I'm BAFFLED by therapists spending hours catching up on "notes." What in god's name are you writing? Who do you think they're for? Hint: Chart notes are NOT for your benefit—or your patient's (just the opposite). They should meet letter of the law & NOTHING MORE. Here's example:
2/ Chart notes are legal requirement, not part of your clinical work as a therapist. Communicate with your patient *in session*. If you're writing for your personal clinical purposes, write private process notes & never let them near patient chart. If you need to share info with
3/ a colleague, get permission & *speak to the colleague.* Chart notes are not for any of these thing. They're for regulators/health insurers/lawyers. Not—never—for clinical purposes. Nothing in chart note will ever help your patient. They can only be used against them (and you).
4/ And on a purely personal note, it would give me a special kind of yucky feeling if I thought my own therapist or analyst was writing extensive, detailed notes about what I said in sessions. Among other things, I’d wonder who he was writing to, or imagined he was writing to…
5/ and how and why this imaginary other had intruded into our relationship and had come to take up so much space. Is he really in the relationship with me? Or is the relationship really with his notepad, keyboard, or imaginary interlocutor?
Share this Scrolly Tale with your friends.
A Scrolly Tale is a new way to read Twitter threads with a more visually immersive experience.
Discover more beautiful Scrolly Tales like this.