⚖️Can Note-Taking be a Collaborative Process?

Final one in the note taking series. Read Part 1- Purpose of Psychotherapy notes, Part 2- How to Structure your notes, Part 3- When should you write your notes and Part 4- Are your therapy notes secure? and Part 5- What if clients ask for their therapy notes?

Last week, I wrote about client requests for therapy notes and the benefits/concerns linked to it.

One way of opening therapy notes to clients is through Co-Documentation, a process that supports them to take an active role in the therapy process. Additionally, some people have found it helpful in working through an impasse in therapy.

Albeck and Goldman (1991), a therapist-patient duo wrote about a client-therapist co-documentation format that was initiated in their sessions together. Here are the steps they outlined-

The time for discussion in the next session- allows to work through any disagreement the therapist and client have in their notes- and can be a therapeutic experience. This process would specifically capture the ‘session content’ part of the SOAPS format, leaving Assessment and Plan to be filled out by the therapist by themselves.

If you have tried this/something similar I’d love to hear your experience! Just click reply and write to me.

To read more about Albeck and Goldman’s (1991) journey, check out this paper-

Until next week,
Suvrita

Help me reach 1000 subscribers, forward this to a colleague who’d find this useful!