AI note taking for therapists and counsellors at work

Therapeutic presence is a clinical variable, not a soft one, and forming a progress note while a client is speaking costs you some of it. Capture removes that trade — but in this profession the tool is the smallest part of the decision. For some clients recording is contraindicated, particularly where the history involves surveillance, exposure or paranoid features, and the client’s reaction to being asked is itself clinical material. Settle consent, storage and the modality question with your supervisor before you record anyone.

The questions to settle first

01 / Whether, for this client, at all

Not a blanket policy. For clients whose presentation involves surveillance, exposure or significant paranoid features, the offer itself can be harmful. That judgement is clinical and it is yours; no product should make it for you.

02 / How you raise it

How a client reacts to being asked is material. Some experience it as being taken seriously; some experience it as being watched. Either reaction is worth noticing and, often, worth exploring. Plan the wording in supervision rather than improvising it in the room.

03 / Where the recording lives

Encryption, access, retention, deletion. These are confidentiality obligations rather than preferences, and they need answers before the first session, not after fifty. A device that keeps audio locally until you sync gives you a clear answer to "has this left the room yet".

04 / What the AI is and is not doing

It records and it drafts. It does not formulate, assess or decide anything clinical, and a draft is not a progress note until you have written your formulation into it. The workflow changes from reconstructing to reviewing — that is the gain, and it is a real one for post-session load.

05 / Bring it to supervision

A novel practice with clinical and ethical implications is exactly what supervision is for. It is also the fastest way to find the failure mode you have not thought of, which in this profession is usually about the relationship rather than the technology.

Questions

Can therapists use AI for session notes?

With informed client consent, appropriate data security and clinical judgement about suitability, many practitioners do. The consent and the suitability judgement are the substantive parts; the tool is not. Check your registration body’s position and discuss it in supervision.

Is it ethical to record therapy sessions?

With full informed consent, transparent handling and a clinical judgement that it is appropriate for this client, it can be. It is not ethical as a default applied to everyone, and the frameworks that govern it vary by jurisdiction and modality.

How do therapists write session notes without missing details?

Capture the session, then write the note from the record rather than from memory. The clinical content — formulation, risk, plan — is yours and does not come from a transcript. What changes is that you are annotating rather than reconstructing.

What if a client says no?

Then you do not record, and the answer is not revisited at every session. Declining has to be genuinely available or the consent was not real, and in this profession that is a clinical point as much as an ethical one.

Does the audio leave the device?

With Scriben, not until you sync it. The pen records to its own 64GB and there is no live transmission during the session. Ask any vendor the same question in writing, along with where processing happens and how long audio is kept.

This is general information for practitioners, not clinical, ethical or legal advice. Recording a therapy session engages privacy legislation, your registration body’s standards and your own clinical judgement, all of which vary. Discuss it in supervision before implementing it. Scriben is recording people know about. You say what the pen is and what it does, they agree, and then it stays out of the way for the rest of the conversation — that second half is the product, and it only works after the first. Recording law varies by jurisdiction and by profession: see recording people lawfully before you start.