Be Part of a Project Reimagining How We Improve Client Lives
For far too long, mental health assessments have set a particularly low bar. While it is important to ensure the basics are covered, a life that barely meets the standard of existing, is hardly a life well-lived. At the same time, the models that encourage people to extend themselves are imprecise, and lack measures.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ exists to change that.
We are building a new standard assessment tool. One that uses an accounting framework to measure how a client is going across 10 areas of life and shows exactly what to improve. This guides meaningful action, and helps people move from surviving to thriving.
And by aggregating data we will understand different community needs and be able to come up with targeted responses.
Accounting For a Better Life™
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ captures data across 200 metrics, covering all 10 domains of an individual’s life. This provides a comprehensive picture of overall functioning and wellbeing.
The acronym ALIE-N stands for Assets, Liabilities, Income, Expenses, and Net. These accounts appear within each of the 10 domains and represent the core components of an accounting framework that can systematically identify strengths, challenges, and opportunities for growth.
Used at intake and for ongoing monitoring, the assessment equips practitioners with precise, actionable insights and access to highly targeted resources aligned with each of the 200 measures.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ is thorough and holistic, saves time and ultimately supports meaningful, measurable improvements in a client’s life.
How it Works
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ uses an accounting model to understand how someone is going across all 10 Domains that make up their life.
ALIE-N stands for Assets, Liabilities, Income, Expenses, and Net. These accounts exist in each area of life - or domain - to create a personal “balance sheet”, showing what’s working well, what’s getting in the way, and where to focus next.
The 10 Domains
1. Physical Health & Wellness Your physical health, energy, and daily habits.
2. Mental & Emotional Well-Being Your thoughts, emotions, and ability to handle challenges.
3. Family & Personal Relationships The quality of your close relationships and how you show up in them.
4. Work & Study Your sense of purpose, satisfaction, and growth in work or study.
5. Financial & Material Well-Being Your financial stability, habits, and direction.
6. Personal Growth & Learning How you learn, grow, and apply new insights.
7. Recreation, Quality of Life & Fun Your ability to enjoy life, rest, and maintain balance.
8. Purpose & Meaning Your sense of direction and connection to what matters most.
9. Community & Contribution Your sense of belonging and the impact you have on others.
10. Life Logistics & Time Focus How you manage your time, responsibilities, and daily systems.
Assessment Scoring
In ALIE-N, each domain includes 20 statements - five in each account. Examples from each account include:
Asset statement: "I have consistently restorative sleep"
Liability statement: "I am stressed and mentally fatigued"
Income statement: "Time is intentionally scheduled for play, creativity, or exploration"
Expense statement: "Integration into the community is avoided"
Participants rate each one on a 5-point Likert scale:
1 = Not true at all
5 = Fully true
An N/A option is available where a statement doesn’t apply, helping keep results accurate.
Time & Flexibility
The assessment usually takes 20–40 minutes (mean time ~23 minutes).
It can be completed on a phone, tablet, or computer, and progress is saved - so it can be done in stages if needed.
How ALIE-N Complements the Main Therapies
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ enhances acceptance and commitment therapy by providing a clear, structured map of how clients are living in relation to their values across all areas of life. It helps you identify patterns of avoidance and committed action, while tracking whether clients are moving toward a more meaningful, values-driven life. The result is a practical, measurable framework that strengthens psychological flexibility and demonstrates real-world progress over time.
Adlerian therapy is complemented by ALIE-N, providing a structured map of a client’s lifestyle, revealing how beliefs, behaviours, and goals are expressed across all areas of life. You can quickly identify mistaken beliefs, patterns of discouragement, and levels of social interest, while offering clear entry points for deeper exploration. By highlighting strengths and tracking change over time, ALIE-N supports targeted encouragement and goal-directed progress. A blend of insight, structure, and measurable outcomes strengthens both assessment and intervention.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ works well with behaviour therapy by providing a clear, structured baseline of behaviours across all areas of a client’s life. It helps to identify which behaviours to reinforce or modify, design targeted interventions, and track measurable change over time. ALIE-N gives you a practical, data-driven approach that strengthens behavioural outcomes and demonstrates real-world progress.
Cognitive behaviour therapy is complemented by a structured, whole-of-life map of the thoughts and behaviours driving a client’s difficulties. It helps you quickly identify cognitive distortions and target behaviours, while supporting focused interventions like cognitive restructuring and behavioural activation. You get a practical, measurable framework that strengthens outcomes and clearly tracks progress over time.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ is useful with dialectical behavior therapy by providing a clear, structured map of emotional and behavioural patterns across a client’s life. You can target key behaviours, reinforce skill use, and track measurable improvements in areas such as emotion regulation and relationships. The result is a powerful, data-driven framework that strengthens intervention and demonstrates real-world progress over time.
ALIE-N can enhance existential therapy by mapping how clients are living in relation to meaning, authenticity, and responsibility across all areas of life. You will quickly identify where clients are aligned - or avoiding - the life they want, while tracking whether insight leads to real-world change. The outcome is a powerful bridge between existential depth and measurable results.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ adds to exposure therapy by providing a clear, structured map of avoidance patterns and their impact across a client’s life. It enables you to identify precise targets for exposure, guide graded interventions, and track measurable reductions in avoidance alongside increased engagement. The result is a practical, data-driven framework that strengthens outcomes and demonstrates real-world progress overtime.
The assessment enhances family systems therapy by providing a structured map of how relational patterns and roles are influencing a client’s life across key domains. With ALIE-N you can identify recurring interaction patterns, explore systemic influences, and guide meaningful change in relationships. The product is a clear, measurable framework that supports deeper systemic insight and tracks progress over time.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ contributes to feminist therapy by mapping how personal experiences and broader social influences shape a client’s life across key domains. It helps you work out patterns of empowerment, constraint, and systemic impact, while supporting collaborative, client-led exploration. The end result is a structured, strengths-based approach that promotes agency and tracks meaningful, context-aware change over time.
Gestalt therapy uses ALIE-N to provide a clear map of patterns that can be brought into present-moment awareness. It enables you to identify where clients are engaging or avoiding contact, while offering concrete material for experiential work and deeper insight. The outcome is a powerful integration of awareness, action, and measurable change across all areas of life.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ supports work of interpersonal therapists by providing a clear, structured map of how relationship patterns and social roles are impacting a client’s life. You can identify key interpersonal problem areas, target communicationand relational change, and track measurable improvements over time. It is a practical, outcomes-focused framework that strengthens relationship-based interventions and demonstrates real-world progress.
Person-centred therapy is complemented by ALIE-N by providing a clear, structured reflection of how clients are living across all areas of life, while keeping the therapeutic process fully client-led. It enables you to highlight incongruence, reinforce strengths, and deepen self-exploration without directing interpretation or undermining autonomy. The result is a powerful blend of empathy, insight, and measurable progress that supports authentic, client-driven change.
ALIE-N enhances postmodern approaches such as solution-focused brief therapy and narrative therapy by providing a structured, non-pathologising reflection of a client’s life that supports their own meaning-making. It helps you highlight strengths, identify exceptions, and externalise problems while guiding clients toward preferred futures. The end result is a collaborative, strengths-based framework that supports re-authoring and tracks meaningful, client-defined change over time.
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ is a useful tool in psychoanalytic therapy, enabling mapping how unconscious patterns show up across a client’s life. Helpers can identify key themes more quickly and track whether insight is leading to real-world change. The result is a powerful blend of depth and measurable outcomes.
Reality therapy works well with ALIE-N by providing a clear, structured view of the choices clients are making and the results those choices are producing across their life. You are guided through evaluation and planning tasks by identifying what is working, what is not, and where change is needed. The outcome is a practical, action-focused approach that strengthens personal responsibility and tracks meaningful progress over time.
How Different Helpers Can Use ALIE-N
Counsellors and Psychotherapists
Intake: ALIE‑N can support a holistic intake by identifying which domains are most salient and by preventing early sessions from being captured solely by the “presenting complaint” when distress is embedded in broader life context (work, finances, relationships, time, meaning). This aligns with counselling definitions emphasising collaborative, safe, confidential work to resolve concerns and promote wellbeing.
Session work: Counsellors can use ALIE‑N item flags as session prompts for skill development and between-session experiments, selecting interventions that fit their modality (solution-focused, narrative, MI, CBT-informed, interpersonal, etc.).
Ongoing review and endings: A repeat ALIE‑N administration can provide a shared summary of progress and guide relapse-prevention planning. You can identify which Income behaviours protected gains and which Expenses re-emerge under stress. This mirrors routine monitoring principles in broader psychotherapy research, even when counsellors are not using formal symptom measures.
Life Coaches
Discovery phase: ALIE‑N provides a detailed “current state” snapshot across the 10 domains described, enabling a richer version of the Wheel of Life exercise and making it easier to choose an initial coaching focus.
Goal setting and action planning: Coaching can translate low‑Net domains into goals, use Assets to identify leverage points, and convert Income/Expenses into weekly actions and accountability. This aligns with professional coaching definitions emphasising partnering to help clients maximise potential, and with structured coaching frameworks like GROW.
Accountability and measurement: Repeating ALIE‑N periodically leads to progress. Pair this with evidence-based goal structuring (specific goals, if‑then plans) to increase follow‑through while keeping the coaching tone non-clinical.
Psychologists
Intake and formulation: Psychologists can use ALIE‑N as a structured adjunct to interview-based assessment to quickly capture cross-domain functioning data and support collaborative formulation. This is most defensible when framed in biopsychosocial/ICF/5Ps terms and explicitly separated from diagnosis-making.
During treatment: ALIE‑N domain patterns can guide intervention selection (CBT/ACT/DBT/IPT, etc.) and help keep therapy linked to life functioning outcomes rather than symptom scores alone - while still allowing you to add validated symptom measures where appropriate.
Progress monitoring: Because ALIE‑N is designed to be repeated, it can be incorporated into outcome monitoring schedules (e.g., periodic reassessment). Routine monitoring is increasingly emphasised in measurement-based care literature.
Risk and ethical practice: If ALIE‑N responses suggest elevated risk (e.g., severe distress, self-harm cues, profound impairment), you must follow established risk management practices and professional guidelines, not rely on the tool as a risk screen.
Social Workers and Support Workers
Multidomain needs assessment: ALIE‑N can complement person-in-environment approaches by highlighting environmental constraints (finances, housing-like logistics, community supports) and strengths, providing a structured way to prioritise case management goals.
Care coordination: Domain outputs can be used to coordinate referrals (financial counselling, employment support, relationship services, mental health supports) while tracking whether external supports are translating into improved day-to-day functioning. This is consistent with an emphasis on context and with routine monitoring logic.
Youth Workers
Engagement and planning: Youth workers can use ALIE‑N as a youth-led planning tool: start with domains the young person chooses, frame results as strengths and growth areas, and co-create practical plans that respect autonomy and dignity of risk while meeting duty of care.
During support: Use Logistics/Time Focus, Community/Contribution, and Relationships domains to structure support planning (education engagement, routines, service connections, pro-social participation) and to document progress in a way that is meaningful to the young person. Provide a positive developmental framing.
Escalation and referral: Where ALIE‑N indicates serious mental health or safety concerns, you should follow organisational protocols and refer for qualified assessment; this is consistent with youth work ethical frameworks and broader health-system guidance on managing risk
Frequently Asked Questions
The ALIE-N Life Assessment™ is the first project of Alchemy Path.
It is a structured assessment model that uses an accounting framework to measure life across 10 domains. In each there are five key elements:
Assets - what’s working in your life
Liabilities - what’s holding you back
Income - actions that move you forward
Expenses - behaviours that limit progress
Net - your overall score in a domain.
These components make up the acronym ALIE-N.
With 200 metrics, it creates a detailed and balanced picture of your life, and directs you to specific improvements you can make.
Most current approaches fall short in two ways:
Mental health assessments often focus on symptoms and deficits - defining success as the absence of problems
Whole-of-Life frameworks are often vague and difficult to act on
ALIE-N addresses both of these issues.
It provides clarity, structure, and direction - helping people not just avoid a bad life, but actively build a good one.
ALIE-N is designed for depth, precision, and action:
200 metrics
A balance of strengths and challenges
Direct links to practical improvements through resources available to helpers
The ability to track change over time
It transforms the abstract into something measurable and actionable.
In 1994, Gill and Feinstein* did a comprehensive meta-analysis of existing Quality-of-Life assessments. They used the Spilker Quality-of-Life Bibliography and MEDLINE to access hundreds of assessments and reviews.
After selecting 75 articles (which covered 159 instruments) at random, the researchers used 10 criteria to assess the quality of each assessment. In this post, the ALIE-N Life Assessment™ is critiqued against the same standards. The statements have been paraphrased for ease of reading.
1) Did you conceptually identify what you meant by quality-of-life? Yes, the World Health Organisation (WHO) definition is adopted and mentioned in the assessment. It defines quality of life as "an individual's perception of their position in life in the context of the culture and value systems in which they live and in relation to their goals, expectations, standards and concerns". Only 15% of assessments did this.
2) Did you state the domains? Yes, this is explicitly listed. Less than half (47%) did this.
3) Did you give reasons for choosing the instruments used? The survey format with a scoring system was the quickest way to collate useful information about individuals and then aggregate the data to understand communities. Just over one third (36%) of the assessments disclosed this.
4) Did you aggregate the results from multiple items, domains or instruments into a single composite score for quality of life? Just like 53% of the other assessments, this score is calculated.
5) Were participants asked to give their own global rating for quality of life? The WHO definition is provided to assessment participants and then they are asked to rate their quality of life from one to 10 stars, with 10 indicating someone is living the best life possible for them and one is the worst. Only 17% of assessments collected this information.
6) Was overall quality of life distinguished from health-related quality of life? Sort of. The first two domains contain health questions, but this data isn't used or presented separately. This may happen in the future. None of the assessments did this.
7) Were participants invited to supplement the items listed in the instruments? Yes, like 13% of the assessments reviewed, ALIE-N provides two items for people to give context to their scores and feedback about anything missing.
8) If so, were these supplemental items incorporated into the final rating? No. Only 11% of the assessments reviewed did this.
9) Were participants asked to indicate which items were personally important to them? Yes, for each domain people rate out of 10 how important it is to them. 89% of the assessments didn't do this.
10) If so, were these importance ratings incorporated onto the final rating? Kind of. In addition to the net scores, a graph is produced with one axis showing scores (-100 to 100) and the other importance (1-10). Only 4% of the assessments did this.
*Reference: Gill, T. M., & Feinstein, A. R. (1994). A critical appraisal of the quality of quality-of-life measurements. JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association, 272(8), 619–626.
ALIE-N is just the beginning.
As data grows, we will explore new ways of understanding communities - not through assumptions, but through insight from aggregated data.
This will lead to:
Targeted wellbeing initiatives based on actual needs
Community-led projects addressing specific gaps
Digital tools and platforms that are personalised
Partnerships with organisations and services to improve outcomes
New ventures and businesses built directly from identified needs
The vision is to create a system where: insight leads to action, and action leads to measurable improvement.
Individual responses are private and secure.
When used at a broader level, data is:
De-identified
Aggregated
Analysed only to identify patterns and needs
This ensures privacy while enabling meaningful, community-level insight.
Because most people are navigating life without clear feedback on how they’re actually going - or what to do next.
And most systems designed to help are:
Reactive
Fragmented
Difficult to quantify where someone is at
ALIE-N changes that.
ALIE-N is still at an early stage of development.
Which means you’re not just observing something being built, but you’re being invited to help build it.
Get in touch
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A closing thought...
At any point in time we can choose to take a different direction. At any point we can go from existing to truly living.
And we want that for our clients too.
"We have two lives, and the second begins when we realise we only have one." - Confucius