I would honestly look at what really drives the email habit, either together with the T or alone or both. I had a bad one for many years: not only with Ts (that was just the end of it) but with different people in my life. I did not email Ts daily, it was a more erratic pattern. For a while, I avoided a deeper discussion about it because I wanted to keep it and feared that dissecting it openly would put an end to the Ts interest in emailing with me. But by the time I got into therapy, I knew my reasons/mechanism pretty well... I still wanted to transfer my habit to yet another person (first T) and then one more (second T). It was a serious addiction for me, ongoing by that time for several years, and I knew very well how it started in the past (with an ex-BF). Very much like how most addictions work: I hated the urges, the compulsion, it caused harm, but the momentary satisfaction and the overall drive to stay in the cycle could override my honest evaluation and attempts to beat it for a long time. It had nothing to do with craving attention, care, old needs not being met etc for me and, as those are the most typical interpretations, my first T grossly misinterpreted my habit (he misinterpreted me in many other ways as well, due to trying to apply standards dogmas). He handled the emailing horribly: in the beginning he said it's better not to do it but was not firm about it, then got enmeshed in it and said it was okay even when I complained about how disturbing my habit was for me, he said something along the lines of "email is okay, it is embedded in your fee and it is to provide some nurture you did not receive from your mother". He wrote that directly, I could not believe my eyes, it sounded so ridiculous to me, and so off, knowing myself. Anyway, then after a while I guess he got overwhelmed and started to criticize me about the emails and putting, again, all sorts of wrong interpretations on it, telling me not to email but responding each time. It was serious hypocrisy on his part and a very messy, dishonest way of managing it. Maybe he was just seriously clueless.

So when I started seeing my second T, I was upfront and asked what his views were on emails and told him I had this annoying, disruptive habit. I think he understood and did not interpret it, he more tried to work with the content of the emails in sessions... which felt nice in the moment, but was another mistake (a hard one not to make, I never blamed him for it). Because focusing on and discussing the content of my elaborate messages distracted us from what should have been the real focus, so it was either honestly missing the big picture or dismissing it on purpose to keep me going, or maybe fear of getting into conflicts as otherwise we had a very pleasant connection... I really don't know. He did handle the actual emails well though. Rarely responded in depth, usually just a sentence or two, and he never told me it should be done in session. Sometimes he did not respond at all. I really liked this (the part of me that wanted to recover), because it did not reinforce my habit as much, so my urges became less and less. Then we discussed it in session as well, I told him how I had a bad tendency to use virtual communication as distraction from what I really needed to do, and it just increased my anxiety in turn due to things not being done/addressed. Long story short, I managed to get a good grip on my drive for the emails and eventually lost the obsession for the most part, and now I don't have a desire to maintain anything like that although I do get the urges sometimes. But then recognize it immediately for what it is and try to stop the cycle before it really begins. I also like to tell people I newly meet upfront that I had this issue, just for them to be aware and not misinterpret it as excessive interest or the wrong kind of interest, clinginess (although I don't recall anyone ever seeing me clingy, probably because everything else in my personality/behavior contradicts that heavily). It is mostly remnants of an older addiction now that I am very clear about and aware of even when I am having an urge or am still acting out a bit momentarily. I am not in therapy now, but if I ever started again, I definitely would not want to emails with the T - for me it would be a huge step backwards. I would tell them at start that I want no emails between sessions and if I break my word, please do not respond unless it's a scheduling issue, because starting that again would likely take my mental health backwards and I am predisposed.

Just wanted to share my story around emails as an example that it is not always a desire for care and closeness - for me, it was more the opposite, a distraction from looking for normal, caring, balanced relationships and doing fun things in my local reality. If anyone else relates to my story, my suggestion would be that using a T in this way can be a good entree into a deeper investigation and recovery, but only if they are aware as well and do not get involved and start feeding the habit. For me it took some pretty hard effort to break it (it really was similar to my other addiction, just less destructive) and in that the T can assist very little directly - coping with the urges is something one can only do alone as an inside job really. It also took a long time, was not linear at all, and I need to keep an eye on what and when triggers me to "relapse" now. What truly helps though is having meaningful, rich, interesting interactions with people in the 3D world, and a variety, not just one source. That is an effective way to meet a need and prevent getting into distractions and addictive patterns, but it has to be maintained and that takes constant effort as I have a strong tendency to isolate and to retreat into my mind/fantasy worlds.