Emotions Tree

I am so excited to share the Emotions Tree with you because it is one of my favorite counseling techniques!  There are so many ways you can use the Emotions Tree with students.

I hadn't used the Emotions Tree yet this year in my work with students because I misplaced it somewhere when I moved my office downstairs. I wanted to use the Emotions Tree for the remainder of my Minute Meetings to help students who have difficulty identifying feelings or coming up with feeling words.  I searched online and couldn't find a high quality copy of the Emotions Tree.  I printed one out even though it wasn't very high quality to test it out and see how it worked with Minute Meetings for students.

As I suspected using the Emotions Tree for Minute Meetings worked wonderfully!

Using the Emotions Tree was very helpful for students who struggled to come up with a word besides "good" or "okay" to describe how they were feeling.  I showed students the Emotions Tree and asked them to "pick out a person on this tree you feel like most of the time outside of school" or "pick a person on this tree you feel like most of the time during school." Students were easily able to identify how they were feeling when looking at the Emotions Tree.

"On Top of the World"

One student who originally said "good" was able to identify herself as feeling "on top of the world" after pointing to the emotion person standing at on the top of the tree. Using the Emotions Tree allows children and adolescents to project their feelings onto something else, which tends to make them feel safer. When students pointed to the emotion person I asked them to "describe how the emotion person feels." After they identified how the person felt I brought it back to how they were feeling, and asked questions like "What about school makes you feel on top of the world?" The student responded "I have high honors and school is fun."

I have used the Emotions Tree with children and adolescents of many ages. I have used it in groups and individual counseling sessions. I also had the Emotions Tree hanging on my wall before and plan to hang it on my wall again.  Students are drawn to the Emotions Tree and enjoy identifying which emotion person they feel like.

Yesterday I made it my mission to find my personal copy of the Emotions Tree after school.  I was very excited when I found it and even more excited that I was able to scan it to a PDF file. Now I can share the Emotions Tree with you and have a copy for myself that is easy to reproduce.  (Click on any of Emotions Tree links to be directed to a PDF file you can download!)

How will you use the Emotion Tree in your work with students? 


Comment below, tweet, contact Danielle, or share on the School Counselor Blog Facebook Page!

Danielle is a K-12 Certified School Counselor, Nationally Certified Counselor, and blogger at School Counselor Blog, a place where school counselors share innovative ideas, creative lesson plans, and quality resources. Connect with Danielle via email, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, and become a fan of the School Counselor Blog Facebook Page.