Guide

Recording therapy sessions and consent

Do not turn a microphone on until the client has agreed, knows why, and knows they can say no and still be seen.

Updated 4 October 2026.

Information, not legal advice. This page is a practical overview for practices. It is not a substitute for advice on your own contracts, insurance or registration.

Recording a therapy session can make the note faster and the memory fairer. It can also be the most intimate file you will ever store. UK GDPR and South Africa’s POPIA both treat a recording of a counselling session as sensitive personal information. This page is a consent checklist for practices that use Assist, or any similar drafting tool. It is not a template you can paste without reading it against your own contract, and it is not legal advice.

The clinical rule is simple and does not depend on the country. The client decides, before you record. You review the draft. You sign the note. The software does not diagnose and does not sign.

Before you ever offer recording

Decide, as a practice, whether you record at all. Some modalities and some clients should not be recorded. Write that limit down. Decide what is kept: audio, a transcript, a draft note, or only the signed note. Decide how long each of those is kept. A transcript can be more identifying than a summary. Do not keep all three forever because the button defaults to that.

Name the processor. In Reach + Within, transcription is done by a named sub-processor, listed for practices that ask. Client data is hosted in the EU (Netherlands). For a UK practice, the ICO’s adequacy regulations cover the EEA, including the Netherlands. For a South African practice, POPIA still requires a ground for a cross-border transfer. Say the location in the notice. Details are on the security page and in the POPIA guide and the UK GDPR guide.

What to say before the session

Have the conversation in ordinary language, not only a tick box at the bottom of a long form. Cover at least these points, and record the answer on the file before any recording starts.

• You are asking to record this session, or this part of it. They can say no and still have the session. You will write the note yourself.
• What the recording is for: to help you draft the clinical note. Not for marketing. Not for training an outside model on their story. Do not promise a use you have not checked.
• What is produced: a transcript and a draft. They can ask what that means.
• Who hears it: you, and the transcription provider under contract. Not your PA. Not a family member, unless they are the client and have agreed.
• That you will edit the draft and sign the note. A draft can be wrong. The signed note is what you stand behind.
• How long you keep the audio and the transcript, which may be shorter than the signed note.
• That they can change their mind for future sessions, and what happens to a recording already made (you stop using it going forward; deletion of what exists follows the notice and the law).
• How they can ask for a copy of the note.

If the client is a child or a person who may not be able to consent, do not improvise. Follow the law and your professional body’s guidance on who may consent, and do not record until that is clear. This checklist assumes an adult client who can decide.

In the room or on the call

Start only after the answer is on the file. If you record an online session from the browser tab, say that the platform (Zoom, Teams or Meet) is a separate service with its own recording controls. Do not rely on the platform’s recording as well as yours unless you have explained both. If you import a voice memo made on a phone, the same consent applies. A recording made “just for me” on a handset is still their information.

If they become distressed and ask you to stop, stop. Note that you stopped. Do not argue that the quality of the note depends on continuing.

After the session

Read the transcript against the session you remember. Ask Assist for the kind of note you use, such as SOAP or DAP, if that is your format. Delete lines that overstate risk, invent agreement, or tidy away ambivalence. Then sign. If you would be ashamed to show the client a sentence, it does not belong in the record, whether a human or a draft wrote it.

The product description of this sequence is on AI session notes. The same standard applies if you use another scribe. Heidi and others sell standalone scribes. The consent questions do not get shorter because the logo is different. Our comparison is Reach + Within and Heidi, written for people choosing a scribe rather than for people who have already decided.

A one-page checklist you can pin up

1. Practice policy: when you do not record.
2. Notice: purpose, hosting, sub-processor, retention of audio and of the note.
3. Ask, and store the answer, before record.
4. No recording means a normal session and a note you write.
5. Stop if they ask you to stop.
6. Edit the draft. Sign the note. You remain responsible for accuracy.
7. PA and accounts logins cannot open the recording or the note.
8. Export and deletion follow the notice. Logins are personal and roles limit who can open a recording. None of that replaces the consent line.

Couples and families need an extra line: whose voice is recorded, and whether one person’s consent covers the other. It does not. Get each adult’s answer.

If you remember nothing else, remember the order. Consent, then recording, then a draft, then your signature. Any product that reverses that order is a product to walk away from, including ours if we ever did. We do not.

Practices that want the wider buying context, including scribes that are not part of a practice system, can read how to choose practice software. The choice of tool does not change the order of consent.