Attachment Therapy Homework Sheets
Between-session homework in attachment work has a well-known failure mode: the client arrives having thought about it a great deal and having recorded nothing, so the session is spent reconstructing the fortnight from memory. Memory reconstructs a mood. The incidents that would have been most useful are exactly the ones that get smoothed over.
These four sheets are built to produce material rather than reflection. Each captures something at the time it happens, in a form short enough to be completed while it is happening, and each is designed so that the therapist opens the session with data instead of an impression. They are free to print and use with clients, and they are not a treatment protocol — they are capture instruments.
Who this worksheet is for
Therapists and counsellors who want structured attachment homework, and clients who want to bring something concrete to the next session.
Download the free PDF ↓Free, printable, no email required. Prints on A4 or Letter.
Notes for practitioners
Assign one sheet, not four. The most reliable predictor of homework being completed is that it takes under three minutes and there is only one of it. Four sheets handed over at once returns four blank sheets.
The sheets capture; they do not process. Each is designed so that a client can complete it while activated or shortly afterwards, which means no interpretation is asked for. Interpretation belongs in the room and asking for it on paper is what makes homework feel like a test.
Set the frequency explicitly. "Whenever it happens" produces nothing. "Every time you notice X, and at least twice before we next meet" produces something, and two entries is genuinely enough to work with.
Expect the first round to be inaccurate and say so in advance. Clients frequently record what they think they should have felt. Naming that possibility before they start tends to prevent it, and normalises the second attempt.
The four sheets
Each prints on one side. The PDF includes six copies of each, for photocopying or handing out.
Sheet 1: The incident capture
Five fields, completed within an hour.
Time, the observable event, the first bodily change, the first thought verbatim, what was done. Nothing else, and specifically no field for what it meant — that is the session’s work. The verbatim thought is the field that earns its place: clients almost always paraphrase their own cognitions upward into something more reasonable when recounting them later, and the unedited version is frequently the most useful line in the fortnight.
Prompts
- ●Time and observable event:
- ●First bodily change:
- ●First thought, in the exact words it arrived in:
- ●What I did next:
Sheet 2: The urge-and-gap record
What was wanted, what was done, and how long between.
For any attachment-driven urge — to contact, to withdraw, to check, to test — record the urge, the gap before acting, and the action. This produces the one number that tracks well across a course of therapy and that clients can see moving: the gap. It also separates two things that get conflated in the room, namely how strong the urges are and how much they are governing behaviour, which frequently move independently.
Prompts
- ●The urge, in a few words:
- ●Strength, 1–10:
- ●Gap between urge and action:
- ●What I did, and what I did instead of the urge if anything:
Sheet 3: The relational event log
For couples work, or for a client working on one relationship.
One line per notable interaction: what the other person did, what you did, and how it ended. No motives on either side. Over a fortnight this produces the shape of the cycle far more reliably than either person’s account of it, and it does so without requiring anyone to concede anything — which is what makes it usable in couples work where the accounts are contested.
Prompts
- ●What they did:
- ●What I did:
- ●How it ended:
- ●Was this a version of something familiar? One word.
Sheet 4: The between-session experiment
One behaviour, one time, and what actually happened.
Agreed in session: a specific behaviour, tried once, with a written prediction beforehand. Make one direct request. Stay thirty seconds past the exit point. Send nothing for two hours. The prediction is the part that matters, because attachment beliefs are largely predictive — "if I ask, they will resent it" — and the only thing that reliably shifts a prediction is a written record of it being wrong. Predictions recalled after the fact are quietly revised.
Prompts
- ●The experiment, agreed in session:
- ●My prediction, written before:
- ●What actually happened:
- ●How far off was the prediction, and in which direction?
Using the sheets across a course of work
A rough sequence that tends to work.
Sheet 1 early, while the pattern is still being described rather than worked on. Sheet 2 once the pattern is agreed and the target is behaviour. Sheet 3 when the work becomes relational, or from the start in couples work. Sheet 4 last, because behavioural experiments need a formulation to test. This is a rough order rather than a protocol, and running sheet 1 again near the end gives a reasonable before-and-after that clients find more convincing than their own sense of progress.
Prompts
- ●Which sheet is assigned this fortnight, and why:
- ●How many entries are we asking for?
- ●What we expect it to show:
- ●What would change our formulation if it appeared?
Terms of use
These sheets are free to print, photocopy and distribute to clients, students and supervisees. No permission or attribution is required and there is no charge. Please do not resell them or present them as your own materials.
They are capture instruments, not an assessment and not a treatment model. They assume a practitioner is holding the formulation, and they are not a substitute for training, supervision or clinical judgement. For a client-facing explanation of the four patterns, the psychoeducation handout is written for exactly that purpose.
For clients who want to explore between sessions
The free quiz is an informal self-reflection tool rather than a measure, and it is worth framing it that way when pointing a client at it.
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Take the Free Quiz →Attachment Therapy Homework Worksheet: FAQ
Are these attachment therapy worksheets free to use with clients?▼
How many should I assign at once?▼
What if the client does not complete it?▼
Can I use these without a therapist?▼
Worksheets for the other styles
- Anxious Attachment worksheet — You re-read messages looking for tone changes, feel panic when replies slow down, or find yourself doing things to get reassurance that you later wish you had not done.
- Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You need space when things get close, go quiet under conflict, find faults in partners as intimacy grows, or feel relief when plans get cancelled.
- Fearful-Avoidant Attachment worksheet — You crave closeness then feel trapped by it, end relationships you wanted, or feel like two different people depending on the week.
- Secure Attachment worksheet — You came out secure and want to know what to keep doing, or you are building earned security and want the target described in behaviour rather than adjectives.
Worksheets by situation
- The 8-week anxious attachment healing plan — You already know you have an anxious pattern, you have read the explanations, and what you are missing is an order of operations you can actually follow.
- Attachment triggers worksheet — You keep having the same fight, or you react strongly to things that seem small afterwards and want to know what specifically is firing.
- Attachment journal prompts — You want to write about your patterns but either end up spiralling or end up staring at a blank page wondering what you are supposed to say.
- Couples attachment worksheet — You are having the same argument repeatedly, in the same shape, and both of you can predict it from the first two sentences.
- Attachment styles handout for therapists — You are a therapist, counsellor, coach or student who wants a printable attachment handout for clients, or a client who would like the plain-language version to read between sessions.
- Healing avoidant attachment (8-week workbook) — You have read the explanations of avoidant attachment, recognised yourself, and still have no idea what to actually do on a Tuesday evening when your partner wants to talk.
- Healing fearful-avoidant attachment (workbook) — You want closeness intensely and then find it unbearable, sometimes within the same day, and you have stopped trusting your own read on what you want.
- Printable attachment style self-assessment — You want to work this out on paper rather than on a screen, or you are a practitioner who wants something printable to go through with a client.
- One-page attachment styles comparison chart — You keep re-reading four separate descriptions and losing track of which one you were comparing, or you want something a partner will actually look at.
- Deactivation plan (what to do while it is happening) — You shut down and cannot talk when it matters most, or you are living with someone who does and the silence is doing more damage than the argument did.
- No contact plan (a structured 30 days) — You have decided on a period of no contact and keep breaking it in small ways you then have to argue yourself out of feeling bad about.
- Breakup recovery plan (30 days, by pattern) — The relationship has ended and you are going over it constantly, or not going over it at all in a way that is starting to worry you.
- Pursue-withdraw cycle breaker — One of you chases the conversation and one of you needs it to stop, and you have both explained this to each other many times without anything changing.
- Early dating worksheet (first 90 days) — You keep ending up in the same kind of situation and would like to notice it happening this time, rather than in hindsight.
- Boundaries worksheet (setting and holding them) — You have read about boundaries, agreed with all of it, and still cannot work out what to actually say on Thursday evening.
- Conflict repair worksheet (after an argument) — You resolve arguments by waiting until they stop mattering, and you have noticed the list of subjects you both avoid getting longer.
- Self-soothing plan (written before you need it) — You know what you are supposed to do when the panic arrives and you have never once done it in the moment.
- Family of origin timeline worksheet — You recognise your pattern and want to understand where it came from without turning it into a case against your parents.
- Weekly practice tracker (photocopy and reuse) — You have done the reading and some of the exercises and have no idea whether any of it is working.
- Setback plan (for the bad week after a good month) — You have made real progress before and lost it, and the losing is what stops you starting again.
- Printable conversation cards (cut out and use) — You want to talk about how you each handle closeness and every attempt to start it has felt like opening a case.
- Needs inventory and non-negotiables — You know something is missing and everything you come up with sounds either too small to mention or too much to ask.
- Attachment at work worksheet — A short message from your manager can take your whole afternoon, or you handle everything alone until it is too late to ask.
- Parenting worksheet (your pattern, their security) — You have recognised your own attachment pattern and would rather not hand it on, and you are not sure which of your reactions are about them.
- Texting worksheet (the waiting, not their replies) — A delayed reply can take your evening, or you leave people waiting for days and have never really looked at why.
- Monthly relationship check-in (a repeatable ritual) — Things are broadly fine and you would like them to stay that way, or you have noticed that everything gets raised at once during arguments.
- Friendship worksheet (the non-romantic version) — Your friendships keep fading without anything happening, or you are always the one who arranges things and have started to resent it.
Or go back to all free attachment worksheets, including the one-page cheat sheet covering all four styles.
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