist works with, and the toolkit's reminder that action comes before motivation is one a therapist will repeat. At TEO, Mohamad Shabib and Alison Shaji (British Columbia) both work in CBT; the depression therapy page describes how a course of sessions is shaped. Where the low mood is grief, Rola Shbib, RSW (Ontario), whose degree is in thanatology, works with bereavement, and the grief therapy page covers that.

Therapy adds a person to plan the tiny steps with, to hear the inner critic out loud and answer it, and to notice when a low stretch has become something that needs more than activation. Sessions are by video across British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador, evenings and weekends included. A free 15-minute consultation comes first; individual sessions are $150 per 60-minute session. A completed Early Warning Signs page is worth bringing.

Related pages: Depression therapy · Grief counselling · Rola Shbib.

Common questions

About using this workbook

This workbook is educational. It is not therapy, not an assessment, and nothing in it is a diagnosis. If you are in crisis, call or text 9-8-8 (Canada, 24/7); 911 in an emergency. Kids Help Phone (for young people): 1-800-668-6868, or text CONNECT to 686868.

Download the PDF

If you want to go further

Working on this with someone

A workbook can take you a surprising distance on its own. If you would rather not do it alone, TEO offers virtual therapy in British Columbia, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Newfoundland & Labrador — evenings and weekends, with a free 15-minute consultation first and no obligation afterward.

Related: Depression therapy.

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