Tuesday 15th January 2019
Clinical Notes in Counselling – Dominic McLoughlin
Clinical notes are seen as a factual record of a session rather than a commentary on process. But is this distinction always easy to maintain? What different functions do clinical notes serve and for whom? How should the reader–as well as the subject– be considered in the way the record is created and preserved? Dominic will open up some questions about the nature and purpose of session notes. By drawing on his own experience and that of those attending we will look at these questions together through a psychodynamic frame. In discussion and through example, we will consider the skills involved in making a good note, and examine how as counsellors we can use this brief everyday writing routine to enhance our practice and best serve the client.
Dominic McLoughlin is a counsellor at the University of Westminster. He has taught counselling and creative writing at Birkbeck and devised ‘Thinking Through Poetry’ for University of the Arts London. Dominic has published poems in various anthologies and magazines. He wrote his practice-based creative writing PhD on Elizabeth Bishop and reading as a writer.
