I really can understand your fears. They are so similar to mine. I have this horrible panic sometimes that my therapist hates me. I have had that feeling with other people too...which makes it something worth bringing up in therapy.

I actually talked about this thread with my therapist last night. I wanted to talk about how sometimes I don't think therapists realize how much what they say or do or don't say or do affects clients. So I mentioned how much a therapist not responding to an email can play into a client's fears, and that I appreciated that she always does respond.

She told me that first of all she remembered a long time ago that it really bothered me when I didn't get an email response. That was so long ago that I didn't even remember telling her. I must have though. It does sound like something I would say. But also she said that it just seems professional and courteous to respond when someone emails you. And it's true. I always do at my job.

I guess I'm thinking of what would be a reasonable thing to ask of any professional. I would probably not think it was reasonable for my therapist to respond to me in an hour, especially if I'm up in the middle of the night emailing. I wouldn't really expect a response on a weekend. But I would expect a response within about 24 hours on a weekday. I would not expect a therapist to do a lot of email therapy, unless that is something we negotiated and I paid for. It takes a long time to craft a good therapeutic response to someone. But it does not seem unreasonable for her to give me a little reassurance that I didn't make her mad...even just by saying "thank you for the email. It's helpful and I'm looking forward to talking to you more about it during our session."

But really, even if you don't feel comfortable asking for anything, I would encourage you to just tell him how you feel. "When you don't respond to my emails, I get worried that I did something wrong and I made you mad." I kind of bet he doesn't know. I think you could also lie a little and say "and sometimes when I don't get a response I get worried that I accidentally sent it to the wrong place, or something happened." Maybe then he will offer to respond and you could reassure him that you aren't expecting a book in response...unless negotiating for email therapy is what you want.

I can understand feeling guilty and like you are being punished, but I don't really think the universe works that way, and your therapist doesn't even know what you found out, right?