I have emailed with my therapist and it has been a very helpful way of communication for me. I think the important this is that my therapist recognized that I needed a way to connect with her that didn't involve a phone (hate the dang things!). I've used email to breakdown any powerful feelings I might have had after a session. I have never required a response from my therapist, although she sometimes responded back with one or two lines, indicating the breakdown held powerful information that we "would process in our next session". I have never expected her to do therapy via email. My use of email has been to enhance my ability to put into words things that are difficult for me to express. The immediacy of email allowed me to be in the moment when the emotional storm was hitting and calm myself by thinking and/or analyzing what might have been going on for me. At our next session, the printed out email allowed my T and I to really dig in and figure out what was going on for me.

I think a good therapist can assess and recognize when email is helpful to a client, just as they do with phone calls. By eliminating all emailing by all clients, a T is perhaps closing off an avenue of communication that might really enhance and move a client's therapy along. I think deciding on the right course of treatment for any client should be individually based. By saying, I'll never allow emailing because I see that it causes too much anguish for the population of clients who post on an online forum, I think a person is shutting off a possible treatment choice prematurely. I don't post about having problems with email because it isn't a problem for me, and I'm pretty sure there are a lot of clients out there who use emailing very effectively.

I do feel, however, that it is perfectly legitamate for a therapist to make the personal decision that he/she doesn't allow email because it doesn't work for them. This is true for phone calls. Each therapist has to take their own personal inventory and set their own boundaries. She has to determine what she personally feels comfortable with and what she will not, over time, become resentful of in regard to demands on her time. If a therapist isn't comfortable with email or she believes that she can only handle one email a week from a client, then she needs to make that clear at the outset.

If emailing is allowed and it becomes a problem, then the therapist needs to negotiate that with her clients. This is what therapy is about--the client needs to learn how to be in the relationship and respect and honor the ebb and flow of the relationship. It sounds simple when I write it but I know that isn't the case. Negotiating the relationship and healing ruptures that naturally occur in any relationship is hard work.