Therapy Experiences – Taking Notes In A Therapy Session

Therapy Experiences are some of Sanam’s profound explanations of some common experiences people have throughout their therapy sessions and provides a clear description of what would be taking place at a deeper level. In the Therapy Experiences, Sanam explains a little on bringing a notepad to your therapy sessions, and some of the interpretations that may be brought to surface from that.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is whether it’s okay for a client to take notes in a therapy session. Here’s an interpretation from a professional Psychologists.

“Am I allowed to bring a notepad into my therapy sessions, just so that I can remember things more easily?”. Of course you can bring a notepad to your therapy sessions, but I think it also depends on the approach that your Psychologist uses. So for me, for example, I often see any form of behaviour in the therapy room as something leading me to a deeper understanding of the client sitting in front of me.

Something I noticed is that clients that are quite anxious often tend to bring a notepad into the session, so, depending on their culture, the context that they grew up in, their background, their past relationships, etc, I may make an interpretation.

I may say something like, “I’m wondering if you don’t trust yourself enough to be able to remember the things we’re speaking about in this session. I might also say, “I’m wondering if you’re using your notepad as a barrier so that you don’t have to connect with me on a deeper level, which means you don’t have to be vulnerable.

Unless you have severe memory challenges, I often find that note taking in a therapy session sort of serves as an avoidance to doing the deeper work and really sitting in that discomfort, you and your therapist.

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