# 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](/docs/privacy/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](/docs/privacy/how-encryption-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](/docs/features/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

- [Reading a therapist export](/docs/for-therapists/reading-export)
- [How Open Heart compares to other tools](/docs/for-therapists/comparison-with-other-tools)
- [Crisis resources](/docs/privacy/crisis-resources)