Free self-checks and reflections to send a client
For therapists, counselors and coaches who want something free a client can use before a first session or between sessions. This page lists what Conscious Living has, with one link for each, and says plainly what each one is and is not.
What these are not
Read this part before sending anything.
- Apart from the Big Five, the self-checks are our own statements and scenes, written from published models or from the library’s own pages. They are not the validated questionnaires, and they have not been tested. The attachment check is not the ECR, the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire. The schemas check is not the Young Schema Questionnaire, and the lifetraps check is not the questionnaires in Reinventing Your Life. The conflict check is not the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument. The low mood, worry and strain check is not the DASS-21. The money scripts check is not the Klontz Money Script Inventory. The financial anxiety check is not either of the published Financial Anxiety Scales.
- The Big Five check is a published short form: the twenty statements of the Mini-IPIP, word for word, taken from a public-domain item pool. We show its scores on our own scale from 0 to 10 and give it no norms.
- No check has norms or clinical cut-offs. A result is the client’s own answers on the day, shown on the check’s own scale. It is not a diagnosis, a type or a label. The low mood, worry and strain check shows no scores at all, only which of three states came out highest.
- The guided reflections use AI, called Conscious Living AI, working inside instructions written and tested for each kind of moment. It gives no advice. It writes back what it notices in what the client wrote, and ends on a question to carry or a step the client chooses. The box headed “What’s happening for you?” on library pages works the same way. AI can still get things wrong.
- None of it is therapy, assessment or crisis support. The terms ask people to be 18 or older.
- Andrew Fayad, who designs the reflections, is not a therapist or a coach. No one at Conscious Living sees clients or reads their guided reflections.
- Without Plus, our paid plan, each visitor can start up to 19 new guided reflections a day. The limit goes by network address, so everyone on one clinic, office or school network shares the same 19. Someone signed in to a free account has their own 19. The site also has a daily spending limit for Conscious Living AI. Once it is reached, new free reflections stop for everyone until the day resets at midnight Malaysia time, which is 16:00 UTC.
What happens when a client writes about harm, and what we keep, is further down.
What you can send
Each name opens the page, with no account. Copy link copies the same address with a tag on the end, so we can count how many people arrive from this page. The tag holds nothing about you or the client.
Self-checks on a model
Each ends on a result page the client can read on their own.
About 3 minutes
Statements about close relationships, on the two scales most adult attachment research uses: worry about being left or loved less, and unease with closeness.
The client sees: Two scores, placed on a drawing of the four styles, each explained. The page says that many people sit near a line and that attachment can differ from one relationship to another.
About 3 minutes
Statements about handling disagreements, following the five modes Thomas and Kilmann described.
The client sees: Which of the five modes the answers lean toward: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding or accommodating. The page says each mode fits some situations and none is better.
About 3 minutes
One short everyday scene for each lifetrap in Young and Klosko’s Reinventing Your Life.
The client sees: Every lifetrap ranked by the answers, with the highest few listed as places to read first, a short summary Conscious Living AI writes from them, and each pattern opening to how it can feel from the inside. The client can answer more scenes to see all of Young’s schemas.
About 5 minutes
One short everyday scene for each of the schemas Jeffrey Young described.
The client sees: Every schema ranked, highest first, with the top few listed as places to read first and the same kind of summary. Each opens to its domain, the sentences it runs on and a link to its library page. The page says it is a place to start, not an assessment.
About 3 minutes
The twenty statements of the Mini-IPIP, a published short form drawn from a public-domain item pool.
The client sees: A score from 0 to 10 for each of the five traits. The page says no score is better than another, and that five is the middle of the answer scale, not the average person.
Money and the past week
About 2 minutes
Statements about money worry.
The client sees: Four scores: worry, avoiding, checking and money worry felt in the body, which can come apart.
About 3 minutes
Statements on four money scripts (avoidance, worship, status and vigilance), following Brad and Ted Klontz’s model.
The client sees: Four scores, the statements the client agreed with, and the library pages behind each script.
About 2 minutes
Statements about the last few weeks on low mood, worry and strain.
The client sees: The three in order, highest first, with no scores. The page says it is not the DASS-21, says a doctor or psychologist can help if low mood, worry or strain has lasted for weeks, and carries the support notice.
Self-checks about one moment with someone
Each is tied to a library page about that situation.
About 3 minutes
Things the client may have seen a boss do.
The client sees: Which explanations the answers lean toward, in “may be” terms, with a way back to the page’s reflection box. It never answers the question in its title.
About 3 minutes
Things the client may have noticed about their mother.
The client sees: Which explanations the answers lean toward, in “may be” terms, with a way back to the page’s reflection box.
About 3 minutes
Things the client may have noticed in themselves around a best friend.
The client sees: Which explanations the answers lean toward, in “may be” terms, with a way back to the page’s reflection box.
For two people
Both people take the same self-check, one at a time, and see both results side by side.
About 3 minutes each
The attachment check, taken by two people. After the first result, a link goes to the second person.
The client sees: Both results on one drawing of the four styles, a short note on what the library’s research says about two such results, and a question to carry.
About 3 minutes each
The conflict check, taken by two people, with the same link between them.
The client sees: Both profiles together, a short note on the pairing, and a question to carry.
The link between the two people holds scores and none of the answers, in the part of the address after the “#”, which never reaches us. Anyone who has the link can see the scores. The note on a pairing rests on library pages and the studies they cite, and says when the library holds no study of the pairing. The comparison page also carries the same notice, with a note about being afraid of someone.
Guided reflections
A client writes about one moment, in a few lines or a few short answers, and Conscious Living AI writes back. Free, no account.
About 3 minutes
A conversation, decision, argument or reaction the client keeps replaying.
The client leaves with: A question that shows what keeps the replay going.
About 3 minutes
A step the client keeps avoiding, like a hard conversation or a change they know is coming.
The client leaves with: A next step they choose for today.
About 3 minutes
A moment the client was dismissed, ignored or talked over.
The client leaves with: One thing to notice the next time it happens.
About 3 minutes
The person the client hoped to become by now.
The client leaves with: One part of that person they can start on now.
About 3 minutes
A task the client knows needs doing and keeps putting off.
The client leaves with: A first move they choose, and a question to notice next time.
About 3 minutes
A time the client said yes and meant no.
The client leaves with: Their own answer, and a question to notice next time.
About 3 minutes
A few moments from the year behind the client.
The client leaves with: One moment, then and now, and a question to carry into the next year.
About 3 minutes
A harsh thought about themselves that keeps coming back.
The client leaves with: A question that checks whether the thought holds up.
About 7 minutes
The life the client knows they want and has not started building.
The client leaves with: One action they choose for this week.
Reading and reference
For a client who wants to read more. Library pages show how well tested an idea is, on a five-step rating, and say what each study did not show.
9 min read
Why the loop feels like problem-solving.
8 min read
What the research found about the moment of starting.
8 min read
The relief of stepping back, and what it may keep going.
7 min read
Small moments of being talked over or left unanswered.
7 min read
Behind whom, and what a smaller question changes.
7 min read
The same moment can feel very different from one person to the next.
Browse
Young’s schemas in his five domains, each opening to how it can feel from the inside.
The client sees: Entry cards, a switch between plain words, memory, emotion and body, and the research rating.
Browse
Situations written the way people describe them, each with the patterns that could explain it.
The client sees: A page per situation, with the patterns that could explain it and the research behind each.
Browse
Psychology terms, each with its signs, the ideas it is easily mistaken for, and how well tested it is.
The client sees: A page per term, with its research rating.
Browse
Frameworks for character, relationships, money and grief, each drawn as a diagram.
The client sees: The diagrams, with links to the terms behind them.
Put a self-check on your own website
If you have a website or a blog, you can show one of our self-checks on a page of your own. Open the self-check, find “Put this self-check on your website” near the bottom of its page, and copy the code. Paste it into an HTML or custom code block.
A visitor to your page takes the self-check there, sees the result and a rating of how well tested the idea is, and finds a link back to the Psychology Library under it. Their answers stay in their browser, and nothing is sent to us. It has no sign-in and no offer of Plus.
Open the self-check to get its code:
- Conflict style
- Big Five
- Financial anxiety
- Is my boss a narcissist?
- Is my mom jealous of me?
- Am I jealous of my best friend?
Only the self-checks in this list can go on another site. The other self-checks, the money scripts check and the comparison for two people stay on Conscious Living. The limits above come with every self-check.
If a client writes about harm
Every guided reflection carries rules for this. When what a client writes points to suicide, self-harm or being harmed, no reflection is written. The client sees one line, “We haven’t written a reflection back for this one.”, and a notice: “If you or someone you know is having a difficult time, free support is available.” Under it is “In an emergency, call your local emergency number.” and a button, Find resources, that opens findahelpline.com in a new tab. That site lists free, confidential help lines by country. When it points to someone threatening, controlling or frightening the client, a short list of domestic abuse help lines, with phone numbers for the United States, the United Kingdom and Malaysia, sits between that line and the notice.
Conscious Living AI decides whether what a client wrote points to harm. Once a visitor has reached the day’s limit, a broad list of words checks what they write, and Conscious Living AI still checks up to ten more pieces of writing that day, for harm only. Both can miss harm put in words they do not catch. Past those ten, or once the site’s spending limit is reached, the client sees the limit message with the same notice. The site does not alert you or anyone else.
The self-checks take button answers only, so there is no written text to read for harm. The low mood, worry and strain check and the financial anxiety check carry the same notice on their result pages.
What we keep, as a client may ask
- Without Plus, self-check answers stay in the client’s browser. That holds for attachment style, conflict style, the Big Five, financial anxiety, low mood, worry and strain, and the three moment checks. We count only that a check was finished or a link was copied, never the answers.
- Three checks work differently. When a client finishes the schemas or lifetraps check, their answers go to Conscious Living and to Anthropic’s API, so Conscious Living AI can write the summary at the top of the result. We keep them with a random number the site stores in the browser, never with a name or email, and delete them after 12 months. When someone opens a link to a schemas or lifetraps result in another browser, its answers are sent and kept the same way. The money scripts check also keeps its answers and four scores, with the same random number and no name or email, for 12 months.
- In the Psychology Library, what a client types into the search box, the pages they open and what they save are kept for 12 months with the same random number, to improve the library. A search of three words or more also goes to Anthropic’s API. What a client writes in the box headed “What’s happening for you?” or in a “Try it” exercise goes to Anthropic’s API and is not kept by us, unless they have Plus.
- A free guided reflection is not stored in our database or application logs. What the client writes is sent to Anthropic’s API so Conscious Living AI can write back. Under the terms we use, Anthropic does not use it to train its models, and keeps it for a limited time to check for abuse, then deletes it.
- With Plus, a client’s reflections and self-check results are saved to their account automatically, with an off switch. They can read, download and delete them. No one at Conscious Living reads saved reflections.
- A client can copy a link to their own result and bring it. The answers are in that link, so anyone who has it can see them. The two-person link is different: it holds scores only.
What the site does not do for you
There is no practitioner account, no dashboard and no way for the site to send a result to you. We cannot tell you who used a link or what they answered. If a client wants you to see a result, they copy a link to it and send it themselves.
The full account is on Privacy.
What the pages allow
We have not watched practitioners use this, and we do not know how well any of it works in practice.
- Before a first session, a client can take a self-check or write a reflection and bring the result, or a sentence from it.
- Between sessions, a reflection takes about 3 minutes and ends on a question the client can carry back.
- With couples, each partner takes the same check, and each can see both results side by side.
Tell us what you would use
We are building this with little knowledge of practice. If you would use something here, want something left out, or find a statement that reads wrong, write to us with the form on About.