Week 1: Finding Out Where You Are

Don’t worry, this is not a location finding introduction, it is about finding out where you are on the self-help scale. You see, week 1 of all kinds of therapy is about finding out what the best way forward for your individual therapy sessions, but as we are not doing individual therapy here I thought it would be best to take the traditional K10 mental health test. Otherwise known as The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale it is recognised all over the world and most NHS therapy sessions will start with it.

The good news is this is pretty straight forward. All you have to do is answer the following ten multiple-choice questions. If you want the most accurate results please do not rush through it, take a good long time to think about your answers and whether or not they are the absolute truth.

The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (Kessler-10) is an instrument that yields a global measure of distress based on questions about anxiety and depressive symptoms that a person has experienced in the most recent 4-week period. This instrument is 10 questions and is intended to be a brief, simple and reliable instrument to detect mental health conditions of the individual filling it in.

1. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel tired out for no good reason?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

2. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel nervous?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

3. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel so nervous that nothing could calm you down?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

4. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel hopeless?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

5. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel restless or fidgety?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

6. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel so restless you could not sit still?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

7. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel depressed?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

8. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel that everything was an effort?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

9. During the last 30 days, about how often did you feel so sad that nothing could cheer you up?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

10. During the last 30 days, about how often did worthless?

 None of the time

 A little of the time

 Some of the time

 Most of the Time

 All of the time

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Question 1 of 10

This Week’s Homework: Now you know what kind of help the following weeks of self-help therapy can offer I would like you to think about what your end goals are with it. Are you hoping to feel happier? Are you hoping it will calm down your BPD? If you are feeling brave enough why not let me know in the comments below (or you can just keep it to yourself). Just have a good long think about it because if you don’t know where you want to end up, how can you travel the path to get there?