Hi rainbow,

Your post reminds me of my own experience regarding emailing with my therapists and my own underlying issues. I have an issue with emailing T as well that I have not overcome yet but we are using it to serve a purpose. I've had a problem spending far too much time interacting with people online for years, distracting me from many much more worthwhile and practical goals. And it never truly provided any relief or satisfaction to do the intense online interactions, more like a form of drug seeking.

My first T did not handle this well. Instead of investigating the motivation behind the emails with me, he engaged in it and got really entangled in it -- all this knowing full well that compulsive emailing was an issue for me. He did this in a very erratic way though, which made everything worse.

My current T handles it extremely well. He always responds to emails with practical content (like scheduling) or where I am addressing something very relevant to the therapy process very quickly, but in a conservative way, never extensively. Very consistent and predictable. What this has achieved: I no longer have the motivation to email all the time just for the sake of it with people, and when I do, I act it out with him: send the emails to him. He responds simply acknowledging receipt sometimes, other times he does not respond. I often feel very uneasy, upset, even angry when he does not respond, but I know what he does about all this is the only realistic way and serves a goal, namely to wean off the emailing urges. It's working for me because the desire is becoming less and less and I feel relieved. It's a slow process though.

The way I see the goal of all this is to eventually not have this obsessive-compulsive desire/need and satisfy, in a genuine way, it's source. Fulfill the true underlying need that I am substituting in my own life. I think that conscious inhibition and restraint helps little with this, it's mostly just white-knuckling. What I want to achieve, and what my T wants me to achieve as well, is to feel more complete, connected, and satisfied in my life and not have this compulsion. Or if that does not work, at least get it from a realistic, sustainable source.