Hi NavyMe,

There are times when my anxiety goes through the roof and I am literally a paralyzed, trembling wreck and feel unable to calm myself down or use distraction (other than something self destructive) successfully. When I get like that, I call my T.

Just hearing her voice is very grounding and soothing for me and helps a great deal during those times. Usually she is able to restore my equanimity within five or at the most ten minutes, but sometimes she'll stay on the phone even after I'm "restored" to talk through whatever happened with me.

She's always awesome about it and I appreciate that a lot, but at the same time I tend to feel guilty for calling, worry that I am pestering her, worry that she doesn't understand just how bad I'm feeling and thinks I'm being dramatic, etc. Since along with the relief it provides, calling also kicks up all these negative feelings, I tend not to call unless I think I really *have* to-- meaning my anxiety has pushed past a certain threshold that is intolerable for me.

Anyway, when I first started therapy I would end up needing to call about once a week. Now after five months it's more like once every two weeks or even less. Just depends.

My T is the one who suggested early on in therapy that I could call her if I needed to, and she reminds me of this option from time to time. She also does texting, but I don't like to text and so have never taken her up on it. As far as emails go, she has an email address on her business card but has never mentioned emailing as an option to me, so I've never tried. I'm not sure emailing her would be at all beneficial for me, though, since when I feel like I need contact with her what I really want is to hear her voice. However, I do sometimes compose emails to her that I never send, just as a self-help kind of technique for sorting my thoughts out.

Another thing I do when I feel like I want connection, but it isn't at all urgent, is to go to her professional website and look at her picture.

Anyway, this is just how things have been working out for me. I'm happy with the level of connection we maintain, but everyone has different attachment needs, etc. and Ts vary in how they like to handle that, I think. I think reading about other people's experiences on here is very fascinating!

Best of luck to you as you navigate all this. I don't have any advice, cuz I'm bad at that, but never mind sharing my experience, for what it's worth.

emailing has been an essential component of my therapy. When I was literally unable to get words out, I finally started writing by writing how I was going to quit because I couldn't speak. and that became my breatk thru.

T and I has an agreement because he wasn't always great at checking email everyday. I could email whatever I wanted and if I needed/wanted a reply I had to write that in the email. IF I wrote that, he always replied when he saw the email. If I didn't need a reply I said nothing about it and sometimes he replied and sometimes not. If it was urgent I sent the email, then called his office and told the receptionist to please let T know I had sent an email that needed his attention ASAP. It worked great. Then he retired....and now I'm searching for a new T. But I did decide after a few interviews, that the emailing is essential, and a T that won't do it, isn't for me.

Good luck. Writing can be a real gateway to the soul for those of us with difficulty verbally expressing.

tacy

hello,an interesting discussion
to read thank you.

I am like Monte. I can make connections and labels feeling through my writing - but in sessions I physically cannot speak most of the times - let alone able to speak and then able to communicate.

My T said that some clients who have significant difficult feeling and talking about emotions - writing is good for them.

I usually leave sessions and then do all my thinking and connecting - I will then write an email to T about connections i have made, thoughts, what she did well, why i couldnt talk about something etc.

Now, until last week - my T- while supporting me to email her was pathetic on replying. It harmed our relationship, my attachment and our future..... We had a confrontation about a few things and she agreed that she would reply to my emails or send me an email on a certain day mid week. She did this and it has helped me so much this week. It strengthens the bond in an incredible way. T says that when she is on vacation she usually does a phone check in - but to me that is asking too much. I never call T and only text her to ask her to read her emails!

To me phoning is too intrusive.

With emails - if I am unloading - i will say so and if I need a reply I will tell her. SOmetimes i am just giving information. It is 100x more likely that I will write significant things to T - but I won't say them. When I write - raw great stuff comes out.

I have told T that if I need a reply I will tellher - but it is likely that her reply will be not what I am wanting to hear at that point - so she will rarely get it right!!! We laugh about that. She will try..

If I haven't emailed her she will initiate an email mid-week - I said this would be one of the best and most powerful things she could do.

I have had some major problems with emails. The answers I get make me angry, or they are ignored or whatever. Sometimes they have been more trouble than what they are worth - BUT they are really what I need.

My best advice is to negotiate up front with T about what you need and what they can provide. My t understands attachment disorder - and so knows that I need contact mid week. If she couldn't provide some sort of contact - I would have to get another T who would do it.

Hello NavyMe.

Out of session contact seems to mean different things to different people (oh yes I’m good at stating the obvious ) – but I’m saying that because until I joined this forum I had no idea that it was even possible to have out of session contact, I just assumed that therapy consisted of the actual session itself and that was that, so it’s been a real eye-opener to hear people talk about their experiences of email, phone and text contact beyond session time itself.

I absolutely am certain that for me I don’t even want to think about going there. Reading other people’s experiences of contacting T and then going through all shades of hell waiting for a response, or getting a blah response, or being threatened with the removal of out of session contact rights just confirmed for me what I know I would put myself through if I attempted it. No matter how wonderfully worded my T’s response to an email might be, it would never be the RIGHT response . I had one experience of emailing a T a couple of years ago, just to post through to him some stuff that I’d written, and firstly I went through agony wondering whether he’d acknowledge receiving it (he did) and secondly getting all upset and defensive because his acknowledgement was so cold and brusque. I decided from then on that it wasn’t worth the emotional hassle it caused me to even think about out of session contact on any kind of regular basis. (Emergencies might be a different matter, I don’t know I never seem to have emergencies that can be helped by a measly phone call or email...)

Maybe for someone like me (and it sounds like you are similar, in that you are used to sorting things out on your own) it could be a good thing to use out of session contact just to learn how to handle reaching out outside of set ‘given’ time with a T and dealing with the stuff that brings up. Don’t know, at this point I’d rather just work everything out on my own rather than risk the crappy feelings that bad or non responses would bring up.

Sounds like you already have quite a nice email set up going anyway, do you feel that you actually want more out of session contact with your T?

LL

quote:

how and when you guys communicate with your T between sessions

No out-of-session contact for me. Like LL, I didn't even know it was possible. However, I think it would be worse for me, if it was possible. I use my journal, heavily, in between sessions and then bring it to every session. Usually I only read it while in the waiting room, to prepare my mind, what I want to talk about that day. I very rarely open it in session and look at it and never read my words to her. But, the journal helps me a lot.

That's really interesting Ninn ,
I too journal between sessions. I have asked my T to read an entry before - as it wasn't something I felt as though I could say out loud. My T rarely lets me get away with that though, citing that if she reads it, instead of my saying things from it, she may 'grab onto' something that resonates with her, instead of what I might deem to be the most important part of it.

@Somedays - I feel the same way about phone calls... I've tried twice, though happily never actually connected and followed up via email..but it just feels really weird.

@ LL - For me, learning to reach out and seek help instead of "I can do this on my own like I always do" is part of the process... It's hard to rewire your brain to believe it's okay to inconvenience someone with 'your stuff'.

Sometimes something significant will occur between sessions and I will wait until we meet next to bring it up... When that goes on, she will actually say "This would have been a good reason to call me" or "You know you can email me when things like this happen."

Equally, last week when I told her I was waiting to find out about a new job, she asked me to get in touch as soon as I found out so she'd know. Cool connection.

@ Tacy99 Sometimes when I've emailed about asking for help making a decision, she will remind me of my own words or ask what I would tell a friend who posed the same question to me.

And... she always (unnecessarily as we do not have an agreement about responses) apologizes if it takes her longer than a day to respond.

Hi Navyme,

I text with my T every day at least once, though usually 2-3 times and sometimes many, many more times.

At one point I was wishing we'd never started the texting to begin with because it started to feel like I was texting her all day and was so wrapped up in waiting for her reply. However, now that I have more going on my life now, I find that I text less often and I do not seem as consumed with waiting for her replies.

We have also emailed, though we rarely do that because she is not much of an emailer.

She usually takes anywhere from immediately to up to 30 hours to respond to a text. It average about 3-4 hours though before I get a reply.

I will say that texting is a nice way to feel connected and keep the attachment in place, but its not a good medium for doing therapy. Keep the deep stuff for the therapy sessions and limit the texting to asking for reminders that she cares, is still there for you, etc.