Taking Notes
When I told one of my friends that there's no way I would remember the most important, the most salient details of a therapy visit if I didn't take notes right then and there, she said, "Well, you wouldn't be my therapist. I need someone totally looking me in the eye." I didn't tell her that I could type ninety words a minute and never have to look at the screen. I'm not exactly sure how they teach note-taking in graduate schools anymore, hopefully the importance of a good genogram (family tree diagram that indicates alliances), among other things. In some Masters programs, surely, the old process recording is still taught. A process recording is what is done in the courtroom. You write down, verbatim, word for word, what the client said, although he's not on the stand. It is useful in many ways, not the least of which is that when there's a need for clarification, nothing's more powerful than telling the patient, "Let me see what we talke...