Using Smart Sections for custom AI therapy notes

Therapists have all been there.

You finish a deeply meaningful session, your mind still processing the breakthrough moment when your client finally connected the dots between their childhood experiences and current patterns.

But then comes the documentation — and suddenly you're wrestling with rigid templates that don't capture the nuanced work you just witnessed.

What if your AI could understand not just what happened in session, but how you think about it clinically? What if it could write notes that reflect your therapeutic approach, your professional voice, and the specific details that matter most to your practice?

Today, we're introducing Smart Sections: a feature that transforms how you create custom note templates by letting you teach our AI to think like you do.

More of your style, and less of the editing

While Upheal has always offered over 100 clinically-approved sections for building custom templates, we heard from therapists like you that something was still missing. You needed more than pre-built options — you needed the ability to capture the specific elements that make your practice unique.

Smart Sections bridges that gap by allowing you to create AI-powered sections using your own custom prompts. Instead of settling for generic documentation, you can now instruct Upheal to pull exactly the information you want, formatted exactly how you like it, written in your clinical voice.

Think of Smart Sections as teaching moments with your AI. You're not just telling it what to include — you're showing it how to think about your work the way you do.

How Smart Sections work

Creating a Smart Section involves three key steps that build upon each other:

1. Build Your Unique Sections

Start by adding a Smart Section to your template and crafting your custom prompt. The key is being specific about what you want to capture from each session. Whether you're tracking EMDR phases, monitoring dialectical behavior therapy skills practice, or documenting family systems dynamics, you can create sections that align with your therapeutic approach.

2. Teach Upheal Your Clinical Voice

Here's where the process becomes particularly powerful: you can include a sample of your own writing style. This isn't just about content — it's about tone, structure, and the particular way you conceptualize and communicate about therapeutic work. The AI learns to mirror your professional voice, creating consistency across all your notes.

3. Preview and Perfect Your Approach

Before your next session, you can preview how your Smart Section will look. This means no more waiting to see if your prompt works — you can edit, preview, and refine until it captures exactly what you envision.

Learning from other therapists

Therapists who've begun using Smart Sections are finding them valuable for creating documentation that truly fits their practice. As Lindsey Ferris, MS, LMFT shared with us:

THIS MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!! It is exactly what I was wanting and I Just made the most perfect note that fits in with our note structure. Thank you!

This reflects what we're seeing across different therapeutic modalities and practice settings: Smart Sections are helping therapists create more relevant and useful clinical documentation.

Crafting AI prompts for therapy notes

You’ll build Smart Sections with prompts;  just like the prompts you would share with ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini. If writing prompts for AI is new or intimidating to you, rest assured! You’ve got this. Smart Sections are intuitive by design, and Upheals’ helpful support team is here for you.

Developing prompts that generate useful clinical content requires balancing specificity with flexibility. Here's how to approach this process:

Start simple, then add more complexity

As you start working with Smart Sections, you may want to begin with a more simplistic prompt like:

Over time, you’ll build your familiarity with writing Smart Section prompts. And, you’ll quickly get a strong sense of what works, what’s missing, and what you need to specify in order to get notes exactly how you like them (without making the same edits over and over). That simple prompt from before might, over time, become something more detailed:

Tips for writing effective prompts

• Be specific about format: Want bullet points? Say so. Prefer narrative format? Make that clear. Need certain information bolded? Include formatting instructions.
• Include your clinical framework: Reference the theoretical approach you're using—CBT, DBT, narrative therapy, or whatever guides your work.
• Set clear boundaries: Tell the AI what NOT to include if certain standard elements don't fit your approach.‍
• Use examples: Like the ERP prompt above, showing the AI an example of your ideal output helps it understand your expectations.

AI prompts for different clinical specialties

For ERP work: Summarize the core of this ERP session: the exposure performed, observed SUDs changes, client's response prevention adherence, and key disconfirming learning. Based on this suggest the next targeted exposure and a hierarchy adjustment.

For trauma processing: Document the client's window of tolerance throughout this session, noting moments of hyperarousal or hypoarousal and the co-regulation techniques that helped restore balance. Include any somatic experiences they reported and how they responded to grounding interventions.

For couples work: Track each partner's attachment responses during today's conflict discussion, identifying moments of pursue-withdraw cycles, successful repairs, and emerging insights about underlying needs and fears.

For adolescent work:Capture the teen's emotional regulation strategies used this week, both adaptive and maladaptive, along with their reflections on what worked and what didn't. Note any shifts in their relationship with family rules or peer dynamics.

Bring your “special sauce” to your notes

Smart Sections represent more than just customization; they honor your clinical expertise and the unique way you understand your clients' journeys. When your documentation reflects your therapeutic voice and captures the nuances that matter to your practice, it becomes more than compliance — it becomes a meaningful record of growth and healing.

Every therapist brings years of training, personal insight, and clinical intuition to their work. Smart Sections ensure that this expertise isn't lost in generic templates but is woven into every note you create.

Getting started with Smart Sections

As you begin exploring Smart Sections, remember that like therapy itself, creating effective prompts is an iterative process. Start with what matters most to your practice, experiment with different approaches, and refine based on what you see in your preview.

The goal isn't perfection from the start — it's creating documentation that truly serves both you and your clients by capturing the richness of therapeutic work in a way that makes sense for your practice.

Smart Sections are available now with Premium plans, building on the foundation of 100+ sections already included in the Starter plan. Consider starting with one area of your practice where current documentation feels most limiting, then expanding as you become comfortable with the prompting process.

What will your first Smart Section capture? Consider sharing your approaches with the Upheal community — when we learn from each other's clinical innovations, we all provide better care.