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A psychotherapy note is your own working record of a session. It is kept apart from the progress note and from the client’s record, and only you, and a supervisor you name, can open it. It is on every plan, because keeping it private is not an upgrade.

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How it differs from a progress note

  • No one else sees it. Other staff see no row, no count and no placeholder, and the option does not appear for them.
  • It is not on the client’s record, the client portal or a guardian’s view (which do not even show that it exists), your practice’s normal export, a release of records, search, dashboards, or the developer API. It is never used by an AI agent or to train a model.
  • It is not a progress note and there is no button that turns one into the other. You may copy your own words by hand.
  • If a note comes from a substance use disorder program, 42 CFR Part 2 limits who it can be shared with.

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Who sees the option

Mental-health clinicians (by job title or by the type of licence on file) see a Psychotherapy notes tile on the Notes page, beside Treatment plan. Owners can allow anyone else by switching on Write psychotherapy notes in that person’s permissions. Owners see the tile too, only to reach Transfers and the Access log. Everyone else sees the usual tiles and no sign that this exists.

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Start a note

1

Open the tab, or start from where you are

Select the Psychotherapy notes tile on the Notes page. You can also select Private psychotherapy note in the consultation chart, a ward chart, a client’s Notes tab, a session on the calendar, or Care team → My Patients (the row menu and the detail sheet). Each opens the tab with the client already chosen; from a session the note is linked to that appointment but stored apart.
2

Choose the client and a starting point

Select New psychotherapy note, pick the client and the session date, and start from A blank note or one of your Templates.
3

Write and save

Select Save draft as you go. Every saved version is kept. You can delete a draft you wrote with Delete draft; the deletion is recorded.
4

Sign and lock

Select Sign and lock. After that the words cannot change and the note can never be deleted; add an addendum for anything new.

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Find your notes

The tab lists your notes, newest first, as Draft, Signed or Awaiting co-signature. Search your notes looks in the text and client names of your own notes only. It is never part of the clinic-wide search, and nobody else’s results include your notes. Client filters the list to one person. Select Back to notes to leave the tab.

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Templates

Select Templates. A template is a name and a list of section headings, with an optional short prompt after a bar (for example Hypotheses | working formulation). A template never holds a client’s details. You can keep your own or, as an owner or manager, offer one to everyone who writes these notes.

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Draft with AI

Select Draft with AI, paste your own rough notes, and the assistant tidies them into a draft added to the note. The note is marked as an AI draft, and you cannot sign it until you confirm you have read and edited it. It has its own instructions: it works with the process-oriented wording you wrote, adds nothing you did not write, and does not add diagnoses or billing language. It costs 1 AI credit each time and needs a paid plan; see AI credits. On the Free plan the button explains this in the panel (“Draft with AI is available on paid plans. Your psychotherapy notes stay private either way.”) and links to the plans; the note itself works the same without it.

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Ask a supervisor to co-sign

After you sign, select Ask for co-signature and choose one of your supervisors who is allowed to see the client. Only that supervisor can open the note, and only until they co-sign or decline. They choose a statement to attest to, as for other notes. You can withdraw the request while it is waiting.

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Reminders and overdue

If your clinic sets a co-sign deadline, the supervisor you asked gets a reminder a business day before it and a notice when it is overdue. Only the supervisor you named is told; owners and managers are not, because they cannot see that the note exists. The notices say nothing about the client or the note.

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Release a note

Select Release with authorization on a signed note. Choose the client’s signed authorization for psychotherapy notes from the client’s signed documents. The note downloads as a PDF with the authorization named on it. Each release is recorded. Without a signed document the option stays off.

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If the author leaves

Nobody can read the notes of a clinician who has left. An owner opens the Transfers sub-tab, chooses Transfer, picks the clinician who will hold them and gives a reason. The owner cannot read the notes from there.

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What owners can see

Owners get two more sub-tabs. Transfers moves a departed clinician’s notes (see above). The Access log lists who created, opened, signed, released, transferred or exported notes and when. It never shows a client’s name or any of the text. On the same sub-tab, Export all psychotherapy notes downloads a separate file with the clients’ names and the full text, after you type the confirmation words. It is never part of your normal export.

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Who can do this