I've always had positive experiences with outside session contact, but I've also generally not had consistent need for such contact. I would not see a T that had a blanket policy against any contact because that tells me that the T has difficulty negotiating boundaries and so is reacting in a defensive absolutist manner.

But that said, both of my Ts have been older and neither used e-mail or text for communication. The first had an answering service to take calls--they would take the message and page him. He would usually respond within an hour. The second has voicemail and a phone system that alerts her at home after hrs to messages left on her office system. And she has responded within a day. So both communicate exclusively by phone.

Former T would talk with me for maybe 10 min or so, and if necessary, schedule an extra session. Especially when I saw him in his private practice, he would accommodate an extra session often within a day. When I saw him at the Univ clinic, he could always make time available by coming in an hour early to see me.


Former T encouraged contact for me because he felt it was therapeutic and useful. My tendency was to "suffer in silence" and wait for sessions; if my tendency were to be unable to contain my emotions, or to be highly reactive, I expect he would have encouraged limitations on contact as part of a larger strategy of developing containment skills.

I think the Ts who seem to get into difficulty with contact are those who don't understand contact as part of a larger therapeutic strategy and, instead, either see it as a customer service sort of thing, or needing to see themselves as "helpful," or who themselves have a problem with their personal use of communication tech. Especially with younger Ts who have grown up with smart phones, I think they often don't recognize how tied to their devices they are, perhaps in an unhealthy way, and so don't anticipate becoming overwhelmed by client contact until it happens. And then they too often have to scramble, and clients experience it as a radical shift in boundaries and feel shamed by it.

I think reaching out can be empowering simply as an action, and the anxiety surrounding it lessening over time may be an indication that it is therapeutic. It's not so much about the frequency of contacts in that case, but rather about what the contact accomplishes and its aftermath. Do you feel calmer, more settled and satisfied after the contact--it's probably therapeutic. For clients who feel reactive pressure to express every thought and emotion experienced in the moment, I suspect the aftermath doesn't feel satisfied, or not for long. The underlying need is intensified by the experience of what feels like only a taste of contact, and it fuels the need more than satisfies it.