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the client texts/e-mails more and more in order to seek reassurance, to express their thoughts to T right away, to try and get a response from T, and/or to "do therapy" via text/email. It becomes excessive. It becomes a way to get out of "sitting with" the hard feelings. It becomes a way of depending on T for reassurance rather than using coping skills and becoming more independent. The client feels like T is more of a "friend" than a therapist. The boundaries become too blurred. And, when the T can't (or won't) respond to all of these texts/emails, or doesn't respond quickly, or doesn't respond in the way the client wanted-- the client feels rejected and obsesses about T's response (or lack thereof).
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I do think that is a danger. For me it has not been the case. One of my main problems going into therapy was that I was TOO independent. Learning to ask for and get support has been important to me. One rule is that if I want something in response, I have to ask for it specifically, otherwise I can't guarantee anything. So I need to say "I need reassurance about X" or "can you tell me if what I wrote made sense to you?" and then I get answers for those things. It has stretched me to really figure out what I need and ask for it directly. Sometimes I have used email just to vent, without even asking for a response. That has helped me to feel like I don't have to hold my feelings all by myself, and enabled me to tolerate them better as a result.
It's true that at times I have been upset over T's emails or the lack thereof, and have read things into them that weren't there. In the end this has been helpful to me. By being able to go back and talk about these misunderstandings, I've gotten better at not jumping to conclusions about emails in the rest of my life.
In conclusion, I think email has legitimate purposes in therapy, but can be a bad thing if there is too much transference already or if expectations about it are unreasonable. Another thing is that I never had a problem respecting other people's boundaries. In fact I was terrified of "bothering" my T too much, even when she said I wasn't. I got to learn, partly though email, that just being in contact with someone isn't necessarily annoying and invasive behavior.