Templates / Perspective taking worksheet

Practice Management Tips

Perspective taking worksheet

Free PDF • 1 page, print-ready • Clinician-reviewed

Despina Petrushevska Last updated November 9, 2026 Reviewed by Dr. Vanja Kitanova

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A perspective taking worksheet is a session form that helps children, adolescents and adults practice seeing a situation from another person's point of view. Perspective taking is the cognitive side of empathy, the skill of working out what someone else thinks, feels or knows. This one-page clinical form gives therapists, school counselors and other clinicians headed space for the session objective, an empathy exercise, communication strategies and reflective analysis. It can be printed or completed digitally. This guide covers what each section is for, how to run a session with it, and scenarios to work through.

Template details

Template type

Worksheet

Format

Printable PDF, 1 page

Fields to complete

18 fields

Best for

Practice Management Tips

Key takeaways

A perspective taking worksheet gives a session a written record of the patient’s work on seeing a situation from another person’s viewpoint.

Perspective taking is the cognitive side of empathy, separate from the emotional response to another person’s experience.

This free form has nine headed sections, from the session objective to reflective analysis, with blank space under each one.

Run the perspective work in the Empathy exercise section, using one concrete scenario at a time.

Practice software such as Pabau can send the worksheet before a session and file completed answers on the patient record.

What is a perspective taking worksheet?

A perspective taking worksheet is a session form for practicing one social skill: working out what another person thinks, feels or knows. This version is a one-page clinical form. It gives the clinician headed space to set a goal, record the perspective work, and review it afterward.

Perspective taking is a component of theory of mind, the broader ability to attribute mental states to others. It is the cognitive side of empathy, separate from the emotional response to another person’s experience. The worksheet targets that cognitive step first, because a patient who can’t yet describe another viewpoint is unlikely to respond to it with understanding.

To gauge a patient’s starting point before you begin, pair the form with an empathy test. Clinicians use the format within cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and social-emotional learning (SEL), where structured reflection is a standard way to build social skills.

What the form contains

The PDF is a single page with nine headed sections and blank space under each one. It doesn’t prescribe a script, so you decide what goes in each section. Here are the headings, with a practical use for each.

• Objective: the skill or goal this session targets.
• Patient profile: age, setting and anything that shapes how you pitch the task.
• Identifying concerns: the situations where the patient’s view and other people’s views clash.
• Empathy exercise: the perspective work itself, built around one scenario.
• Communication strategies: what the patient will say or try differently next time.
• Collaborative care: who else supports the goal, such as a parent, teacher or care team.
• Reflective analysis: what the patient noticed, and which guesses about the other person held up.
• Customization: changes for age, reading level or ability.
• Notes: anything worth carrying into the next session.

How to use the perspective taking worksheet in sessions

The form gives you the headings, not the steps. The approach below is one way to run a session, built around the Empathy exercise and Reflective analysis sections. The nine sections fall into three stages: setup before the session, perspective work during it, and review afterward.

1. Set the goal. Fill in Objective, Patient profile and Identifying concerns before the patient arrives, or in the first few minutes.
2. Pick one scenario. Choose a recent, specific interaction, or one from the table below, and note it under Empathy exercise.
3. Record both viewpoints. The patient writes what they thought and felt, then what the other person may have thought and felt.
4. Check the evidence. Ask what supports each guess about the other person, and mark which ones are assumptions.
5. Plan the next step. Note one thing to say or try under Communication strategies, and who will reinforce it under Collaborative care.
6. Review next time. Use Reflective analysis to record what happened when the patient tried it.

Keep completed forms in the patient’s file, so you can compare progress across sessions.

Scenarios to use in the empathy exercise

Scenarios give the Empathy exercise something concrete to work on. They work best when they are close to the patient’s own experience. Avoid one so charged that the session turns into a debrief of a live conflict. When the scenario is an ongoing dispute rather than a single moment, a conflict resolution worksheet may suit the session better.

Who the form suits

The worksheet suits any practice that works on social cognition. Its open sections adapt to the age and ability of the person completing it.

• Therapists and psychologists working on relationship, anger or conflict goals
• School counselors and SEL teachers running small-group or classroom lessons
• Speech and occupational therapists supporting social communication
• Parents and caregivers practicing everyday disagreements at home

Clinicians working with autistic patients often adapt the scenarios and cut down the open-ended questions. Adults use the format in therapy too, with the wording matched to their reading level and goals. Schools can run it alongside other social emotional learning activities in small groups.

Activities that extend the skill beyond the page

A worksheet is one tool among several. Pairing it with short activities helps patients rehearse the skill away from the form.

• Role-play a scenario and swap roles halfway through.
• Use a picture card and ask what each character in the image might be thinking.
• Review a short video clip and pause to predict each person’s view.

Listening is the other half of the skill. A reflective listening worksheet trains patients to check what the other person meant before they respond.

Practitioners who run group work should cover group therapy informed consent first, so participants understand how recorded reflections are used.

How Pabau keeps perspective work on the patient record

Paper worksheets tend to end up in a folder, away from the session notes they belong to. That makes it hard to set one session’s reflective analysis beside the next.

Pabau, the therapy practice management software we build, turns a form like this into a digital one. Its digital forms send the worksheet before a session and keep the completed answers on the patient record.

Patients fill it in on their own device, and you review it alongside your notes. Over several sessions, the record shows whether the patient’s guesses about other people are getting more accurate.

Keep every worksheet on the patient record

Pabau’s digital forms send perspective taking worksheets before a session and store completed answers on the patient record. You can compare reflective analysis across sessions without a paper folder.

Book a demo

Conclusion

The form is deliberately open, so the session’s value depends on the scenario you choose. Start with one specific, low-stakes interaction, and keep the patient’s guesses about the other person apart from what they know.

Then review those guesses in Reflective analysis at the next session. That review is where the skill builds, because the patient sees which assumptions held up and which didn’t.

Book a demo to see how Pabau sends worksheets before a session and keeps each answer on the patient record.

Continue your research

Working on wider social skills? Interpersonal effectiveness skills worksheet helps patients ask for what they need while keeping the relationship intact.

Want a scored measure of empathy? Toronto Empathy Questionnaire explains the scoring and gives you a free template to use at intake.

Practicing back-and-forth talk? Conversation skills worksheet breaks a conversation into turns patients can rehearse in session.

Need a listening drill to pair with this form? Active listening skills worksheet gives patients prompts for showing they heard the other person.

Running a group or classroom session? Empathy bingo turns perspective prompts into a game for children and teens.

Frequently asked questions