Health
Mental Health Therapists Adopt Artificial Intelligence Tools for Note-Taking, Raising Patient Trust Concerns
📅 May 26, 2026 09:00 ET
⏱ 3 min
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GazetaDay Editorial
A growing number of mental health therapists across the United States are using artificial intelligence (AI) tools to record sessions, take notes, and handle administrative tasks. Software companies say these tools can save hours of paperwork each week, but some patients report feeling violated when they discover their therapy sessions are being captured without full consent.
Patient Experience Raises Privacy Concerns
Molly Quinn, a 31-year-old librarian from Fayetteville, Ark., had trusted her therapist for two years with deeply personal matters. When her therapist mentioned trying an AI tool for note-taking, Quinn asked to research it first, wanting to understand whether her words would stay local or be processed in the cloud. During a subsequent session, Quinn noticed the therapist was not taking notes as usual and that an iPad was propped up. She realized the session was being recorded. “I felt completely violated,” Quinn said. “This person who I’m supposed to be able to trust with some very private and very intense emotions had just completely disregarded something I said I was not comfortable with.” After leaving the office, she said she felt increasingly sick to her stomach and drove home replaying the session in her head.
New Tools from Software Companies
One company, Berries, markets its platform as a way to lighten paperwork so therapists can focus more on clients and achieve better work-life balance. Tal Salman, the company’s Co-CEO, told NPR: “Berries is designed to reduce administrative burden without interfering with the therapeutic experience itself. It supports clinicians being more present with their clients.” When activated, the system records the conversation, transcribes it, and generates a draft clinical note for the therapist to review. Therapists can edit, revise, or discard the draft and save it to a medical record.
Privacy and Data Handling
Salman stated that audio is processed in real time and deleted immediately. Transcripts are stored on servers in the United States that comply with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the federal law that limits release of medical information. The company said it does not use therapy content to train its AI models, adding that “therapy session content remains private and is not repurposed.”
Context
This development follows broader trends in healthcare where AI transcription and clinical note-taking tools are being adopted, raising questions about patient consent and data security. Similar concerns have emerged in telehealth platforms and primary care settings where audio recording and automated documentation are increasingly used without explicit patient knowledge.
Artificial IntelligenceMental HealthTherapyPrivacyMedical EthicsPatient TrustAdministrative Automation