Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being

Life-Path Interview 09

Purpose: Understand how a person experiences stress, emotion, periods of difficulty, resilience, and support.

This is not a diagnostic assessment. The interviewer should not diagnose or interpret symptoms as medical conditions. The participant may skip any question.

Participant code: ____________________ Date: ____________________

Interviewer: ____________________

□ The participant agrees to have these responses recorded and stored privately for Union support planning. Questions may be skipped. The participant can ask the administrator to review or correct the record, or discuss withdrawal.

1. Early Emotional Life

When you were young, what happened when you were sad, angry, afraid, or overwhelmed?

Were you encouraged to talk about those feelings?

What were you taught to do instead?

2. First Period of Serious Difficulty

Was there a period when your thoughts, emotions, stress, or ability to cope became significantly harder to manage?

Approximately when?

What was happening in your life at the time?

3. How Difficulty Appears

How can you tell when you are starting to struggle?

What changes first - sleep, appetite, energy, patience, concentration, isolation, anger, motivation, substance use, ability to work, or something else?

4. What Helps

What reliably makes things even a little better?

What tends to make things worse?

5. Help-Seeking

Who are you willing to tell when things are going badly?

What makes it easier to accept help?

What makes you reject or avoid help?

Have professionals ever misunderstood what you needed?

What did someone do that genuinely worked?

6. Strength

What have you survived or adapted to that you once thought you could not?

What have you learned about yourself from difficult periods?

7. Current Self-Knowledge

What should someone working beside you recognize as a sign that you need space, support, rest, food, a conversation, or professional assistance?

How would you prefer them to approach you?

8. Participant's Own Interpretation

Finish: "When I am doing well, you can tell because..."

Finish: "When I am struggling, the most useful thing someone can do is..."

Interviewer Notes

Self-identified warning signs: ____________________________________________

Known stabilizers: ____________________________________________

Preferred approach when struggling: ____________________________________________

Existing supports named voluntarily: ____________________________________________

Do not diagnose, demand medical history, or record diagnoses or medication details unless the participant chooses to share them and there is a genuine operational reason to retain them.