My T allows me to email although he has expressed his distaste of it. I can also always call his office line. He is alerted to voicemails outside of the office so he can call back if he's not there. I struggle with reaching out by phone and would much rather email. His preference, when I'm in distress, is that I call to set up an extra session.

I used to email more frequently (maybe 1-3 times a month, ongoing exchanges though) when I was in distress. The emails would be troublesome because I would have no idea what I needed and T would have no idea how to react to what I wrote. T would sometimes respond, "What do you need right now?"....and I would struggle with trying to figure it out. *sigh*

One time, T responded something along the lines of knowing that receiving an email from me is surely to let him know that I am in distress. I then started judging myself and putting myself down for the idea of needing T to know I was in distress.

Before he left for his vacation, we talked about having a back-up T....and we talked about how it's important for me to be very clear and direct with what I need. He believes that most times we just need to be heard, reassured and reminded of steps to take to work our way out of the distressing place we're in. I thought to myself, gah, why on earth would I bother T with that - that's something I should be able to do on my own.

It made the idea of reaching out feel yucky to me.

I sometimes email T just to let him know something that I either can't seem to muster enough courage to say in session - or feels too distressing to hold onto until the next session. I keep that to a minimum, though.