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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.
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I wish I had a good answer but I too have complex PTSD, attachment issues, and at times have struggled with not having therapist when I needed them during the week. I would feel abandoned. I even had a therapist who let me email them and would reply back but if the reply was not as detailed as I liked, I would feel abandoned. My last couple of therapists had allowed me to call or email but essentially for emergencies. So I rarely used the phone for that reason but I did email (felt they could not get mad at me that way...assuming they would get mad for non emergency, whatever that means). I would feel guilty, worry they think I'm being needy, all those thoughts, and then would constantly check my email to see if they replied back. So in short emailing them was good option to have when needed but still did not help in some situations.
I don't know where you at in your therapy so depending on what you're working on, you may or may not need more contact outside session. With a good therapist you might be able to work on things yourself (or with other support, not therapist contact) till you see the therapist again. If uncovering new trauma or whatever, it's good to know that the therapist would have enough flexibility to allow for more support during the week. It's good to check if the therapist has that flexibility when you start with a new therapist.