My first therapist took copious notes. I hated it. Sometimes I had to wait for him to finish writing. I *really* came to hate it when I was trying to work thru a rupture over something that happened in a previous session. He was certain I had requested a particular thing from him, and I had no idea where he got his notion from! He then pulled out his big fat file on me, and went back to the page he wrote on that day. Stabbing it with his finger, he said "Here it is! this is what you said!" It wasn't a direct quote, it was interpretive: "Crescent asked if I would..." He wouldn't even consider the possibility that he may have inaccurately interpreted the meaning of what I said. In his mind, his interpretation of the meaning was fact. This just deepened the rupture, and even just the thought of seeing a therapist with pen in hand makes me want to throw up.

The therapist I fell into after that, doesn't take a single note. She is entirely focused on me during session. It wasn't until a couple of years into therapy that I finally found out that afterwards she writes a very brief note that is about 2 sentences long. She holds the history of my therapy in her heart.