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The formulation is the thread that holds a case together, and in most practices it lives in your head and drifts out of date between the assessment and the next time someone asks to see it.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, reading each note you accept against the existing plan and proposing the changes it implies, so that what is written down tracks the work you are doing with the client rather than the version you last found time to type up, and it is ready to hand over the moment a GP, an insurer, your supervisor, or the client themselves asks what the work is about.
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 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 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 diagram is the part of the formulation you can put in front of the client and let them take away.
Cogent draws it from the plan already in the client's folder in the conventions of the model you work in, whether that is an IFS parts map, a CBT five-areas, or a transdiagnostic biopsychosocial map, and gives it back filled in for you to edit on screen, download as a PDF, and share, so the client leaves the session with something concrete in their hands and the names stay masked until the diagram renders in plain text on your own device.
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 as a PDF 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.
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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