100% offline. No audio or text ever sent to the cloud. Your clients' most vulnerable moments stay between you and them.
Document session notes, treatment plans, and progress notes between appointments. 100% offline processing means client words never leave your office.
100% offline. No audio or text ever sent to the cloud. Your clients' most vulnerable moments stay between you and them.
Document sessions efficiently without compromising the therapeutic relationship
All processing happens on your computer. No cloud uploads, no third-party servers, no BAA required. Session content stays in your office, period.
Dictate progress notes, DAP notes, or SOAP notes in the 10-15 minutes between clients. Capture clinical observations while they're fresh, not at 9pm.
Works with SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, Jane App, TheraNest, and any other system. Universal text paste means no special setup or configuration.
Dictate treatment goals, interventions, and progress updates. Voice-to-text is 3-4x faster than typing, freeing time for what matters: your clients.
Handles DSM-5 diagnostic terminology, therapeutic modalities (CBT, DBT, EMDR), and clinical vocabulary. Add custom terms for your specialization.
No enterprise contracts. $10/month for unlimited dictation, or use the free plan with 3,000 words per week. Cancel anytime, no commitments.
Documentation is one of the leading causes of burnout among mental health professionals. After spending hours holding space for clients' most difficult experiences, the last thing a therapist wants is to sit down and type notes for another hour. Many clinicians report spending evenings and weekends catching up on session documentation.
Dictation software addresses this by letting therapists speak their notes naturally, converting speech to text 3-4x faster than typing. But for therapy practices, there's a critical requirement most dictation tools fail: true privacy. Cloud-based dictation sends your clients' most sensitive disclosures to third-party servers. For mental health professionals, that's unacceptable.
Most therapists use structured note formats: DAP (Data, Assessment, Plan), SOAP (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan), or BIRP (Behavior, Intervention, Response, Plan). Dictation allows thorough documentation within each section without the friction of typing. Speak your observations naturally and edit for structure afterward.
Under HIPAA, psychotherapy notes (also called process notes) receive special protection beyond standard medical records. These notes containing your impressions, hypotheses, and session-by-session analysis require the highest level of confidentiality. Offline dictation ensures these sensitive observations never touch an external server.
Comprehensive treatment plans require documenting presenting problems, diagnostic formulations, treatment goals, interventions, and expected outcomes. Dictating treatment plans allows for detailed clinical reasoning without the documentation becoming a barrier to thoughtful care planning.
Initial assessments involve extensive documentation: demographic information, presenting concerns, mental health history, family history, risk assessment, and initial diagnostic impressions. Dictation significantly reduces the time required for these comprehensive documents.
When terminating treatment or transferring care, detailed summaries of treatment course, progress made, remaining concerns, and recommendations ensure continuity of care. Voice dictation helps create thorough handoff documentation efficiently.
Clients share their deepest fears, traumas, and vulnerabilities in therapy. The effectiveness of treatment depends on the client feeling safe to disclose without reservation. When your documentation tool sends session content to cloud servers, you introduce a third party into what should be a protected space. Even if the risk is small, the principle matters.
HIPAA provides additional protections for psychotherapy notes beyond standard PHI. These notes cannot be disclosed without specific patient authorization, even to other healthcare providers or insurance companies. Using cloud dictation for psychotherapy notes means transmitting the most protected category of health information to external servers.
State licensing boards (for LCSWs, LPCs, psychologists, MFTs) require therapists to maintain confidentiality standards. Data breaches involving therapy session content carry professional liability beyond HIPAA penalties. Offline processing eliminates server-side breach risk entirely.
The APA Ethics Code, NASW Code of Ethics, and ACA Code of Ethics all emphasize protecting client information. Using technology that minimizes exposure of client data aligns with the spirit of these ethical frameworks, not just the letter.
Many therapists see clients back-to-back throughout the day, leaving documentation for evenings. This "pajama time" charting erodes work-life balance and contributes to the high burnout rate in mental health professions. Dictation between sessions can eliminate after-hours documentation entirely.
After emotionally demanding sessions, typing detailed notes requires energy many therapists don't have. Speaking notes is less cognitively taxing than writing them. The result: more detailed, clinically useful documentation completed when observations are freshest.
Therapists who reduce documentation time can see additional clients, engage in professional development, or simply maintain sustainable caseloads. Many clinicians report gaining 5-10 hours per week by switching from typing to dictation.
StarWhisper works alongside popular therapy practice management platforms. Dictate your notes, then paste directly into SimplePractice or TherapyNotes note templates. No API integration needed - it works through universal text input that any web-based or desktop application supports.
Many therapists use structured note templates (DAP, SOAP, BIRP). Dictate each section separately, or speak freely and organize into template format during review. Combine the speed of voice with the structure your practice management system requires.
For group practices, each clinician's workstation can run StarWhisper independently. No shared server infrastructure means no cross-contamination of client data between providers. Each therapist's notes stay on their machine only.
Accurate recognition of diagnostic terminology: Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, PTSD, Borderline Personality Disorder, and hundreds of other diagnoses. Custom vocabulary supports less common diagnostic terms and specifiers.
Handles terminology across therapeutic approaches: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), psychodynamic, humanistic, solution-focused, and other modalities.
Dictate references to standard assessment tools: PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5, BDI-II, MMPI, and others. Custom vocabulary allows adding specialty-specific instruments used in your practice.
Services like Dragon, Google Voice Typing, and Microsoft Dictate process audio on remote servers. While convenient, this means client session content travels over the internet and is processed by third parties. BAA availability varies, and the fundamental architecture involves PHI leaving your control.
Offline speech to text processes everything on the therapist's own computer. No internet required, no data transmission, no third-party access. For mental health professionals who take confidentiality seriously, offline processing provides peace of mind that cloud services cannot match.
A basic USB headset or the microphone built into your laptop works well. Many therapists prefer a wireless headset for flexibility between their desk and session chair. No special medical-grade equipment needed.
Start with simpler notes: brief progress updates or administrative documentation. As you develop comfort, move to full session notes and treatment plans. Most therapists find their natural dictation rhythm within one to two weeks.
The most effective workflow: immediately after a client leaves, spend 5-10 minutes dictating your observations, interventions used, client responses, and plan for next session. Review and paste into your practice management system. Done before your next client arrives.
Trusted by therapists, counselors, and clinical social workers
"I used to spend every evening writing session notes. Now I dictate between clients and leave the office with documentation done. The fact that nothing touches the cloud gives me real peace of mind."
"My clients share deeply personal things. I couldn't justify using a cloud dictation service for their session notes. StarWhisper processes everything locally and works perfectly with SimplePractice."
"We rolled this out to 8 clinicians in our practice. Setup took minutes per workstation, and at $10/month it's a fraction of what we were quoted for enterprise dictation. Everyone loves it."
Common questions about dictation software for therapy practice