Living formulation
A formulation that updates as you sign off each session.
Four plain-language sections that develop across sessions, with updates proposed after each note you sign off, plus a builder that draws the formulation as a diagram you can edit and hand to the client.
The formulation holds the case together, and in most practices it drifts out of date between the assessment and the next time someone asks to see it.
Cogent keeps it current as a by-product of the notes you are already signing off, so it is ready the moment a GP, an insurer, your supervisor, or the client asks what the work is about.
The formulation updates as you sign off each session.
Cogent reads each note you sign off against everything that came before, and proposes updates to the formulation as tracked changes, each with the evidence named.
Reduce avoidance. Build evidence against catastrophic predictions. Begin graded interpersonal exposure in close relationships.
Maintain CBT focus. Consider compassion-focused work. Sequence: continue CBT consolidation; revisit CFT at plan-and-review (session 18).
Six further sessions. Plan-and-review at session 18.
Four plain-language sections that grow with the work. How the living formulation works →
Plain language that reads like what you would write, rather than a jargon template you have to fill in.
A formulation in private practice has to be readable by the client, the GP, the insurer, and a future you reviewing the case in two years' time. The four sections hold that shape so you do not have to remember it each time.
- 01
Presenting issues
What the client came in with, in their own words and yours, including the behavioural and emotional features and the maintenance cycles you have identified, framed tentatively rather than pronounced.
- 02
Goals
What the client wants this work to achieve, framed in their language rather than yours, with Cogent proposing updates whenever a session note suggests a goal has shifted while leaving the decision to apply the update entirely with you.
- 03
Interventions
What you are doing in session and why, in the language of your approach used precisely, so that defusion is not restructuring and limited reparenting is not generic warmth. Cogent organises what you have already done rather than inventing interventions of its own.
- 04
Next steps
The forward plan: sessions remaining, plan-and-review points, and anything worth flagging for supervision, so you walk into next week prepared.
Each proposed update arrives with a rationale you read before deciding.
Every proposal names the session, the evidence, and the change being suggested, and you accept or dismiss each one independently. The formulation only moves when you move it; Cogent just organises what you have already noticed in the room. Proposed updates are part of the paid plans.
The diagram is the part of the formulation you can put in front of the client and let them take away.
The builder draws the diagram from the plan already in the folder, whether that is an IFS parts map, a CBT five-areas, a CFT three-circles, or a biopsychosocial map, and hands it back filled in for you to edit on screen and download. The client leaves the session with something concrete in their hands. AI drawing is part of the paid plans; building a diagram manually is free on every plan.
The protectors work to keep the exile from being overwhelmed, while the Self stays in relationship with all of them. Cogent lays the parts out from the formulation in the folder, and you move them, rename them, and write into each one before you download it or share it.
- Download it and give the client a copy to take home.
- Walk through it together on screen, in their own words.
- Send it with a GP letter or a referral.
- Bring it to supervision and talk straight from it.
- Keep it in the case file as the formulation of record.
- Redraw the same folder as a CBT five-areas or a biopsychosocial map.
Names stay masked at rest and appear in plain text only on your device.
Try it on this week's work.
Ten generations a month free, with no card and no time limit. Upgrade once Cogent has earned the cost of a session in time saved.
Start free