CNC,

Texting came about with T1 when she was going on Christmas break for two weeks a couple of months ago. She said, "Do you have my cell phone number?" and I said, "Um, no" surprised that she thought I did. Then she told me that the emergency contact number on her work voicemail is actually her cell phone number. She said I can call or text, that she may not always be available but that she will always get back to me. I said, "Thanks, but I doubt that I will need it". LOL. although I have never called her cell phone, I have texted hundreds of times since Christmas.

I have also emailed T1 a few times but she is not much of an emailer and will often go an entire week without checking email. However, I had to email her once so that I could send her my billing information that was easier to email than give over the phone. After that I emailed a few times about something I was too uncomfortable to talk about in therapy but her replies were like one or two sentences. It was clear she is just not into emailing.

The only time I've had an after hours call with T1 was in high school. My mom called her because my mom was worried I was going to kill myself when my boyfriend and I broke up and I locked myself in my room and listened to Boys 2 Men "End of the Road" for five hours. LOL. Then another time I called her after hours and I don't remember why. So that was only twice in the two years I went to therapy with her.

After I moved away for college, I wrote her letters occasionally and I visited her the two or three times a year I went home. She never charged me for those times we got together. I did that for about four years after our therapy ended. Oh, and I am just now remember that I did talk to her once on the phone 4 years after our therapy had ended. I had been hospitalized for anorexia and was going through a rough patch so I called her and we talked for an hour or so. She wrote me a letter about six months later and I never wrote her back. Then 12 years went by with no contact until I reached out to her in November and we started up phone therapy (since she lives 1000 miles away and I cannot see her in person).



With T2, she asked for my email address when I called her for the very first time for an appointment. She wanted it so she could send me directions to her house for our first appointment. Then about a month after I started seeing her I sent her the same email I had sent T1 about the difficult thing I was struggling talking about. She thanked me for the email and said it was okay to email her about difficult things if that felt more comfortable for me. We also email about scheduling appointments (I think she has figured out that I don't answer my phone). I try to limit the emails and they are usually just quick things to inform her of things and not to expect a reply. For example, tonight I forwarded her a series of emails between my exhusband and I and told her that I wanted to discuss the emails in my next session with her. She emailed back a brief email saying she was delighted at how I handled myself in the emails and that surely I had earned a gold star for setting boundaries with him.

Her replies are very brief in email. I do not think she would ever be available via text. I think she would prefer I call a crisis line after hours (I read this in the paperwork she gave me on the first appointment). However, I do think she would take a call from me if I were to reach out to her after hours but only because its not something I have ever done. Its not something she would want to encourage, but I do think its something she would be okay with in the rare extreme emergency. Not sure if I am making sense. Basically she doesn't seem to make herself too available after hours but I don't think its something she would turn away if the need arose.

I have had a few very brief phone calls with T2 and they were initiated by her and were under 3 minutes and basically consisted of, "are you sure you want to cancel your appointment with me? I don't think its a good idea to cancel your appointment" or "I need to see more consistency from you. Stop canceling your appointments". Another time she called to inform me that one of my best friends had called her to tell her that she was very worried about me. T2 wanted to make sure I was aware of that.

So that was a rather long-winded answer but hopefully it answered your question.

Hi CNC, my T doesn't do email. If she did, I'd definitely be using it. However, she does text, but not with all her clients, only some of them. As for how it came about...well, it wasn't until about 5 months into my therapy. I had known all along that my T had an "emergency phone" because this information was told to me by the receptionist on the first appointment, and the number for it used to be printed on the appointment reminder cards (it isn't there anymore - long explanation for that). Also, I knew this emergency number was a cell phone, not a landline. Still, I never ever made a call to it because I never knew how she defined an "emergency." But one day I had an experience that really shook me up -- an ex-uncle who had tried to molest me about 20 years earlier, and who had gone to prison for molesting another niece, suddenly showed up on my front door step, after years of no contact. I didn't know he even knew where I lived, because the last time I had spoken to him I lived in another state. Anyway, I was just shaking after he left. Without thinking too hard about it, I sent a frantic text to my T's emergency phone number which began with the words "Please tell me you do text!" And a few hours later she sent a text back. Then at the next session she said that, Yes, she does text. It took me another month or two before I felt brave enough to text again, and we've had many discussions about texting issues since then, but now I usually text several times a week.

So I guess that was a long-winded way of saying that I didn't really ask the first time. I just did it and planned to ask for forgiveness later if she didn't like it. But in order for you to do that, you'd have to have the number first.