Living formulation
A formulation that develops with the work.
Four plain-language sections that develop with the work across sessions, with Cogent proposing per-section updates after each session note you accept and the plan moving only when you accept the move, so that the formulation reflects what you have already noticed rather than what an algorithm has decided in your absence.
The plan develops with the work.
After each session note you accept, Cogent reads the new content alongside the existing formulation and proposes per-section updates wherever the note suggests something has shifted, presenting each proposal as a diff with a short rationale that names the session, the evidence, and the change being suggested, so that the plan moves only when you accept the move. There are no silent edits, and the formulation reflects what you have already noticed in the work rather than what an algorithm has decided in your absence.
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.
Plain language that reads like what you would write, rather than a jargon template you have to fill in.
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, which is why the four sections were chosen so that each piece of writing earns its place in the document and so that no clinician has to remember the right shape from memory 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 surfacing proposed 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 actually doing in session and why, in modality-specific terminology used precisely so that defusion is not restructuring and limited reparenting is not generic warmth, with Cogent organising what you have already done rather than inventing interventions of its own.
- 04
Next steps
The forward plan, including sessions remaining, plan-and-review points, and anything worth flagging for supervision, written in the shape that lets you walk into next week prepared rather than improvising on the day.
Each proposed update arrives with a rationale you can read before deciding what to do with it.
When you accept a session note into the record, Cogent reads the new note alongside the existing formulation and proposes per-section updates wherever the new content suggests something has shifted, with each proposal carrying a short rationale that names the session, the evidence, and the change being suggested. You see the proposals before any of them apply and accept or dismiss each one independently, so the formulation only changes when you say so, the work stays yours, and Cogent operates only as the part that organises what you have already noticed in the room.
The same formulation, rendered as a diagram you can edit.
A diagram is the version of a formulation a client can read at a glance, a supervisor can scan in a minute, and a referral letter can attach, and Cogent draws it from the formulation already in the client's folder, in the conventions of the model you pick: a CBT five-aspects (the Padesky hot-cross-bun), a transdiagnostic biopsychosocial layout, or an IFS parts-map with Self at the centre and exiles, managers, and firefighters arranged in concentric rings. The boxes come back filled in for you to edit inline, lock for sharing, or print for the case file, with identifiers staying masked at rest and rendering in plain text only on your device, and further templates will follow what clinicians ask for.
Try it on this week's work.
The free tier covers ten generations a month with no card to start and no time limit on the trial, so you only upgrade when Cogent has earned at least the cost of a session in time saved.
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