I think I understand what feileacan means by creating a new experience, at least the idea of it. I am skeptical whether therapy can ever be sufficient for that due to its intrinsic limitations, but it wasn't part of my therapy so I don't know and some oeple claim it to work. I agree though that it would likely be very difficult, if not impossible, with once-a-week meetings. I think emails (however frequent) are not the same. For example, whenever I got compulsive, it was ALWAYS in emailing or other online communications. Never even felt the desire in person to distort/take over an interaction in similar ways, I like when it is mutual and equal, I even disliked when the T mostly just listened and provided little feedback in sessions. The emailing can be interesting though exactly because there is less direct feedback and sense of reality. I think part of the reason why traditional psychoanalysts have the client lie on a coach facing away from them is similar. I did not like lying on the coach in therapy when I tried because I would still perceive too much reality and found it very unnatural, but can really let go in writing. I did learn about myself and my motives through those years of compulsive emailing more than in a lot of other experiences, so it wasn't all bad. But it does not create a very good interpersonal experience if it is not balanced. If you have the urges to email the T, and when you do, I think it is useful to observe the content of the emails and what exactly the urge is about, what drives it in the moment.