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angelicgoldfish05 · Dec 15, 2014, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Asiablue

For those of you who have complex ptsd and or attachment difficulties, what kind of agreement do most of you have with your therapists in terms of outside session support? And what works best for you whilst doing trauma work? What kind of support if any do they offer you?

Are you allowed email, texting, phone calls? Or do you have no contact outside of sessions at all? How do you feel about the current agreement you have about access or lack of access to your therapist outside sessions?

I'm conflicted by what I want in a therapist versus what I need. I don't like the idea of having no outside support from them, it feels cold and abandoning. I feel like I don't need to learn to be super independent, I already am that. I have never been over-dependent with anyone, but just having needs makes me feel needy and I do worry about being over-dependent.

But I do need to learn about emotional self-regulation. And I do get overwhelmed with the trauma work at times so I can see the argument for having no contact to a therapist outside of sessions in an attempt to contain it all in the room and not have it spill out across the week.

I'm looking for a new T and wondering what I need.

Sorry I have not read everyone else's replies yet, but do you know if there are any support groups in your area? I went to an emotional regulation/distress tolerance group once and found it to be very helpful. It was also geared towards low-income participants so I was able to afford it. Home | SAMHSA might have some resources you could check out.... just thought of that because you said something about wanting to learn emotional regulation...

But to answer the question, I find it would be good to have the options to get in touch with a T outside of session in emergencies. When I was a caseworker, I let myself be available on an as-need basis and don't know if this was helpful or not. On the one hand, you may be able to help someone through a difficult time. On the other hand, if you have many clients and need to prioritize with self-care, and also the many clients, you will start having to assess and prioritize. This could unintentionally "reward" those in more crisis/need with the assistance. However, if the need is there, it needs to get met somehow, so I don't know.

I also don't know your situation and what supports you have in place working with the therapist and therapy. So it is really up to you and the therapist to talk through and work out. You may also want to list the strengths you find in the therapist (the positives) and weigh them against the therapists out-of-session contact policy if they do have one and then decide. Good luck!