Here I am, after 11 years of Moodscoping, 2,444 tests (erm, yes, mathematicians, I have lapsed occasionally), what have I learnt about the cards and scoring thereof - and a confession here, although I'm proudly a founder member and have a subscription, I only make use of the daily blog, test and diary function, this serves me well enough.

So, in terms of scoring I have two basic approaches; one is bish, bash, bosh, straight through, as quick as the cards will perform, click on the graph and diarise my previous day factually, without any soul-searching and recording as to the why's and wherefore's. The other is more structured, but even that takes two distinct formats. If low of mood I will recall the pesky difficult cards, be it anxiety or whatever, and attempt to identify, analyse and record what it was that triggered the moodswing and what, if anything I can, or am, going to do about it. This is, to me, opening up the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy side of the Moodscope "offer". If on an upswing, or even on rare occasions actually contented, I will likewise try to identify the cause; if I can, obviously this is to be "banked" and used again if possible. To me, the use of the diary function to address oneself, admonish, compliment or encourage, in print, on the, albeit private, record, is the single biggest strength of Moodscope; indeed I do note the score as it pings up but don't worry about it, as nowadays the scoring is much tighter, gone are the 50 point swings, I get quite excited if there's a 5 point differ.

One of my big issues is time scales. I have to religiously ask myself am I scoring strictly for the previous 24 hours, or am I allowing unresolved historical guilts and complexes to colour the scoring. It is important to make this distinction, otherwise one can, for instance, feel guilty for some perceived gaffe or incident for years without tackling the root cause of the ongoing angst. And, by scoring the, say, guilty card always the same due to the perceived historical crime prevents it being used for current issues, and is actually an easy, lazy, way out, without the work needed to tackle the problem. Incidentally I find use of the downloadable function into a spreadsheet or whatever is a good way of looking back through one's comments over the years.

One strange evolutionary process is the way one interprets the actual meaning on the card. I must admit I have the Moodscope explanation switched on always, as it mostly ensures I score each emotion on the same parameters without changing them mentally to suit, or escape, the current thinking process.

So, Moodscopers, have a think about how you score!

Mortimer

A Moodscope member.