A printable ladder of avoidance example helps people plan small, manageable steps towards facing anxiety-provoking situations rather than avoiding or escaping them. It shows how to rank feared places or activities on a 0 to 100 anxiety scale, making it useful for panic, agoraphobia, social anxiety and graded exposure work.
The Panic Ladder of Avoidance Graded Exposure Worksheet is a printable PDF for mapping anxiety-provoking situations in a clear, step-by-step way. It uses a ladder format to rank avoided places or activities by fear level from 0 to 100, helping the user see which situations may feel easier to approach first and which may need more preparation.
The example includes everyday and public settings such as going to an airport, walking around Leeds city centre on a busy Saturday afternoon, shopping in a supermarket, riding the bus to work at 8:30am, and visiting a supermarket on a weekday afternoon. These examples can help prompt discussion, but the worksheet can also be adapted with personal situations, travel routes, social plans, shops, appointments or other activities that are currently being avoided.
It can be used by adults or older teenagers in CBT-informed sessions, counselling, wellbeing support, guided self-help, revision of coping strategies or home learning between appointments. Practitioners may use it as an exposure hierarchy template during planning, while individuals can use it to break a larger fear into smaller practice tasks and record a realistic order to try them in.
Download, print or share the worksheet as a practical planning aid for graded exposure work. This resource was created by MindWell Leeds.
