Recommending Open Heart to clients
Open Heart sits between weekly therapy sessions. It's well-suited to couples processing communication patterns, conflict avoidance, or post-rupture rebuilding. It's not a fit for active crisis or for ongoing harm patterns.
If you're a couples therapist, an individual therapist with relational clients, or a coach, here's a candid take on when Open Heart is and isn't a useful between-sessions tool.
When it's a good fit
- Couples in regular therapy who want structure between sessions. The weekly reveal mirrors the rhythm of weekly therapy. Clients arrive with material rather than catching up.
- Conflict-avoidant couples. The "nobody goes first" mechanic is built specifically for this dynamic. The structure carries the cost of starting that one partner usually shoulders.
- Anxious-attachment-leaning clients. The AI coaching is tuned to acknowledge fear and offer phrasing — useful for clients who freeze or rehearse and never speak.
- Post-rupture rebuilding. After an affair, near-divorce, or significant breach, the structured weekly check-in can serve as a low-stakes way to rebuild communication without forcing high-stakes conversations.
- Long-distance couples. The asynchronous writing model fits time zones and travel. The simultaneous reveal still happens — just whenever both partners can be present.
- Individual clients in solo mode. Solo journaling with weekly summaries gives clients a way to track patterns without juggling multiple journals.
When it's not a fit
- Active crisis. If a client is suicidal or in immediate danger, the app's crisis resource window isn't a substitute for emergency services. (Crisis resources)
- Ongoing harm patterns. If one partner is controlling, threatening, or abusing the other, the structured weekly reveal can be co-opted as another surveillance tool. The app shows a domestic violence resource window when phrases like "afraid of him/her" appear — but the app can't enforce safety. Recommend specialist resources first.
- High-conflict separation. If divorce is imminent and contested, anything written can be subpoenaed. Open Heart's privacy model means we can't hand entries over, but a partner who has the device after the relationship ends could read what was written when it was written. Caution.
- Clients who already journal well. Some clients have a journaling practice that works. Adding a structured app can flatten the texture. If their existing practice is serving them, leave it.
- Severe avoidance plus low motivation. The weekly cadence is forgiving — you can skip a week. But if a client won't engage with structured tools at all, mandating the app creates compliance theater.
Privacy considerations to mention
- Open Heart cannot read entries. The app is built so that even the company can't see what your client writes. (How privacy works)
- No clinician access. There's no therapist dashboard. There's no toggle that gives you live access. The therapist export is a one-shot, client-initiated, plain-text file. (Therapist export)
- Recovery phrase risk. Loss of the recovery phrase plus loss of the phone equals unrecoverable data. Worth mentioning in the same conversation as "save your phrase somewhere safe."
- Crisis content stays on the phone. The crisis window doesn't escalate to anyone, including you. If your client writes about self-harm, you'll see it in the export only if they share it.
Pricing for therapy clients
Solo mode is free forever. The premium tier (couples mode, AI features, therapist export) is $9.99/month or $59.99/year.
We don't have a "therapist clients" discount yet. If you're a clinician with multiple clients on Open Heart and want to discuss a discount or partnership, email hello@myopenheart.co — we're working out what's fair.
What we'd ask of clinicians
- Don't use the AI conversation starters as session-opening prompts. They're written for couples to talk to each other, not for therapy.
- Be cautious about treating the export as definitive. It captures what the client shared, not what they thought. Private entries are not in the export by design.
- If a client asks "should I share this with my therapist?", treat it as a meaningful question. The act of sharing changes what they write next.
Related
Read this page as plain markdown: /docs/for-therapists/recommending-app.md