Thanks everyone. I talked to him about this today. He said... That I'd told him that I'd prefer to do phone therapy. He came up with a couple arguments why it would be better to see each other ftf.
1) Because one of my goals is to get better with disclosing my feelings etc in my real like relationships.
2) Because of the absense of ftf information.
In response to the first point I said that generalisation is required anyway. The hope is that I'll generalise from my disclosing okay to him to my disclosing okay to people outside therapy. That I do have trouble disclosing to him ftf. That disclosing to him over the phone might generalise in the sense that I find it easier to do ftf.
In response to the second point I said that if some modalities aren't available to give information (e.g., vision) then other modalities often start conveying information. For example, people who are blind typically get more information than the rest of us from auditory cues. I said I've gotten to know some people so well in chatrooms that I can tell within two minutes that they aren't doing so well. Their responses are longer to come through than usual. They write in shorter sentences etc.

He wasn't really sure what to say in response but he seemed a little anxious...

Then I said that I'd figured it wasn't about my wanting to stop seeing him ftf and do therapy over the phone instead... It was more that... I wanted us to be able to keep working together (rather than just brief check ins) while I go to the other city and especially when I go to the other country (for a year) because otherwise I'd have to find someone else to work with over there. Blush.

Then... He backtracked. Said 'oh, I didn't mean to suggest that we couldn't do that or that it wouldn't work...' So... He is okay about the idea that we do that when I'm unable to get in to see him ftf.

:-)

(((((((my t))))))

He said he hasn't tried to do depth therapy by phone but sounds like he is willing to try :-) ANd I asked him about his typing... But he said he doesn't type so fast... So... That is probably why he isn't so into emails and also... Given that, chat probably wouldn't work out so well either.

(((((((my t)))))))