signing a contract isnt that bad a thing. I have one with my therapist. All it says is that I will try not to hurt her or myself during sessions then my signature and date. The one I had with my past therapist was a verbal one that I would not try to hurt myself (suicidally or with self injury) with out talking to her first. If I still wanted to do something after talking to her she would not put me in the hospital as a means to stop me. Thats not saying she didnt do other things like making the time frame between my calling her and her calling me back progressively farther apart. she did this as I became stronger at fighting the urges for self injury.

She knew there was nothing she could say or do if I tried to kill myself. if someone truely wants to die they are going to do it regardless of what another person says or does so my therapists focus was more on helping me learn to control the self injury stuff. by doing that I learned other coping tools and this in turn made the reason why I want to die at least tollerable. I also have the same ageement with some very close friends.

My present therapist has asked for the same agreement my friends (my past therapist is included in this group of friends) and I told her there was no reason since I don't break promises to these special friends of mine. I love them all too much and value our friendship more that a suicidal act that would take a matter of minutes to carry out. As for self injury part she knows Im working on it and has told me that if there is any other alternative she will not hospitalize me. So far I haven't had to take her up on her offer of help on my self injury battle. I do know this therapy agency does folllow state and mental health protocals of hospitalization if needed and that for involuntary commitment the injuries have to be recent with in the past 24 hours so I told her I would not put her in that position. I have no problem letting her know if I have done anything but it will not be within that 24 hour commitment window. She has accepted that. What matters to her is that she knows I am working on it and knows if I get in over my head so to speak I will let her know but not during that 24 hour commitment window. She has asked to see some of the scars and I did show them to her but thats as far as our conversations go on the subject. She doesnt push the issue. its my job to bring it to her if I need her help.

My therapist did ask if I had my emergency numbers posted and I do - a copy of the list in every room.

She did not lecture on for a whole hour about it. She asked if I had any questions about anything and I told her I'm fine and we went on to other topics.

One way to make sure you get what you need out of therapy is by writing things down.

You wrote the email and you are taking her up on her offer to talk great start now take a piece of paper and write down questions first for yourself to answer since the appointment is for you by you about you. these questions will help you to decide what to say and how much of what you want to say to her. Worse case scenero You get tongue tied and cant talk you will have the paper to hand to her.

Why did I write the email?
What do I want to happen now?
What do I want from her?
What do I need from her?
What do I want her to do should I call in the emergency stage of it?

Then any questions for her to answer -
What is her office protocal for such things?
What can she offer?

wish you lots of good luck and you can do this. You wrote the email so the subjects now right out there waiting for you. just grab ahold and run with it.