Practice Better’s Journals generate powerful client results for a wide spectrum of health and wellness professionals. Securely tracking progress and communicating keeps clients engaged, motivated, and moving steadily towards their goals.
Let’s look at how two very different practitioners use Practice Better Journals to generate positive outcomes for their clients, so you can see what’s possible for you.
Integrative Trauma Therapist Samantha (Sam) Getha practices online as Waves of Courage Counseling, LLC. From her base in Fairfax, VA, she serves about 85 virtual clients in Alaska and Virginia. Her practice mission is “to provide safe, accessible, and convenient counseling to support those who serve.” She focuses on helping military, first responder, and social worker clients process trauma.
Functional Nutritionist Ashlee Roundy, CFNC and Board-Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, runs Root Healing EFX, Ltd. out of Las Vegas, NV. With about 25 clients and a wide variety of program and event offerings, she helps clients learn to use food as medicine and incorporates yoga, meditation, and relationships to reach their health goals. She is a data-driven nutrition-focused practitioner.
Both Sam and Ashlee needed better ways to help clients understand themselves better to reach their goals. They needed better client support and communication between sessions. Each also saw their unique use cases that Journals could solve. Both, in their own ways, have innovated powerful ways to use Journals.
First, a quick review of what Practice Better Journals offer and how they work, and a little more information about automated journaling and its advantages.
Automated journaling puts journaling on autopilot, combining the Journals tool with our powerful Apple Health, Fitbit, Garmin, and Oura wearables integrations. This unlocks:
Now, let’s get back to Sam and Ashlee to see how they’ve put Journals to work.
Starting therapy or a health journey can feel daunting, especially when discussing sensitive subjects or setting up consistent habits. Practice Better’s Journals feature makes those first steps easier by offering clients a secure, structured space to record their thoughts and progress. This gives clients an approachable way to begin reflecting on their experiences while building trust and comfort with their practitioner.
“I tell clients, If you’re not comfortable sharing in session, there's this journaling feature. There's this chat feature you can access, and then we can chat. We can talk about it in our next session.”
As a sole practitioner, Sam’s practice is not a crisis clinic. She doesn’t have the resources to offer that level of support when she’s in other sessions or off duty. Journals support clients who want to reach her or share something with her when she may not be available.
“I tell them if it's sensitive information or just something you want to share with me you can Journal about it. I will see it and I can respond. I can view it before our next session. That's been really helpful for them because a lot of times they don't (otherwise) have that kind of privacy. They like that feature of secure journaling in the app."
This kind of secure access is useful for all of her clients, but especially shines in the context of trauma therapy.
When clients work on reprocessing targeted memories through techniques like EMDR, their brains actively continue to process between sessions. This makes Journals especially essential to her trauma work, as she can provide continuing care between sessions through Journals.
Clients can journal any insights, new symptoms, dreams, memories or emotions in the app. She can respond and deliver care between sessions. When they meet in session again, it’s all there to work from.
“When targeted memories come up after their session, if they didn't have access to the Journals to share those directly, it would be lost. A lot of things can happen within the week. So, that journaling feature is really important to provide continuity of care."
For Ashlee, journaling powers the core of her work.
“I want my clients to log their food, their movement, their poop, their sleep, their activities, how they feel every part of their day. I want as much (information) as they can provide”
For many clients, this takes the form of journaling. She finds great value in knowing as much as possible, so she can help clients learn how their bodies respond to food.
Ashlee sees the limits of manual journaling, however, and the huge value in integrating wearables.
“My clients are busy—they don’t have time to constantly stop and update everything. With Practice Better’s integration with Apple Watch, the tracking is automatic, so clients can focus on just logging their meals, while I get the data I need for their progress. It’s seamless for them, and insightful for me.”
Ashelee encourages integrated wearables into her practice to keep clients accountable. Wearables help her clients generate sustainable results and learn about their bodies.
“The wearable data provides a little bit of excitement. People like to see things in front of them: to be able to look and see how it's attached to a journal that your practitioner can see too. It fosters accountability.”
Ashlee’s clients who integrate wearables can just wake up and go about their day. When their movement, sleep, and heart rate data automatically transfer, there’s one less thing for them to remember to do.
“I love how I can see things without them having to update. It's one less task for them. They already have a life to live, activities to do, exercise to do, and to cook all their food. Nobody wants to have to spend their whole life tracking their whole life.”
Ashlee has a very clear vision for how clients can use the new Garmin integration that launched today and how it will feel to them to have that confidence:
“(Clients will think) I can work with Ashlee and it's so much easier because all of my data (sleep, heart rate, and exercise) transfers right over. I just have to send her a picture of what I ate and then she's able to help me understand what's happening within my body. With that information I'm learning how to implement foods for sustainable results for the long term.”
Wearable integrations help clients better understand their body, their health, and keep them more engaged. Understanding their body is key for sustainable success. They’re empowered to make their own decisions.
““When they're able to look back at their sleep and their food in conjunction with their heart rate and everything else a wearable can provide, they see the results themselves in real time.”
Ashlee and her clients work one-on-one for 6 months. After that, they're still able to have access to the journal for 6 more months to take what they've learned and use the data. That way she can see which clients are thriving on what she taught them and which ones might need some additional support to keep working towards their goals.
If you haven’t tried Journals or haven’t gone as in-depth with them as Sam and Ashlee have, this is your sign to check them out.
Here’s a list of questions to help you explore working with Journals or going even more in-depth if you already do:
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