Sarah WardAfter a long day of therapy sessions, it can feel like your mind is still full of other people’s stories. You close your laptop but fragments linger. A phrase from one client, an image from another, a risk concern to follow up tomorrow, or that half-finished supervision note you promised to write before lunch. It’s the mental weight of trying to hold everything at once.
The Limits of Working Memory
Our working memory, the part of the brain that holds and processes information, is limited. It’s not a flaw or a sign of being too busy. It’s simply how the human brain works. We’re not designed to retain every detail, especially in complex emotional settings like therapy. When that limited space fills up, attention, recall and decision-making start to suffer.
The Mental Juggle of a Therapy Session
In therapy, we juggle multiple streams of information all at once: what the client is saying, how they’re saying it, our own internal reactions, risk cues, and the protocols, techniques or frameworks we’re applying. In sessions, our attention is divided between listening, remembering and thinking ahead. Even when we jot quick notes, our focus is on the person, not the page, and sometimes the page just has three half-formed words that make perfect sense at the time and none later. That’s a lot for one mind to carry, and when it’s near capacity something has to give.
When the Mind Reaches Capacity
A detail slips, a connection goes unmade, or we leave the session feeling foggy and full. As professionals, we all know it’s important and ethical to complete our notes in a timely fashion. But therapy doesn’t always happen in perfect conditions. Sessions run over, urgent issues arise or another client needs support. Even when we’re organised and diligent, there are moments when we’re relying on memory rather than notes. That’s cognitive load in action, the mental effort of holding on to details until there’s space to put them down.
Why It Matters
That invisible workload, keeping the threads of multiple clients’ stories alive in our minds, is what makes therapy so cognitively demanding. It’s not just about remembering what was said but about holding emotion, risk, formulation and empathy all at once.
There’s a limit to how much our minds can or should hold. Therapists often pride themselves on their memory and attention to detail but even the most experienced clinician’s brain has finite space. When we try to carry every detail from every client, it’s like keeping dozens of tabs open at once. Sooner or later something slows down.
Lightening the Load
The alternative isn’t to care less but to externalise some of that load. Writing brief notes, capturing a transcript or using supportive tools gives the mind permission to let go of what it doesn’t need to hold in the moment. When information is stored securely elsewhere, we can return to it later, refreshed and ready to reflect.
From Productivity to Presence
This isn’t about being more productive. It’s about being more present. Reducing mental clutter protects the quality of our thinking and the emotional space we bring to each session. It’s a way of working that values sustainability as much as accuracy.
How LuciNote Can Help
Tools like LuciNote are designed to lighten the load, not add to it. They don’t replace the skill, empathy or intuition that make therapy work. They protect it. By capturing what’s said in the room, these systems hold the details safely so we don’t have to. They let us honour what’s been shared, secure in the knowledge that it’s stored accurately and confidentially. That means we can fully let go of one client’s story before opening the door to the next, trusting that nothing important will be lost.
A Sustainable Way to Work
Technology should feel like an ally, quiet, dependable and human-centred. When it works well, it fades into the background, giving us more space to listen, think and connect. It doesn’t make therapy mechanical. It makes presence possible.
Reducing cognitive load isn’t about efficiency. It’s about sustainability. The less we have to hold, the more space we have to think, feel and truly be with our clients.
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