Use this AI group note template to document the session faster
Group therapy notes need enough structure to capture the group process, each client’s participation, the interventions provided, and the plan for continued care. They also need to be efficient. After a 60- or 90-minute group, most clinicians do not have time to write a long narrative from scratch for every participant.
The template below gives you a practical starting point. You can copy it into your EHR, documentation system, or AI note tool and adapt it to your setting. It is designed for behavioral health groups such as CBT skills groups, relapse prevention groups, DBT skills groups, psychoeducation groups, grief groups, process groups, and IOP/PHP groups.
GROUP THERAPY NOTE TEMPLATE
Client Name:
Date of Service:
Start Time:
End Time:
Service Type:
Group Type/Topic:
Facilitator(s):
Location/Format: In person / Telehealth
Number of Participants Present:
Treatment Plan Goal(s) Addressed:
-
-
Group Focus:
Briefly describe the theme, skill, or clinical focus of the group.
Interventions Provided:
Describe the clinical interventions used by the facilitator.
Examples: psychoeducation, CBT skill practice, DBT skill instruction, motivational interviewing, relapse prevention planning, grounding exercise, role-play, guided discussion, behavioral rehearsal.
Client Presentation:
Appearance/behavior:
Mood/affect:
Orientation:
Engagement level:
Relevant risk or safety concerns, if any:
Client Participation and Response:
Describe how the client participated in the group.
Include verbal participation, nonverbal engagement, skill practice, feedback offered or received, and response to interventions.
Progress Toward Treatment Goal(s):
Describe the client’s progress, barriers, insight, skill use, or clinical movement related to the treatment plan.
Plan / Next Steps:
Describe follow-up, homework, continued skill practice, next group focus, referrals, safety planning, or coordination of care if applicable.
Clinician Signature/Credentials:
This format keeps the note focused on what happened clinically, not every detail of the discussion. It also leaves room for the clinician’s judgment, which matters especially in group settings where each participant may engage differently.
Completed group therapy note example
Here is a completed sample using a CBT coping skills group. The example is written as an individual progress note for one group member, rather than a single note listing every participant’s private details.
GROUP THERAPY NOTE EXAMPLE
Client Name: Jordan M.
Date of Service: 04/18/2026
Start Time: 5:00 PM
End Time: 6:15 PM
Service Type: Group therapy
Group Type/Topic: CBT skills group - identifying and challenging anxious thoughts
Facilitator(s): A. Rivera, LCSW
Location/Format: Telehealth
Number of Participants Present: 6
Treatment Plan Goal(s) Addressed:
- Reduce anxiety symptoms by identifying cognitive distortions and practicing replacement thoughts.
- Increase use of coping skills during work-related stress.
Group Focus:
The group focused on recognizing common cognitive distortions, including catastrophizing, mind reading, and all-or-nothing thinking. Members practiced identifying automatic thoughts and creating more balanced alternatives.
Interventions Provided:
Clinician provided CBT psychoeducation on the connection between thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Clinician facilitated a guided discussion, modeled use of a thought record, and led members through a brief skill practice using recent anxiety-provoking situations. Clinician encouraged members to identify one replacement thought to practice before the next session.
Client Presentation:
Client appeared on time and was appropriately dressed for telehealth session. Mood was anxious with congruent affect. Client was alert and oriented. Engagement was moderate to active. No acute safety concerns were reported or observed during group.
Client Participation and Response:
Client participated voluntarily after initial prompting. Client shared an example of worrying about making mistakes at work and identified the automatic thought, “If I ask for help, everyone will think I’m not capable.” Client was receptive to facilitator feedback and group support. Client practiced reframing the thought to, “Asking for clarification may help me complete the task more accurately.” Client appeared somewhat relieved after completing the exercise and stated the skill felt “more realistic than just trying to stop worrying.”
Progress Toward Treatment Goal(s):
Client demonstrated increased awareness of anxious thought patterns and was able to identify a more balanced replacement thought with support. Client continues to experience work-related anxiety but showed willingness to practice CBT skills outside of session.
Plan / Next Steps:
Client will complete one thought record before the next group and bring an example to discuss if comfortable. Continue CBT skills group next week with focus on behavioral experiments and coping actions.
Clinician Signature/Credentials:
A. Rivera, LCSW
A strong group note does not need to read like a transcript. The goal is to show the service provided, the client’s response, and how the session connects to the treatment plan.
What to include in a group therapy note
Group documentation usually needs two layers of information: the group-level service and the client-specific response. The group-level section explains what the clinician did. The client-specific section explains how the individual participated, responded, and progressed.
Group-level details
Start with the basic facts of the service. Include the date, start and end time, group type, topic, facilitator, format, and number of participants present. If your setting requires additional fields, such as diagnosis, billing code, program level, or attendance status, keep those in your standard workflow.
The group focus should be brief. For example, “DBT distress tolerance skills: ACCEPTS and self-soothing practice” is clearer than “coping skills group.” A specific topic helps connect the session to the intervention and treatment goals.
Clinical interventions
The intervention section should describe what the clinician actually provided. Use clinical language, but keep it plain. Examples include:
- Psychoeducation: Taught warning signs of relapse and reviewed the relationship between triggers, cravings, and coping choices.
- CBT intervention: Guided participants in identifying cognitive distortions and developing balanced replacement thoughts.
- DBT skill practice: Modeled paced breathing and led a brief distress tolerance exercise.
- Process facilitation: Supported members in giving feedback, identifying emotions, and practicing interpersonal boundaries.
After you name the intervention, include the clinical purpose. “Clinician facilitated grounding exercise to help members reduce physiological arousal” is more useful than “Clinician did grounding.”
Client-specific participation
This section matters because group members may have very different sessions. One client may lead discussion, another may be quiet but attentive, and another may need redirection. Document observable behavior and clinically relevant participation.
Useful details may include verbal participation, affect, engagement level, response to peers, ability to practice the skill, insight, barriers, and follow-through on prior homework. If the client did not participate much, describe what you observed without judgment. For example: “Client remained quiet for most of group but appeared attentive, maintained camera on, and responded briefly when prompted.”
Group note format options
Different practices use different formats. The best format is the one that fits your clinical setting, payer expectations, EHR fields, and supervision standards while still being realistic to complete after each group.
SOAP format for group therapy
SOAP notes can work well when you need a familiar clinical structure:
- Subjective: Client’s reported mood, symptoms, concerns, or reflections shared in group.
- Objective: Observed participation, affect, behavior, attention, and response to the group process.
- Assessment: Clinical interpretation of progress, barriers, symptom presentation, or treatment goal movement.
- Plan: Homework, next session focus, continued group treatment, referrals, or safety follow-up.
SOAP is helpful for clinicians who want a clear distinction between client report, clinician observation, and assessment. It may be less efficient if your EHR already separates interventions, response, and plan into required fields.
DAP format for group therapy
DAP notes are often faster for group work because they reduce the number of sections:
- Data: Group topic, interventions, client presentation, and participation.
- Assessment: Progress toward goals, clinical response, and barriers.
- Plan: Next steps, homework, continued treatment, or coordination of care.
DAP works especially well for skill-based groups, IOP groups, and recurring weekly groups where the same broad structure applies across multiple clients.
When to use this group therapy note template
Use this template when you need a structured individual note for a client who attended a therapy group. It can be adapted for outpatient therapy groups, intensive outpatient programs, partial hospitalization programs, community mental health settings, substance use treatment, private practice groups, and school or college counseling programs.
This template is especially useful for sessions where the group has a defined clinical purpose. Examples include anxiety management, depression coping skills, grief support, trauma stabilization, emotional regulation, relapse prevention, social skills, parenting support, and interpersonal process groups.
You may need a different format if your organization requires a separate group summary note, a daily program note, or a highly specific payer template. Some practices document one group-level note plus separate individual notes for each client. Others document only individual group progress notes. Follow your organization’s policies and review state, payer, and supervisor expectations before changing your documentation format.
Common mistakes in group therapy documentation
Group notes can become vague quickly. A note that says “Client participated in group and discussed coping skills” may not show the clinical intervention, the client’s response, or progress toward treatment goals.
- Writing the same note for every member: The group topic may be the same, but each client’s participation and response should be individualized.
- Including unnecessary details about other participants: Keep the note focused on the client whose record you are documenting.
- Listing activities without clinical purpose: Connect exercises, worksheets, and discussions to symptoms, goals, skills, or functioning.
- Skipping the plan: Include what happens next, even if the plan is continued group therapy and a specific homework task.
Another common issue is over-documenting the conversation. Group notes should not capture every comment. Focus on clinically meaningful details: intervention, response, progress, risk, barriers, and next steps.
How to make group notes more clinically useful
A useful group note helps another qualified clinician understand what happened and why it mattered. If you reviewed the note two months later, you should be able to answer three questions: What service was provided? How did the client respond? What is the next clinical step?
Use concrete wording. Instead of “Client was engaged,” write “Client shared one personal example, completed the worksheet, and gave supportive feedback to a peer.” Instead of “Client made progress,” write “Client identified two triggers for cravings and selected calling sponsor as a coping action.”
Keep your phrasing neutral. “Client was resistant” may be less helpful than “Client declined to participate in role-play and stated the exercise felt uncomfortable.” The second version gives a clearer clinical picture without assigning motive.
How AI can help draft group therapy notes
AI can be helpful when it gives clinicians a structured starting point. For group documentation, the main benefit is reducing repeated typing while keeping the note organized. The clinician still needs to review, edit, and finalize the documentation.
For example, after a CBT group, you might enter the group topic, interventions used, and brief participation details for each client. An AI-assisted documentation tool can turn those details into a draft with sections for presentation, interventions, response, progress, and plan.
This is different from using a generic writing tool. Behavioral health documentation has its own language and structure. Group notes need to reflect treatment goals, interventions, client response, and clinical judgment. A generic paragraph generator may produce polished text, but polished text is not always a clinically useful progress note.
How AutoNotes helps with group therapy notes
AutoNotes is built for behavioral health documentation, including group therapy notes. It helps clinicians create structured, editable drafts from session details so they are not starting from a blank screen after every group.
With AutoNotes, you can use service-specific documentation workflows for common behavioral health services, including group therapy, individual therapy, intake sessions, assessments, and treatment planning. For group notes, this can help you keep the shared group content consistent while still documenting each client’s individual participation and response.
AutoNotes is designed to support the clinician, not replace the clinician. You review the draft, make clinical edits, add missing details, remove anything that does not fit, and finalize the note according to your own standards and practice requirements.
Clinicians often use AutoNotes to help with:
- Faster first drafts: Turn brief session details into a structured group note draft.
- More consistent sections: Keep interventions, client response, progress, and plan organized across sessions.
- Service-specific templates: Use documentation formats designed around behavioral health workflows.
- Clinician-controlled editing: Review and revise every note before it becomes part of the clinical record.
If group notes are taking up your evenings, an AI-assisted draft can give you a better starting point. The final note should still sound like you, reflect what happened clinically, and meet the needs of your setting.
Try AutoNotes for your next group note
You can copy the template above and use it right away. If you want a faster way to create structured, editable group therapy note drafts, AutoNotes can help reduce the repetitive parts of documentation while keeping you in control of the final record.
Start your free trial and try AutoNotes with your next group therapy session.
