Hi,

I really try not to is my answer Seriously, my T says I can email if I need to but she is busy and cannot return emails always immediately. For me I would rather not eail than email and wait for a reply, instantly making me regret I had reached out for help and it not being given. A replay of my childhood stuff entirely and nothing to do with T who always replies as soon as she can and I can contact by phone if I really have to (but I wouldn't .

So I can understand where you are coming from and because of your previous T experience you are wary BUT if T is saying and allowing you to email.....give it a go and see. If he doesn't reply then you know the score, but just maybe he might be different and this will be an important safety net for you. I hope so.

Oh and the not being a burden thing - yep I know that one too Hugs to you and all who feel that way.

starfishy

This is a great topic...
Emails are a little tricky. I feel like writing emails is like you're taking your clothes off in front of your therapist, standing completely naked... And then you just have to wait for their response. I used to write long, elaborate emails. I wanted my therapist to understand what I was going through, why I was acting a certain way... I just wanted him to care and give me a thoughtful response.
In the end I found that emails caused more anxiety and upset than they relieved. Its impossible that the therapist (or very rare!) will say exactly what you want to be said. And what if they don't respond at all?
Its also easy to get too used to writing things out in emails, rather than articulating them in front of your therapist, which is a completely different and powerful thing.
All and all, I think you should keep an open-mind about it. Maybe you can consider writing out an email you would like to send, and then writing down the response you would like to get. Kind of like self-talk, only self..write. :P

quote:

On my end, I fear depending on him (hence my refusal to email), being a burden (my life story) and I can't imagine he could tell me anything that would fix or help the situation. I've tried to think of what I would want to hear, what I think would help to hear, and I come up with nothing.

Hi BPB...

I think your T is wise to suggest that when you need connection that you email him. What he is trying to encourage is not dependency but that internal sense of connection and of having someone "there" when you need them. He wants you to reach out because that is a healthy human response to anxiety or stress or anguish. I would guess that you could not do this with your caregivers/parents/attachment figures when you were a child. Perhaps those that you "should" have been reaching out for were the same ones who harmed you in some way. I'm just guessing here because I don't really know your background at all so please disregard if I'm way off base.

And it is SO not what he will actually "say" in the email... he really can't solve your problems or even process trauma via email, but he CAN provide that contact, that reassurance, a sense of safety and encouragement and just knowing that someone that is important to you makes YOU important enough to be there when you need them to be. For many of us this is a new experience.

I will tell you how it's been with my current T. The first day I met him he handed me his card and pointed out his email address. He said he was the only one who had access to it and he encouraged me to contact him out of session when I needed to. It did not have to be an emergency. For me, who was suffering from PtSD from the abandonment of my oldT, this was HUGE. And so I tried it with a small matter. He ansswered very kindly and reassuringly. THEN when I saw him he just asked me if his response helped me. We discussed it because he wanted to know if there was something or someway he could be better at this for me. What did I need from him? I was very clear that when I email I need to connect with him and know he's there... I am also asking for reassurance and/or encouragement. He has been spot on ever since. And there are weeks that go by when I don't need to email him at all. I know he's there. But he keeps telling me to email him or beep him if I need him. That helps.

We have been together almost a year now and we have fallen into a routine. Actually, I observed his routine regarding emails and I have adjusted myself to it. He is very consistent in his behavior so it makes it easier and it feels "safer" to email. He always answsers my emails first thing in the morning before he starts his day....so I usually email him later at night and see his ansswer the next day. Once or twice I did not get an answer in the morning and so I did follow his instructions to send another email after 24 hours to say...hey where are you and why didn't you answer me?? LOL. And sometimes when he answers me I will send another short email saying "thank, that really helped" or "thanks for understanding". He said he loves that because it makes him feel like he did the right thing by me. He told me that knowing how much his emails help me makes it easier for him and more pleasurable for him to respond to me. He also praises me for being so easy to understand... because basically I tell him what I need. I'm able to indentify how he can help me and then he does just that.

This helps me to more easily internalize him and taking in what he would tell me. So being dependent for awhile is NOT a bad thing. It's a developmental step that all humans go through in order to become interdependent as adults. In many of our cases we didn't get the chance to depend on parents who were abusive or unreliable or just not there. So we need to repeat this developmental phase whith a "good parent (T)" and just settle into being dependent for awhile until we grow up and can hold our T's within us and need them less and less ... as a child grows up and needs his parents less and less.

So BBP... I really do encourge you to email your T when you feel you need to. I think it will really help your therapy and the relationship and you will begin so experience real progress.

Hope that helped.
TN

I do email mine when i am so distressed and unable to function due to anger or confusion at her. I do not usually want a response back, although sometimes she does respond. I find it is more useful for me to send the email than it is t hear back. I also think she does not even have to read the email so it is not that much of a bother.

BBP - I agree wholeheartedly with DF that if you do emails, it might be good to know what to expect from them...both what your T expects you to utilize them for (e.g. keeping the connection between sessions, support for struggles or crises, feedback/response for things that arose during session). My T does not respond to emails and as far as I can tell, no other clients have even been inclined to send them on a regular basis. Same thing with texting (which he responds to, but no one else does). Ugh, anyway, my T uses my emails mostly to capture all the things that come up for me during or following my session that weren't able to make it into the conversation. He gets access to my "process" as he sees me work through the topics we were discussing in writing. It gets too "loud" for me to do this verbally. T draws from that when we are out of topics to discuss. He says he "loves" and is "blessed by" those things I share, because he wouldn't want to be walking around in the dark tripping over me or stepping on my toes. It really seems to illuminate things for him. However, I can't expect a response on these emails and sometimes it means he won't read them by the next session (as we talk twice a week). Before I knew what to expect and before I specifically requested he address things that came up in the journals (so I didn't feel he was avoiding them for some nefarious reason), it could cause a bit of panic.

Anyway, I guess, maybe figure out what situations you might want to use email for and ask your T if that is a good option and what sort of response (both in email and in session) to expect. It leaves a lot less room for projection that way.

Starfish Thanks for the encouragement to try and see, but for telling me you really try not to email too. I really don't want him to make a big deal about it in session either, which doesn't help. Sorry to hear you know about being a burden. I don't know how I will ever change that part of me!

SugarChild: I totally agree about the naked part! That is exactly how it feels. I really don't know what I'm looking for response wise. I can't think of anything that would help or that I wouldn't be disappointed by. If I knew what I wanted to hear, I'd just tell myself :P

True North: Thanks for explaining what my T can give me through email - a connection. I am still weary of being dependent. I know that, in some ways, I am already but I really want to contain it in case of catastrophe.

Stoppers: Thanks for sharing. Maybe sending an email will be enough.

deepfried: I tried to gauge the use of email with T by asking what the rules/boundaries are for it and he said there weren't any, that I could email anytime I felt I needed to. He said he checks it at least once a day. Thanks for the suggestion that I mention whether or not I'd like a response in the email.

yakusoku: Thanks for your comment. My T said I could email anytime I wanted. I asked what the boundaries/rules are as I mentioned to deepfried. I guess I'll just have to take a risk or forget about it altogether.


Thank you for all your comments. I still haven't decided what to do. I appreciate that you all took the time to respond and share your experiences.

BP,

I think your concerns of becoming dependent are valid, but I do not think you should worry about being a burden, especially since your T is encouraging you to reach out to connect during the week.

My T encourages texting and although it has been helpful in some ways, I sometimes find myself wishing that she had never made this available to me because I tend to abuse it. I feel like I am totally dependent on her and cannot get through a day without texting at least five times.

I also find that I get really hurt feelings when she is too busy to give more than a quick reply. I also don't like knowing that when I don't hear from her for a while, its because she is busy doing fun things with her family. This is not good for me. I get jealous, feel unimportant, etc.

There are also times where I feel like she overlooks something important I said in a text, perhaps because the meaning was lost in the format of the communication or perhaps because her attention was divided when she read it. I end up feeling resentful that she missed something important.

I also struggle with her reply not being what I anticipated or expected. I will send a text and then I have all this time before she replies where I anticipate what her response will probably be, and it is sometimes nowhere near what I expected and then I feel that she doesn't care, isn't being attentive enough, etc. because her answer wasn't what I imagined it would be.

I'm sort of repeating myself at this point. I guess my overall thoughts about this are that the email/texting is a good way to reach out if you are seeking the connection, but its not good for processing or hearing the things from your T that you need to hear. Those sort of things are much better left for your sessions. But its nice to know that T is there for you and that the connection is still there. But if you find yourself in a dynamic where you are trying to elicit certain reassuarance or affirmations from T, you may end up being disappointed and resentful, so its wise to be cautious and keep the emailing in check so that it doesn't get out of hand and lead to more problems than it brings comfort.

Ack, my T said the same thing about there being no limit, regarding both email and texting. I couldn't believe him at first, but it ended up being true. It really has not mattered how much I do either. It is all OK with him. However, with texting, it started to feel like it meant something when I got a response on some things and not a response on others. Or, if he brought up something from a journal one week and then ignored the topics I had written about on other weeks. I think what was really important was me taking the initiative about those feelings that came up so we could find a way that works. So, maybe if there are certain pitfalls that you're particular scared about (overuse, dependency, hurt feelings over lack of response, response time or even "quality" of response), it might be helpful to discuss these things up front prior to emailing, at least on a regular basis, or commit to your T that you're going to be honest about them when they come up. My T has been rock solid when I tell him all the projections that have arisen. He doesn't make me feel bad about them, addresses how they are untrue, helps me to elaborate for him where they come from, listens to suggestions on how we can use these tools more effectively.

Anyway, to get feedback on what texting and emailing "meant" and what to expect, I had to ask my T really specific questions. It was a hard topic for me to confront, because we had already been doing both for a while at the time and I was afraid that my questioning it, trying to get my head around what it was supposed to be, might cause it to be taken away. Discussing that stuff and other boundary-related things openly and thoughtfully ahead of time is one of the few changes I would make to my therapy experience, if I had to do it over.

I don't know if any of that is helpful, but I do think that outside contact can have a lot of benefit, so long as the therapist is "up for" what they're offering. My attachment anxiety is way more manageable just knowing my T is there, on the "other end" of a line when I am in need, even if it is a figurative line, since everything is wireless now.

Yaku has a good point about reading into why a T will respond to some things and not others. I think that can be problematic because I think sometimes my T might respond to something because she has more time and ignore something else when she is busy, but I misinterpret it to mean that she just doesn't think something is important and then I am reluctant to bring it up again with her because I don't think she values the significance of it.

i will be able to write a book on this - but will do so tomorrow, once I read everything thoroughly.

Just remember - that any emails you send to your T becomes part of the 'communication' - and doesn't matter what you write - it is 'legal' and they have to keep it on file for 7 years. I have just learnt about this (the hard way) - and I am not comfortable as I disclosed some stuff after T terminated me.

I wanted to share with you guys about my session this past week. I asked T what the purpose of emailing would be and he talked about being able to simply connect with someone during the week. We talked a lot about having someone to connect with on a deeper level than I am currently experiencing with anyone else.

You guys were barking up the right tree, so I just wanted to share that with you.