My former T allowed a lot of outside contact, usually through emails but I could text her and request a phone call--usually 10 or 15 minutes, just a check in that would help ground me or help me get back on track if I was in crisis mode. I think it was very helpful to me. I had a lot of trouble talking about hard stuff in therapy. Not that I didn't want to open up but just voicing the words was very difficult. So I could "talk" on email and then we would talk about it in session. It helped me tell her a lot about my life and my past experiences. My former T always encouraged me to contact her if I needed to and seemed to trust me that I knew when I needed to and when I could get by until the next session. Sometimes it would be several short emails in a day and then nothing the rest of the week, or sometimes it would be a long email once and then nothing, or a few quick emails on several days of the week. She never once said I was contacting her too much. I think at first it was central to my therapy because I just wasn't opening up enough in session but as time went by and I was able to talk more about most things, it was a nice bonus, especially helpful with SH feelings/thoughts/actions.