At a Glance
Work through this in order and you will have your account secured, your first client added, a session booked and a note written. It takes about half an hour. Everything here links to a fuller article if you want the detail.
1. Sign in
You will have received your login details by email after signing up. Sign in at the address in that email.
If the email never arrived, check your spam folder first, then email us at support@counsellingtutor.com and we will sort it out.
2. Secure your account
Go to My Account and turn on two-step verification. You will scan a code with an authenticator app such as Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy or 1Password, then enter the six-digit code it shows.
Read this before you turn it on. There are no recovery or backup codes. If you lose the phone holding your authenticator, or replace it without moving your authenticator across first, you will not be able to sign in and you will need to contact us. Before changing phones, turn two-step verification off, then set it up again on the new device.
3. Set up My Account
Still in My Account, three things are worth doing now because they save you time later.
- Your name, so the dashboard greets you properly rather than showing your email address
- Places of work, if you work in more than one setting. Each can carry a usual rate, which then fills in the session fee whenever you add a client there
- Your supervisor, in the Supervision section. If your supervision is already up to date, record the date your client work has been supervised up to, and TherapyLock counts supervised hours from there
Worth coming back to: your Clinical Will. You nominate a colleague who can step in and wind your practice down if you become unable to continue. They get no access at all until they formally request it, and you set a waiting period in which you can stop them. It is not a first-hour job, and it is worth doing before you have a full caseload.
4. Add your first client
From the dashboard, click Create New Client.
- Choose a client identifier. This is the only required field. It is not their name; TherapyLock has no field for a full name or a date of birth. Pick a reference of your own and keep a key list somewhere separate.
- Add contact details only if you need them. Every field except the identifier is optional.
- Set their place of work if you use them, and the session fee fills in.
- Choose a retention period. Three, five, six, seven or eight years after your work ends. Seven is the usual choice. For a child or young person you set a manual deletion date instead.
Save, and TherapyLock offers to book their first appointment straight away.
5. Book a session
On the Appointments page, click New Appointment.
Pick the client, the date and time, the length, and whether you are meeting in person, online or by telephone. For in-person work there is a Location box for the room.
To book a run of sessions, switch on Recurring Appointment, choose weekly, fortnightly, every 4 weeks or monthly, and type how many you want.
6. Record what happened, then write the note
About fifteen minutes after a session was due to end, it moves into Needs Action on your calendar and waits for you.
- Click it and choose Attended, Did Not Attend, or Mark as Cancelled.
- Record the fee as paid, unpaid or no charge.
- Choose Create Session Note. The date, length and session mode carry through from the appointment.
- Pick a template: Freeform, SOAP, DAP, BIRP, Narrative or EAP. If you have your own structure, choose Freeform and paste your headings in.
Notes lock when you save them. There is no edit button, by design. Corrections are added as dated amendments that sit alongside the original, so the record shows what you wrote at the time and what you added later.
7. Upload their paperwork
On the client's record, upload signed agreements, assessments or correspondence. Images, PDFs and text files preview on screen, and there is a Full screen button for reading them properly.
Practice Documents is the separate home for your own paperwork: insurance, membership, supervision contract, policies. It also holds templates you can download, including the client information and consent form.
8. Keep track of your hours
The practice hours card on the Appointments page shows your running totals, split between client work and supervision, ready for accreditation.
- Previous hours lets you add work done before you joined TherapyLock
- Book supervision, in the My supervision panel below the calendar, records supervision you receive. Set the period of client work you took to that session and those hours count as supervised
- Supervision given means supervision you provide to your own supervisees, which is a different thing
9. Habits worth forming
Sign out when you step away. TherapyLock signs you out after 30 minutes of inactivity, and a shared room does not wait 30 minutes.
Keep client information inside the vault. Email leaves copies in your sent folder, the recipient's inbox, backups and on servers you do not control. If you want your personal calendar to show when you are busy, block the time out as "Busy" with no client details.
Check your retention alerts when they appear on the dashboard. Client records are never deleted automatically; TherapyLock flags them and you decide.
Where to go next
- The full tour — Finding your way around TherapyLock
- Your dashboard explained — Your dashboard
- Moving an existing caseload across — Bringing an existing practice into TherapyLock
- Why notes lock — Why session notes cannot be edited, and how amendments work
Still Need Help?
The rest of the help centre covers all of this in more detail. If you cannot find what you need, email us at support@counsellingtutor.com and a person will pick it up.
The Feedback button in the corner of the app is the place for reporting a bug or suggesting an idea.
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