Introductory Context
"The psychological weekly review works because it creates a structured, non-market-hours space for honest self-assessment. During market hours, the emotional states that produce poor decisions are actively operating and cannot be objectively assessed. During market hours, the trader who just violated the two-hour cool-off rule is not thinking 'I am revenge trading' -- they are thinking 'this is a genuinely good setup that will recover my loss.' The Sunday review, conducted after the emotional activation has subsided and the week's outcomes are known, provides the honest visibility into which decisions were driven by analytical frameworks and which were driven by psychological states. "
The Psychological Weekly Review -- Four Questions
Question 1: Which circuit breakers were triggered this week, and were they honoured? List every stop-loss exit during the week. Was the two-hour cool-off implemented after each? List every session with two or more stop exits. Was the daily loss limit circuit breaker implemented? If any circuit breaker was not honoured: write the specific bypass justification that was used ('I thought this setup was different') and assess whether that justification reflects analytical reasoning or emotional override.
Question 2: Were there any plan deviations, and what drove them? For any trade where the exit did not follow the pre-trade plan (position exited early, stop moved, position held past the time-based exit), write the specific reason given at the time of the deviation. Then assess: was this reason analytical (new evidence changed the exit decision) or psychological (fear, hope, loss aversion, FOMO)? Psychological reasons for plan deviations are the signal that a specific circuit breaker or structural defence needs to be added to the trading plan.
Question 3: What was the predominant emotional state during the week's trading? One to three sentences describing the overall psychological experience: 'This week I felt overconfident after Monday's win and entered Thursday's position without completing the full checklist. The Thursday loss was a direct result of the overconfidence-driven checklist shortcut.' This emotional narrative provides the experiential data that complements the statistical data from the journal records.
Question 4: What is one specific behavioural change to implement next week? Based on the answers to Questions 1 through 3, identify one specific, implementable change to the trading behaviour for the coming week. Not 'be more disciplined' -- that is not specific. 'Complete the MACD and OI steps of the checklist for every entry, regardless of how compelling the first six steps appear' -- that is specific, behavioural, and verifiable.
The Psychological Review Complements the Operational Review
The operational weekly review (Topic 8.20) covers: prior week trade assessment, market context update, watchlist preparation, and plan updates. The psychological review (this topic) covers: circuit breaker compliance, plan deviation analysis, emotional state narrative, and one behavioural change. Together, they take 50 to 70 minutes total on Sunday. Separate time on Sunday for each: 20 to 30 minutes for the operational review (creating the coming week's conditional plan), 25 to 30 minutes for the psychological review (assessing the prior week's behavioural patterns). Both reviews require the Traders Diary as the data source.
The Sunday review is the only time in the trading week when the emotional fog has completely cleared, the week's outcomes are fully known, and the decisions can be assessed with maximum honesty. Every other moment in the week -- during market hours, during positions, even in the hours after a large loss -- the emotional states that produced the decisions are still partially active. Sunday is the window of clarity. Use it.
Conduct the Psychological Review Even After a Good Week
The psychological review is most valuable -- and most commonly skipped -- after a good week. A profitable week does not mean all decisions were psychologically sound. A profitable week can include: FOMO entries that happened to work out, checklist shortcuts that were not caught by the market, overconfidence-driven oversizing that produced a win this week but creates a pattern that will produce a large loss next week. Skipping the psychological review because the week's outcomes were good means missing exactly the overconfidence and relaxed-criteria patterns that the good week has created. Review every week, regardless of P&L.
Write the Psychological Review in a Separate Section From the Operational Review
In the Traders Diary, create a specific 'Weekly Psychology Review' section separate from the operational review section. The separation ensures that the emotional narrative and behavioural assessment are completed as a distinct analytical exercise and not merged into the market context and trade planning. Merging the two tends to compress the psychological review as the operational planning takes priority. The separate section enforces the 25 to 30 minute commitment to the psychological dimension.