Most guidance on progress notes explains the formats. This post skips that and shows you what a completed note actually looks like, written out in full, for a realistic session, in each of the four most common formats. If you want the explanation of what SOAP, DAP, and BIRP are and when to use each one, that's covered in a separate post. This one is just examples.
The clients and sessions below are fictional but written to reflect the kind of work that actually shows up in outpatient private practice. The goal is to give you something concrete to compare your own notes against.
SOAP note example
Session context: Individual therapy, established client, presenting with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Session focuses on work-related anxiety ahead of a performance review.
Subjective
Client reported increased anxiety over the past week, which he attributed to an upcoming performance review scheduled for Friday. Described feeling "like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop." Reports disrupted sleep over the past five nights, including difficulty falling asleep and waking between 3 and 4am. Described difficulty concentrating during the workday and avoidance of tasks he anticipates will be discussed in the review. Denies suicidal or homicidal ideation. Reports continuing to attend work and maintain daily routines despite distress.
Objective
Client presented alert and oriented. Appeared mildly anxious with slightly elevated speech rate at the start of session. Affect softened as the session progressed and client engaged with cognitive restructuring work. Well-groomed. Maintained eye contact throughout. No psychomotor agitation observed.
Assessment
Client is presenting with anxiety symptoms consistent with his established diagnosis of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, with the upcoming performance review serving as the proximate stressor. The anticipatory anxiety and avoidance pattern are familiar and appear to be activating core beliefs around adequacy and anticipated criticism. Some meaningful progress noted: client was able to identify the catastrophizing pattern without prompting during today's session, which represents growth from earlier in treatment when this required significant scaffolding. Sleep disruption is being monitored and has not reached a level warranting referral at this time. No safety concerns.
Plan
Utilized cognitive restructuring to examine evidence for and against client's prediction of a negative review outcome. Practiced decatastrophizing. Client identified three pieces of concrete evidence supporting a neutral-to-positive outcome, which he reported finding somewhat stabilizing. Assigned between-session task: client will write down the objective evidence available to him regarding his work performance and bring it to next session. Next session: follow up on performance review outcome; continue work on core belief around adequacy; revisit sleep hygiene if disruption persists.
DAP note example
Session context: Individual therapy, established client, presenting with relational difficulties and attachment-related patterns. Session focuses on a conflict with her partner over the weekend.
Data
Client arrived on time and presented as calm. Reported a difficult conversation with her partner over the weekend in which she "shut down and couldn't say anything." Described feeling emotionally flooded during the argument and withdrawing as her default response. Noted that she felt shame afterward about not being able to stay present. During the session, client made a connection between this pattern and experiences of feeling unheard in her family of origin, which she described without prompting. Affect was thoughtful and engaged throughout; some tearfulness when discussing family history. No safety concerns.
Assessment
Client is demonstrating continued and deepening insight into her relational patterns, particularly the link between emotional flooding and withdrawal. The connection she drew to her family-of-origin experiences is clinically significant and consistent with the attachment-informed framework guiding treatment. The shame response following shutdown is emerging as a maintaining factor worth exploring: it appears to amplify the avoidance cycle rather than motivate repair. Working alliance remains strong. Client is showing capacity to observe her own patterns with increasing curiosity rather than self-criticism, which is a meaningful shift from the beginning of treatment.
Plan
Explored the flooding-withdrawal-shame cycle using a psychoeducational frame. Introduced the concept of self-regulation before repair, reframing shutdown as a nervous system response rather than a character flaw. Client responded positively to this framing and expressed interest in learning grounding techniques to use in moments of flooding. Will introduce specific grounding practices in next session. Between-session task: client will observe and note the physical sensations that precede her shutdown response, without judgment. Next session will build on this somatic awareness and introduce the grounding sequence.
BIRP note example
Session context: Individual therapy, established client, presenting with Panic Disorder. Session focuses on an exposure exercise for avoidance of public transit.
Behavior
Client reported two panic attacks in the past week, both on weekday mornings while preparing to commute. Rated peak anxiety at 9 out of 10 during the first and 7 out of 10 during the second. Has driven to work every day for the past month to avoid the train, which he described as "the place where it all started." Reported that the avoidance is costing him an extra hour a day and that his partner has begun to comment on it. Presented as tense at the start of session, with rapid speech and frequent shifts in posture. Denies suicidal or homicidal ideation.
Intervention
Therapist reviewed the panic cycle model and the role of avoidance in maintaining it. Collaboratively built a six-step exposure hierarchy for train travel, starting with looking at photos of the station and ending with a full commute at rush hour. Conducted in-session imaginal exposure to step two (standing on the platform), with subjective units of distress (SUDS) ratings taken every two minutes. Coached diaphragmatic breathing as a tool for staying in the situation, not for escaping it.
Response
Client engaged fully with building the hierarchy and contributed most of the steps himself. During imaginal exposure, SUDS rose from 4 to 8 and then fell to 3 over twelve minutes without client leaving the exercise. Client said he was surprised that the anxiety came down on its own: "I always thought it would just keep going up." Affect was noticeably calmer by end of session. Client expressed cautious willingness to try step three in vivo this week.
Plan
Client will visit the train station platform for 10 minutes on three days this week without boarding, recording SUDS at the start, middle, and end of each visit. Will bring the log to next session. Next session: review in vivo exposure data, address any safety behaviors that emerged, and move to step four if SUDS at the end of visits is consistently 4 or below. Continue weekly sessions.
GIRP note example
Session context: Individual therapy, established client, presenting with Alcohol Use Disorder, mild, and depressive symptoms. Treatment goal for this phase: reduce drinking days from five per week to two or fewer, as tracked in a weekly log.
Goal
Session addressed the goal of reducing drinking days to two or fewer per week. Client reported three drinking days this week, down from four last week and five at intake, based on his log. Identified Friday evenings after work as the most difficult time and said, "By the time I get home I've already decided." Reported mood as "a little better" on non-drinking days. Denies suicidal ideation.
Intervention
Therapist reviewed the drinking log with the client and reinforced the downward trend. Used motivational interviewing to explore client's ambivalence about Friday evenings, eliciting his own reasons for change. Conducted a behavior chain analysis of last Friday, from leaving work to the first drink, to locate points where a different choice was possible. Collaboratively developed an alternative plan for Friday evenings.
Response
Client was engaged and open. In the chain analysis, he identified the drive home as the point where the decision gets made, and on his own suggested calling his brother during the drive as a substitute routine. Expressed pride in the reduction so far and stated that his main reason for change is being more present with his kids on weekends. Progress toward the goal is steady; client is one drinking day away from the target.
Plan
Client will call his brother on the drive home Friday and continue the daily drinking log. Will note any urges, their intensity, and what he did instead. Next session: review the log and the Friday plan, and begin identifying a second high-risk situation. Reassess the goal at the 90-day treatment plan review next month.
A note for a difficult session
Not every session is tidy. Here is a DAP note for a session that did not go as planned, which is worth seeing because these are often the hardest to document well.
Session context: Individual therapy, established client, presenting with depression. Client arrives in acute distress following a job loss earlier in the week.
Data
Client arrived ten minutes late and presented visibly distressed. Disclosed at the start of session that she was laid off on Tuesday and had not told anyone, including her partner. Reported feeling "completely numb" and described a sense that things will not improve. Endorsed passive suicidal ideation without plan or intent: "I don't want to die, I just don't see the point." Denied active plan, means, or intent to act. Reports eating minimally since Tuesday and sleeping 10 to 12 hours per day. The planned session agenda was set aside to address the acute stressor and assess safety.
Assessment
Client is in acute distress following a significant loss. The passive SI is consistent with her depressive presentation at the beginning of treatment and does not represent an escalation in safety risk based on current clinical presentation, but warrants close monitoring. The decision not to disclose the job loss to her partner is clinically relevant: it suggests a return of the isolation pattern that was a focus of earlier treatment. Client's affect, while distressed, remained engaged and she was able to respond to safety questions directly and without deflection. No acute safety intervention indicated at this time. Will increase contact frequency this week.
Plan
Provided space for client to process the acute loss. Conducted safety assessment; no imminent risk identified. Collaboratively identified one small disclosure task: client will tell her partner about the job loss before the next session. Reviewed crisis resources and confirmed client has the crisis line number. Scheduled a brief 20-minute check-in call for Thursday. Next full session scheduled for the regular time next week. Will reassess frequency and safety at that point.
What these notes have in common
- They use the client's actual language. Quoting what a client said ("like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop") is more clinically meaningful than paraphrasing into abstraction. It documents their subjective experience accurately and is harder to dispute.
- The Assessment section reflects clinical thinking, not restatement. Restating what happened in the session is not an assessment. An assessment is your interpretation: what does this mean, what has changed, what are you watching for.
- The Plan is specific about what happened and what comes next. "Will continue" is not a plan. A plan names the intervention used, any between-session task assigned, and what the next session will address.
- Safety is documented explicitly when it comes up, and noted as not applicable when it doesn't. "Denies SI/HI" in sessions where it's relevant to check is cleaner than silence.
How long should a progress note be?
Long enough to document what happened, short enough that you can write it the same day. The examples above run between 60 and 150 words per section. A complete SOAP note using this standard will typically be 400 to 600 words. DAP, BIRP, and GIRP notes will usually be 300 to 500.
Notes longer than this are usually a sign that something is being processed rather than documented. Notes shorter than this usually lack the specificity that makes them defensible. Neither length is a fixed rule, but if your notes are consistently one paragraph across the board, they are probably too thin. For more on the habits that make consistent, specific notes possible, this post on writing notes faster covers the practical side. And if you are still deciding which format to use, SOAP vs DAP vs BIRP explains when each one fits.
The hardest part of writing notes like these isn't knowing what to include. It's having the time and mental bandwidth to write them right after a full clinical day. The session is fresh for about 30 minutes. After that, the details that make a note specific start to fade.
Confidant uses on-device AI to draft a structured note immediately after each session, giving you something specific to edit rather than a blank page. It writes SOAP, DAP, BIRP, GIRP, PIRP, and SIRP notes, and each note ties back to the client's treatment goals when the session worked on them. The examples above reflect the kind of output it produces, which you then review, adjust, and sign. See all six formats.
