psylab

You were trained to notice everything in the room except yourself. the psychology lab is where you can.

psylab captures the session, keeps your client’s confidentiality and writes your documentation. It also lets you look at your own work, which is where deliberate practice starts.

Early access is open to a small group of clinicians who want to shape it.

psylab holds the session until you have a minute for it

Six clients, ten minutes between them, and the notes at the end from whatever is left. Somewhere in there was the moment you’d want to think about: Did I help the client? Most days you don’t get to ask that question, and when you do, the only record is your memory, which takes your side or the client’s depending on the hour.

In this profession, that is where deliberate practice starts: you go back over your own sessions, at the places where something happened. It is what the therapists with the best results do, and almost nobody else has been able to, because there was nothing to go back to. Here you can also analyse those moments against the treatment model you were trained in.1

1Chow, Miller, Seidel et al. (2015). The role of deliberate practice in the development of highly effective psychotherapists. Psychotherapy.
What happens to Tuesday’s session
Case: the client’s nameCase: a title you chose
Without psylabWith psylab
In the room
You capture the session in your head.You capture the session in psylab.
On its way in
Nothing is recorded, because a recording would point to the client.Your session is accurately transcribed and pseudonymised. Names and the details that would point to a person are replaced.
After the session
The note is written at the end of the day, from whatever is left.The note is drafted from what was said, in the style you chose.
When you look
The moments that stood out, as you remember them.The moments that stood out, and the moments you did not remember.
If you share it
Your supervisor hears what you remember to tell.Your supervisor sees what you chose to send.
The next day
The session fades, and there was nothing to keep.The session goes, unless you keep it. A case folder lasts three months at most.

Your session, read turn by turn against a published adherence scale

psylab holds the session so you can go back to it. It reads the transcript turn by turn against MBT-ACS, the adherence scale for mentalisation-based therapy. Sigmund Karterud, who wrote it with colleagues in 2013, advises us on how it should be read. The scale has 13 items: staying curious, naming the feeling in the room, slowing things down when arousal rises, and so on. Each one gets a score from 0 to 4, and each score shows the turns it was read from, so you can open the transcript and see whether you agree. The reading covers that hour and nothing else, and nobody else sees it unless you decide otherwise.

We call it an alpha because we are still checking psylab’s reading against trained MBT-ACS raters. Other treatment models will come the same way, and the tabs above the figure say where each one stands.

The readingTreatment models
Against
The treatment model you trained in, where a rating scale exists for it. MBT-ACS first.
Next
Seven core skills every therapist shares. Drafted, not yet in the product.
Result
A 0 to 4 on each of the 13 items, each pointing back to the turns it came from.
T78
FeedbackMBT-ACS
3.7out of 4Very good

13 items · 1 did not apply · 7 chapters

Chapters
1Engagement, Interest & Warmth4
2Exploration & CuriosityT9T534
3Stop & RewindT2394
4Arousal Regulation4
5Clarification3
6Pedagogical Interventions4
7Praise of Good MentalizationDid not apply in this session 
8Mentalization of Emotions3
9Challenging Beliefs (Psychic Equivalence)T5T78T125T1874
T78–T79 · In-session rupture over picking nailsOpen in transcript
T78
Therapist
Did I say you weren’t good enough?
T79
Client
No, I get that feeling.

The therapist stays with this, gently separating what was actually said from what the client concluded.

10Handling Pretend Mode4
11Mentalization of Therapist RelationshipT173T3313
12Therapist's Openness about Own Mentalization4
13Integration of Group Therapy Experiences3
A turn where the item was readAn opening that was not takenScores 0 to 4, each traceable to its turns
Fig. 1 — One session read against MBT-ACS, the adherence scale for mentalisation-based therapy

Sigmund Karterud and colleagues, 2013.

The room stayed closed, for a good reason

In training someone sat behind the glass, or watched the tape, and told you what they saw. Then you qualified, and the last person to observe a whole session of yours was that supervisor. The studies on what happens next are uncomfortable. Therapists do not get better with years of experience on their own, and their outcomes drift slightly down.2

Every other expert practice found a way to look at its own work. Ours kept the room closed, because of the person in the other chair: a recording of a session is about the most sensitive thing a clinician can hold. So most never held one, and the work went on running on memory.

2Goldberg, Rousmaniere, Miller et al. (2016). Do psychotherapists improve with time and experience? A longitudinal analysis of outcomes in a clinical setting. Journal of Counseling Psychology.
Fig. 3 — A session nobody has looked at

A profession that can see its own work without betraying the people in it

psylab starts from one idea. A therapist should be able to look at what happened in the room, and nobody else should, unless the therapist decides otherwise.

We want it to be ordinary, the way it is in every other expert craft: Tuesday’s session looked at before Wednesday’s, the hard one brought to supervision, the rest let go.

The same session, seen
  • The session is yours. Nobody else sees it unless you decide otherwise.
  • It describes what you did against the treatment model you trained in. It is there to help you develop, not to judge you.
  • It forgets by default. A session is gone the next day unless you keep it, and nothing is kept for long.
  • Nothing travels unless you send it.

If those four hold for you, the tool that keeps them is what early access is for.

Sessions
Everything recorded in the last 24 hours
Next clears in 18h
16:10
TimeSessionStatusClears
Needs you
15:00
Individual therapy
Draft
in 24 hours
Keep
Settled
09:00
Group therapy
Finished
in 18 hours
Reopen
10:00
Individual therapy
Finished
in 19 hours
Reopen
11:00
Couples therapy
Finished
in 20 hours
Reopen
13:00
Interview
Finished
Kept · Supervision
Reopen
14:00
Group therapy
Finished
in 23 hours
Reopen
Fig. 4 — Tuesday, 16:10. What is still here, and when it goes

psylab writes the note from what was said

Written from memory at the end of the day, the note is the least accurate record of the session, and the only one. psylab writes it from what was said, so you read it instead of reconstructing it, and you get the evening back.

Session noteDraft
SOAP progress note
Subjective
Returned after missing recent group and individual sessions; renewed crisis after a brief relationship with her partner ended. Longstanding sense of not belonging — “like I don’t belong anywhere” — having experienced the relationship as a rescue.1
Objective
Clinician to complete — observable appearance, behaviour, and affect.
Plan
Re-establish weekly individual sessions; revisit the group-therapy ambivalence; stay with the here-and-now rupture3 as alliance material.
Italic = pseudonymised — identities replaced, clinical meaning kept. Every line traces back to the session.Finalise note
Fig. 5 — The note, written from what was said

The session you didn’t bring

Ninety-seven percent of trainees have kept something from a supervisor, and among what they keep are their clinical mistakes. That is what happens when the only way to bring a session is to describe it, from memory, to someone who also grades you.3

We want the hard session to be the easy one to bring. You look at it alone first, write what you saw beside it, and choose what your supervisor sees. Then the two of you start from the same session, and neither of you has to reconstruct it from memory.

3Ladany, Hill, Corbett & Nutt (1996). Nature, extent, and importance of what psychotherapy trainees do not disclose to their supervisors. Journal of Counseling Psychology.
Two fields, one session
Share with supervisor
Choose what your supervisor sees.
Transcript (pseudonymised)
Your reflection
Feedback
AudioStoring audio is not enabled for your plan.
Access ends when the folder clears · Keep for 1 month
Supervisor
[SUPERVISOR EMAIL]
CancelShare
Fig. 6 — Choose what your supervisor sees

Confidentiality by design

psylab never asks who your client is. There is no field for a name, a date of birth or a personal number, because nothing in it needs them. A case has a title you choose, one that means something to you and nothing to anyone else.

What was said in the room is pseudonymised on its way in. Names, places, dates and the details that would point to a person are replaced, and the clinical meaning stays. There is no version of psylab without this step: the note, the feedback and anything you ask about a session are written from its text. We say pseudonymised rather than anonymised on purpose: it makes a client much harder to recognise, and we’d rather not claim more than that.

The recording itself isn’t kept. If you keep the audio so a supervisor can hear a session, the voice is changed first and the original is deleted. Below is half a minute of a teaching session from 1965, both ways: as it was recorded, and as a supervisor would hear it. Switch between them while it plays.

Case recordClient: a title you chose
Name
Not asked for.
Date of birth
Not asked for.
Transcript
Pseudonymised on its way in.
Recording
Not kept. If you keep it, the voice is changed first.
Kept
Until tomorrow, unless you keep it. Three months at most.
Minute 15. The question, and the answer29 seconds
0.0s / 29.4s

Click a track to switch while it plays. Drag it, or click a word, to move.

Therapist

I think I might ask, what is it you wish I would say to you?

Client

I wish you would say to me to be honest and take the risk that Pammy's going to accept me. And I also have a feeling if I could really risk it with Pammy, of all people, that I'd be able to see, here's this little kid that can accept me, and I'm really not that bad if she really knows what a demon I am and still loves me and accepts me…

The daughter is named twice, five seconds apart.

Source: Three Approaches to Psychotherapy (1965), minute 15. A published teaching session, not a psylab one.

The beep is a soft 440 Hz tone that fades in and out, well under the level of the voice. It runs a tenth of a second either side of the name, so the edge of a neighbouring word sometimes goes with it.

Say it to your client

Every tool a therapist uses has to survive one sentence: the one you say to a client when you ask for consent. Here is ours.

“I record our sessions with a tool built to forget. It replaces your name and anything that would identify you on its way in, deletes the session the next day unless I keep it, never keeps anything longer than three months, and shares nothing unless I choose to share it.”

  • Stored in Europe, under European law
  • Never used to train models

If that sentence is one you could say to a client, we would like you to have the tool behind it early.

If you never wonder, this isn’t for you

psylab is for therapists in training, and for therapists years in who still go home asking whether they helped. That question is not a flaw in you. A group led from the University of Oslo followed therapists and their clients and found that professional self-doubt went with better outcomes in the therapists who were also kind to themselves as people. It was the two together that the study picked up. Doubt yourself as a therapist, they concluded; love yourself as a person.4

Wondering is part of the job. Having to guess shouldn’t be, and neither should keeping a recording of a client forever, just in case you ever want to check.

4Nissen-Lie, Rønnestad, Høglend et al. (2017). Love yourself as a person, doubt yourself as a therapist? Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy.

Next time you wonder, you’ll be able to look.

Early access is open to a small group.

Hear it from us in person

This autumn you can hear from us in person, and bring the hard questions with you.

  1. Utvikling av verktøy – KI i personlighetsforstyrrelser. Kan KI gi bedre tilbakemeldinger enn en ekspert i mentaliseringsbasert terapi (MBT)?

    Building tools: AI in personality disorders. Can AI give better feedback than an MBT expert?

    Personlighetsforstyrrelser, Faglig ForumQuality Hotel Expo · Fornebu, OsloIn Norwegian
    Hieu Tran NgocHieu Tran NgocCo-founder, CCO
    Event page

Who you’d be trusting with your sessions

  • Kristian S. MunkvoldKristian S. MunkvoldFounder, CEO / CTO

    Engineer turned founder, building the clinical infrastructure he thinks psychotherapy has been missing. His job is to make the software as careful as the people who use it.

  • Hieu Tran NgocHieu Tran NgocCo-founder, CCO

    Clinical psychologist who has worked in specialist health services and in private practice. Keeps asking how each part of the platform will feel from the therapist’s chair.

    See the talks
  • Sigmund KarterudSigmund KarterudClinical advisor

    Professor of psychiatry, formerly at the University of Oslo and a leading authority on mentalisation-based therapy in Norway. His research covers psychotherapy, supervision of therapists, personality disorders, group analysis, and more.

Who we answer to

psylab is built by a small company in Oslo that hasn’t taken venture money. So far it has been paid for out of our own pockets; from early access on, we want it paid for by the clinicians who use it, at one price for every therapist, held for the people already paying it.

Questions

If there’s something here you’d like to ask about, or hold us to, write to Kristian.

kristian@psylab.ai

If you would like to back this rather than use it, the investors page says how it is paid for.

  • We don’t train models on your data.
  • We haven’t taken venture money, and we’re not raising a round.
  • We answer to the clinicians who use psylab.
  • We’d rather keep the quality high and the price fair than grow fast.
  • If any of this changes, this is where we’ll say so.

References

  1. 1Chow, Miller, Seidel et al. (2015). The role of deliberate practice in the development of highly effective psychotherapists. Psychotherapy.
  2. 2Goldberg, Rousmaniere, Miller et al. (2016). Do psychotherapists improve with time and experience? A longitudinal analysis of outcomes in a clinical setting. Journal of Counseling Psychology.
  3. 3Ladany, Hill, Corbett & Nutt (1996). Nature, extent, and importance of what psychotherapy trainees do not disclose to their supervisors. Journal of Counseling Psychology.
  4. 4Nissen-Lie, Rønnestad, Høglend et al. (2017). Love yourself as a person, doubt yourself as a therapist? Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy.