My therapist had an absolute boundary about no emails. He eventually changed that boundary with me. Over time, the boundary has relaxed to the point where he says I can email whenever and whatever I want. However, we discussed it at each step of the way.

As part of my therapy, he thought it was important that I look at my childhood more objectively so I could see how bad it was. At one point, I wrote a story about my childhood (written from the third person perspective because I could not stand to write it as if it were actually about me). I called and told him I wrote it (phone calls are actually encouraged), and told him I thought that I would lose my nerve to give it to him in session and asked to email it. He said that would be great, and please do so.

Later, I ran across an article that address something that I knew I needed to talk about but was positive I would never be able to do so. I mentioned it to him in session, but indicated that I didn't know how to get to the point of telling him about it. He told me to email it if I got the nerve.

He explained his reason for the boundary initially and his reasons for relaxing it. He also asked me not to tell other clients about being allowed to email. He says he has good and valid reasons to not allow it in most cases, but it would cause resentment and hard feelings if another client knew I was allowed to email AND received almost immediately responses, when the other clients are not allowed to do so, and he does not respond to emails from them at all. He made it clear that the relaxing of the boundary was all about how I USE email, and how careful I am to respect the boundaries of the relationship overall and it's not just a special privilege because he likes me.