Agreed, as I'm someone else with attachment wounds. It's very common for people like us to become attached to our therapists if they're giving us something we didn't get in childhood (and/or our current lives), like empathy, validation, acceptance, etc. And that can be healing. The idea essentially being that as a client works through their issues (attachment and otherwise), they ultimately will become less attached to the therapist and ready to go on their own. Or something like that.

My therapist also allows outside contact, generally just emails, which he also permits when he's on vacation. He does theoretically charge if it takes him longer than 15 minutes to read and reply (or if they're very frequent), but he hasn't done that since the pandemic started and rarely charged me before (and times that he did, his responses were 5 or more paragraphs long). The charge, plus the fact that he usually only replies during a certain time frame each morning, are his boundaries (plus being email rather than text, because he uses his personal phone for work, too).

My previous therapist and former marriage counselor also allowed outside contact, including emails and the occasional phone call, and they did not charge (though with emails, their replies were very short, if they replied at all). So it's not that uncommon.