Do you bring notes into therapy?

I am thinking of bringing notes. I feel very uncomfortable with just waltzing into her room and then immediately talking about my childhood or whatever. I need a segue, and maybe the notes can provide it.

Do you bring notes?

Yes I do , I have a little notebook and in it I have it divided into sections , the here and now and the past I do this because if I don't I will walk in there , and forget everything I need to discuss.

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I used to do that a lot with Madame T, and I guess I still do it a little with Mr T.

No notes so far

I took in a power point presentation one time.

My admiration for you knows no bounds!

Stopdog that is beyond awesome

I do sometimes. I bring a piece of paper with questions or things I've thought about during the week when I feel like I don't know how to start talking about it or when I'm too scared to do so.

Yeah I do bring in notes a lot. It also helps me to write them in between sessions. Makes me feel like I'm working actively towards getting better.

I tend to keep notes in a draft email and then pull it up on my phone. I also bring my journal and sometimes read entries from that.

I never really brought notes. Early on she would occasionally ask me to write things down as kind of 'homework' for next time - like lists of things. Later on I would tend to email with any thoughts or concerns and highlight things I felt I needed to discuss, and she would sometimes print it off and go over parts of it with me in session.

With the T I am seeing at the moment there have been no notes of any kind so far. I feel no need for any as of yet.

If I bring written material, it is read separately from the therapy session, which is more about what comes to my mind, and what leads from it. This sometimes frustrates me at the start, but by the end of the session I am usually happy about what has been covered.

ROFL I love it! What did your T think of it?

I can see myself doing this except T has no computer in his office. (I'm a teacher and give powerpoint presentations all the time).

Oh, and yes, I bring notes - usually a folder with stuff I've written (journal entries), sometimes just random thoughts, whatever I have printed that I want to share with T.

I often do this. I also email my T.

Once I made a cartoon strip to show why he was annoying me.

omg, that's the funniest thing I have heard all day. I needed a good laugh!!

Take notes ALL the time. The only way I can really get to what I want to work on most days.

I do if there are a number of things that I feel are immediately pressing to discuss or if I'm worried that I'll get there and pull a blank when it's time to talk.

sometimes.

I once threatened to bring a ppt and T burst out laughing - and SD made it a reality ! ! ! way to go!

I used to do that with first t quite a lot.

I used to.. Still do on the occasion but growing up I would do this so much, and I finally got tired of the stress it produced from my T's telling me "no, I'm not going to take these notes any more. if you want to talk, or say something, then just say it. Or you can read it outloud to me and we can discuss it." The last time I wrote a note to the T was when I ended up needing to talk to my T over a issue that i couldn't with my parents in the room.. so my note was actually a pretty short one that time, and it told her what i really needed help with that week, and it was informing her on something bad at home.. she read it, and told me i would have to read it outloud or she would read it out loud. I didn't want either, but with no reply from me i got stuck with reading it outloud.. I did read it... but it was prolly one of the hardest things i had ever done.. and i KNEW once we got in that car to return home I would have wished I never even set foot outside of that office.

I guess the diffrence now is that I write short notes to myself (which is rare even now) so i can look at them and mention them, but it never gets expressed as well as it would if i could just write a letter to my T.
I have had quite a few T's since I was 13 or 14, and even more before that. But I'm just saying that i'm no longer with that T that did that.(i actually think my parents pulled me out of therapy after that and-.... well too much to even try to explain,....)

Not notes, no. I do sometimes bring detailed, written down thoughts and goings ons of my past week and give those to my T at the beginning of the session which gets us started. It often helps us to delve deeper and stay on track than just going for it.

Normally I don't but my Therapist wants me to come to the session next week with a list of things for and against an event that I don't know if I want to attend (but my family wants me to).

Yes I bring in notes every time. Actually, I have a therapy briefcase that weighs ten pounds and whenever I get stressed in the week, I type my thoughts and put them in the briefcase. All my crazy letters from family members in the psych ward go in the brief case too. And then I rarely share the contents.

Also lmao lol lol why is your user name "illegal toilet"? Lolollllollolll I can't stop laughing! I'm sorry!

Thank you so much for this post!

I was thinking about bringing in notes so many times because I felt like I need to talk about "this and this and this and this" but then those things from the past aren´t always on my mind when I walk into therapy.

Both my first and second therapist gave me the impression that bringing in notes is "wrong therapy" because I should talk about whatever comes to my mind spontaneously, on that day, what´s on my mind then.

But the thing is, 1: that I´m always a little nervous before and in the beginning of each session, so this anxiety is on top of my mind and 2: just because those things aren´t always right there on my mind that day, doesn´t mean that it´s wrong to talk about them and bring them up, right? Because they pop into my mind over the week a couple of times and it would be good to have them covered.

I think I´m gonna talk to my T about bringing in notes, now.
Any suggestions how I can make my point clearer to her?

I haven't brought in notes, but I do always bring in the things my T asks me to do. He doesn't always ask for them, but I have them with me.

I sent my T an email with a few things that I felt I needed to say that I knew I wouldn't say in person. If I had brought it in on paper I wouldn't have likely said a word about it.