Please Explain Your Need For Contact

I was wondering if some people would like to share why they feel they need to contact their therapist outside of session or need physical contact from their therapist.

I'm not referring to the occasional email, but repeated emails, phone calls, or texts during the week that are not scheduling related.

In reference to touch, why do you feel you need this from your therapist?

I know that the forum people are a small cross section of all people in therapy, but so often I.....

a. Worry that many of you have seriously inappropriate relationships with your therapists
b. Wonder why I don't exhibit these same desires, since I live a fairly isolated life aside from meeting with my therapist
c. Wonder what you are looking to accomplish from so much contact with your therapist seeing as they are only supposed to be a temporary support system
d. Wonder how this type of contact is actually healing and helping you to move forward with your life.

I would really like to understand this better, if you'd be willing to share.

I don't need or want physical contact with my therapist and I don't contact him outside of sessions very often, but when I do, it's because I'm working on some really tough stuff and sometimes things get really bad as I process a session.

For example, there was one session where we were talking about anger. As I thought about the session later on, it triggered a very strong emotional reaction in me. In a case like that, my T wants me to contact him right away, so we can work on it before it gets too entrenched.

I think I've called him maybe 4 or 5 times in the 13 months I've been seeing him, including the day my mother passed away. I just needed a little support from someone who wasn't also grieving her loss.

I suspect this is, at some level, also a conversation about want vs. need. It's unclear to me what your intention is in asking the questions - whether it's to better understand the dynamic so as to try to apply it to your own life (doesn't seem to be the case), place yourself in the role of cultural anthropologist on the board (could be), better understand why you experience what appears to be the opposite need/want (maybe), attempt to protect forum members from inappropriate T relationships (somehow doesn't seem likely), or of course, none of the above.

At any rate, I'll bite. I have contact with my T by email between sessions. We hug at the end of every session. I don't feel that there is anything inappropriate about our contact, but I suppose others might disagree.

Perhaps your statement that you live a fairly isolated life addresses your confusion about others' need for contact? If it's not something you feel you need (from T or others), then it would likely be difficult to understand.

I'm not really looking to accomplish anything per se. Well, maybe that's not entirely accurate. I think I'm trying to build a stable, secure connection with someone who is an important, if temporary, person in my life. In theory I can transfer what I experience with my T to other people in my life. And I've seen evidence of that. Making myself vulnerable in T, and "using" things like contact outside of session and physical touch have made it easier for me to be vulnerable with others too. So in that sense, yes, I think they're helping me to move forward in my life.

I answered in the thread where you asked me and I don't know how to move it to here. I'm glad you started another thread about contact.

I send an email about once a month or so (it varies) if I think it will keep me from SI after an appointment. The therapist does not write back (I usually tell her don't) which is good because the point for me is to get it away from me, not to hear from the therapist.
I have had a therapist tell me it could be useful if I called her when I was getting upset or anxious because of the idea that hearing her voice could help ground me or what ever. I tried it a couple of times but it was not super useful and I felt like a giant idiot when I tried it. But she did give me the above reason as to why it could be useful. And I did try it when I was getting too frustrated.

But I think everyone can want something different and if the client and the therapist agree to more contact - more power to them. I hesitate to label what anyone else does as inappropriate if it is working for them.

Thanks for the responses so far guys, but I was really just looking for people who contact their therapists all the time or want to contact all the time. I contact outside of session, too, from time to time.

I have an intense fear of abandonment and an extreme lack of affection in my life. So to know that I COULD contact my T in between session feels important to me. I feel I would suffer less even if I didn't make contact, just knowing that it was an option. My xT didn't allow more than a handshake as touch, but I expressed that I thought it was too impersonal, so we came up with a modified high-five type of handshake. I think it would be weird for a T to allow more touch than that, even though I've often wished for a hug or a touch of the hand. I can't explain it better than to say I have no other physical contact with anybody in my life, and I think humans need and crave touch.

That said Wotchermuggle, I agree that some of us do have seriously inappropriate contact/relationships with our Ts. They exist to provide us treatment, not be our friends.

I hug my T at the end of every session. I have very little physical contact with anyone in my life. She doesn't trigger me so I think that's alright. I would never let a male therapist touch me. Even if it did feel safe to me I think it would be likely to cause a flashback and I doubt I would feel safe. She did say I could call her if I really needed her, but I don't talk on the telephone and wouldn't bother her anyway. I don't know if email is an option. That would be less intrusive though, she wouldn't have to read it or reply if she didn't want to.

I like physical contact with my T on occasion. I've hugged her and she's hugged me back on a couple of occasions when it was appropriate (she has a no hugging policy):

1. When it was my last session with her (I've since gone back and that happened a while ago) she asked me if I would like a hug.

2. When I made the decision to go into the outpatient program at the mental hospital at the end of my session I turned to her and gave her a hug before I walked out the door.

In general I don't give her a hug unless it's genuinely heart felt thanks. In general I'm not a hugger because of my upbringing. My mother never hugged me or cuddled me so I crave that yet I feel uncomfortable with it because I fear rejection from the person I'm hugging for obvious reasons.

I don't do repeated emails or phone calls etc.. in general I air to the conservative side of things and my T has told me on occasion that I should have called her when I was in a specific stressful situation etc... In general I don't want to ware out my welcome and I feel like at any moment she will fire me as a client. I look out for signs that she may want to get rid of me.

I also see my T outside of therapy because we take the same spin class. We say a casual hi but nothing more other than what the class conversation is about during the workout. I don't ask her anything in relation to my appointments or therapy. I want to keep that completely separate. I feel privileged that she's ok with me being in her class I want to respect that. She is human just like the rest of us and I don't want to infringe on her free time.

In general when someone is constantly seeking reassurance from another person it only gets worse when the person is reassured because it only makes the person need to hear it more. Also the person seeking reassurance can get angry with person they are seeking reassurance from if the reassurance is not there. It's a codependent type of relationship. I met someone like that and they were constantly asking me if I was going to ditch them as a friend. Not a good place to be when I was on the receiving end of things.

However not having secure attachment as a child that does play into things. I guess that's where the boundaries come into play. Stay within the boundaries your T has and you should be ok.

You might get more benefit from hearing from the widest array of experiences, especially if you focus upon b. Wonder why I don't exhibit these same desires, since I live a fairly isolated life aside from meeting with my therapist

I typically email my T at least once in between sessions. Text messages are used for scheduling or quick updates only. Phone calls are for emergencies.

I started emailing my T between sessions at her urging. I struggle with reaching out for help when needed, and I was struggling with building a trusting relationship with T. T realized that I am more comfortable with writing, and asked me to email her an update to how I was feeling after a session. It just kind of grew from there. I use email as a way to process a session, as a way to keep my connection with T strong, and as a way to ask for help when I need it. I will also email if there's something I'm too scared to bring up, but want to talk about. Broaching a subject in writing first makes it easier for me to talk about it in session. As far as texts, I only use those when T asks me to send her a quick update like if I've been struggling with something. Phone calls are rare for me. I'm more comfortable with email. If I call, it's because I need immediate help from T in dealing with something.

So, I guess what I'm looking to accomplish with so much contact by email is to maintain the relationship and continue to build trust with my T. Also, maintaining contact makes it easier to reach out when I'm in crisis and really need help. It doesn't matter that T is temporary, although we're going on the 4th year of working together, so not sure how temporary this really is.

How is it healing? Well, it's helped me to learn to trust someone, which I've slowly started to apply to real life relationships. I've learned that it is okay to reach out for help. It helps me to process my sessions, and gain a better understanding of what we talked about in session.

I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's all I can come up with right now. Oh, and T and I don't touch.

Perhaps this is just not something you need. I've had previous T's that did not allow between session contact, and I simply had a hard time building a strong enough relationship with them to accomplish anything

let me take it out of context of therapy for a moment... say you like white shoes...a friend likes red shoes.. would you go around looking for, pricing, getting close to, looking at, planning to buy and purchase red shoes if you didnt like nor need them? would your friend who has no need for white shes spend her time and energy on seeking out, showing people her desire for white shoes when she has no need, nor want for white shoes...

thats what therapy and the client therapist relationship is like... when people enter therapy they look for the type of therapist that best meets their problems and needs.

therapy and the client therapist relationship isnt this one shoe fits all kind of thing and you cant compare whether the client therapist relationships you have read here on psych central as being right or wrong..there are many different locations, races, therapy agencies, cultures.... and so much more represented here on psych central..what may be inappropriate for client therapist contact in your location may not be so in another locations by that other locations rules/laws...

for example in one mental health agency it was against the rules for a therapist to hold a client who was crying or even hold their hand while they were talking, in another agency the rule was that holding me while I cry was ok for my therapist to do, in another agency it was forbidden for the therapist to be the opposite gender as the client so I was only assigned female therapists, and boy was it a shocker when I moved and got a male therapist at the next therapy agency...

the rules do allow my therapist that I have at the moment to hold me, hold my hand, give hugs,

if your location and therapy agency doesnt allow such things,,,that doesnt make it inappropriate for my location...it just makes it different than what you have to go by.

why dont you exhibit the desire for having a closer relationship with your treatment providers...only you can answer that... but what I can say is that if you dont have the desire for this kind of client therapist relationship that doesnt mean something is wrong with you...everyone has their own needs and wants and what they are in therapy for.. your needs and wants for therapy may just be different than others you are reading about...it doesnt make you or anyone else wrong, inappropriate or not right... its just that you are you and others are others.

psych central isnt about being like everyone else...its about just being yourself. a safe place where you can be your self and talk about whats going on for you. and occasionally you may find some posts that have some common things with you as well as differences.

how can these kinds of relationships be healing...its healing to those that need and want this kind of relationship..and its not healing to those that dont want or need that kind of relationship...everyone is different and has their own ways that work for them...example I find classical music soothing, classical music causes my wife to become more upset. why because we are two different people. our therapists are like classical and modern music total opposites..my wife,,she has what works for her for therapy and I have what works for me for therapy.

what am I looking for in therapy... that depends on why Im there, sometimes it is comforting to have someone hold me when I cry, laugh when I laugh and help me muddle on through my problems.

touch... there was a time when I could not stand to be touched because I was sexually abused as a child. but as I worked though those issues it was comforting to know the person in the room with me (my therapist) could comfort/hold me and do so in a safe non sexual way.

I dont know if these questions you are asking is for research or for your own curiosity (the questions sound pretty close to someof the ones I had on a psychology exam where we had to write essays on this kind of thing...) anyway...if theres something that you feel needs to change in your therapy relationship maybe you can talk with your therapist and they will help you discover why you dont exhibit the need/desire for the things you are reading about here.

When I feel abandoned , I feel desperate for some kind of contact. I have learned, though, that it doesn't really help much.

I email my T before each session (I see her fortnightly) and I do this so that when I go to the session I have everything written down that I want to discuss and my T has been able to do whatever preparation she needs to do before a session. I tend to get quite nervous/flustered during sessions which makes communicating verbally difficult at times so the emailing helps with that. Generally T wont reply to these emails but on occasion she does depending on the content of my email.

I do have a desire for my T to hug me and I have told her this. My T said it wouldn't be in my best interest for her to do that. I agree with her because I think much of the desire comes from transference but I still want her to hug me regardless.

I am happy to share my reasons for wanting contact between sessions with my therapist. Basically I yearn for as much of her as possible. May not be healthy, but can't help the way I feel

So in answer to your questions...

I email my therapist when I need to and as much as I need to between sessions. I was encouraged by her to do this so that I wasn't sitting with so much anxiety during the week and as a way to try to calm down whilst experiencing the kind of 'episodes' (uncontrollable mood swings) that were once much more frequent than they are now. It has grown from there and I have got used to emailing whenever I need to tell her something that I can't bring up myself in session, whenever I failed to tell her something in session that I wanted to, whenever I feel insecure about our relationship and just whenever I need a bit of support and a few kind words from her can go a long way towards helping me settle down until I see her again. It has help me enormously. Like someone else said here, I am much better at writing than talking and it saves us both time if I am able to email what it is I am struggling with before I go to a session so that we both know what we are trying to deal with. I don't always do this but it relieves my anxiety when I do.

As for what I want to accomplish with it and it only being temporary...well I struggle with this question myself and the healthiness of it. I adore my therapist, I wish she were my mum, I LOVE it when she is kind to me and occasionally comforts me with a hug. But of course I crave more and more of it. Right now, I can't see where it will end. I have been with her 6 years and I can't imagine her not being in my life or being able to get that kind of support anywhere else. I struggle massively with the ethics of it sometimes, with it being temporary. I said this to my therapist recently too. I told her that sometimes it feels like a taster of what I didn't have and can't ever have. Like, "here you go, this is what you missed, feels good doesn't it?
But guess what? It's not real and you won't ever have it!" And that is
incredibly painful. So I can't really answer how it is healing in the long run, but I know it helps me at the moment. My therapist always says that I will one day be able to detach from her in a healthy way just like an adolescent detaching from their parents and leaving home. All I can do is try to trust her on that but I have never been convinced. So I am pretty confused about this whole issue too

As for why you don't need it...I guess everyone is coming from a different background and it is something that I missed out on and therefore crave for that hole to be filled. And it is only because my therapist is old enough to be my mum that this was able to happen. Had she been younger, around my age, male etc., it would not have evoked the feelings I had about my mother not caring about me and therefore I don't think I would have become attached in the way I have. My therapist says the attachment is a good sign and means that the process is working...but for me the jury is still out on that one

I email my T in between sessions. Sometimes it has been several times in one day. For me I don't have any IRL friends I can talk to, I am also not in contact with my family and my partner is not one to talk to about certain things either. So If I feel myself getting lost in my head or I have a revelation or I am having trouble dealing with a feeling or sometimes I just want to see if he is still there for me, I email. I know its not forever but it's nice to have someone even if it's just for a little while.

I love your questions, and I have struggled with them too - except that I struggle with them after having had a T relationship in whihc there was a lot of touching and hugging and holding and emailing.


I'm not sure how much of a NEED I felt to contact by email, or be held and touched, but I know that both just kind of grew organically (I don't have it with my current T and I don't feel deprived)
Besides the usual changing of appointments and such, usually the emails were small stuff. Some remarkable insight I had during the week I wanted her to know about, or one time a major breakthrough and I wanted her to be part of the memory and to know the strength of the feelings, so I called her. It just seemed to be part of the therapy. I'd say that from her perspective, most of it required 5-10 minutes of her time, something she was willing to give. I think she liked being part of my therapeutic process. She seemed to welcome it. The holding occurred during sessions when I paid her.

This was the T who didn't work out, and it ended in a very prolonged and painful manner. I wonder whether this was all a good idea(although I don't think the emails and touch had much to do with it not working out, although perhaps indirectly affected the pain of the break). It felt wonderful at the time. I went places I hadn't gone before. I wonder if it created a dependency that wasn't healthy. I don't know how it affected things.

I'm really interested in the answers of others so I can make sense of my own experience

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Not everyone has the same attachment style. You can look up Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth to find out more about the attachment styles, if you are interested. I'm sure there is more up-to-date information out there, but it is a good place to start.

Your questions about contact and what I hope to accomplish, and how I think it will move me forward in my life, well, I kind of have difficulty processing that because it isn't my mindset.

The contacting is a surface behavior, the need to have an attachment figure soothe me by just talking to me when I am intensely emotionally overwhelmed is the root of this issue. When he doesn't, I feel abandoned with my overwhelming emotions with no hope of escape. I then get angry at him, then enraged at me, and so on.

The question now is why can't I do this myself, or since I can soothe myself, why don't I? I don't know. I think this must be (but I'm not sure) an emotional flashback from the past that keeps replaying, and as reenactments go, there is something that I am looking for, something that can happen (as in some kind of resolution) to cease the behavior? I don't need T allowing me to call all the time or email all the time, I really wouldn't like doing that. When I am emotionally insane and overwhelmed is when I need him. I don't know if what I am saying is the truth, but it is what I think right now. My goal is to tolerate his boundary, but at this point, my emotions are escalating and I'm not sure how this is going to play out.

I don't know if this helps or not. I do realize I am not helpless, but in those moments, it feels that way. No matter of intellect can sway this. It is a devastating type of disorder because it is painful and it destroys your soul as you keep moving forward in life. I want to be healthy and well, but I'm not.

I have just realised that I have learned not to go to T for support. I'm going to talk to her about that.

I thought I would reply in your thread too. It helps me to think about your questions more too, so thank you for asking them.
1. Why do I need touch? I didn't know I needed it, but once I held my T's hand, I wanted more because it felt so good. I never expected it to feel that way.
2. My T would never do anything inappropriate. When she thought my holding her hand was turning into something not good for me, she stopped.
3. Not everyone wants or needs this kind of relationship with their T. It's my opinion that many of us with BPD want it, but I know that's not a proven fact.
4. I suppose what I'm hoping to accomplish is to have a more "real", lasting relationship with my T. As much as I understand that's not going to happen, like ScrewedUpMe posted, I'm not thinking about the future; I am happy to have it right now. It is more than a want; it seems like a need for me to email my T. I want to get out my feelings, and want her to know them, especially after a session when I have a lot of reactions. I don't get a response from her, but I still want to email. It's an urge I don't feel like I have to control. I think it's part of my therapy. When my T used to email back, what I loved was the attention and caring she showed me. I apparently want that very badly. As far as the hugs I ask for, that's been therapeutic because I've never been comfortable with hugs from anyone except my kids. No other T I had ever touched me except for my final session with one of them. This T told me she allowed hugs, but I was scared. I think it's progress for me to ask for hugs. My H and I hug every day now, whereas we never did before.
5. I'm not sure if the contact is helping me move forward with my life or not. I feel like my T will always be part of my life, whether I am seeing her or not. She's important to me, and that's just way it's always going to be. I used to think I "loved" my former T, but that was all transference. My current T and I have interests in common, so I think it's part transference and part real. I want to move forward in my life, AND have my T be important to me too.

i LITERALLY almost posted about this i dont understand WHY. just for the same reasoning OP does.

im the TOTAL opposite. i had a couple of Therapists want me to call them/text/email/hug - stuff like that. i flipped out and told them idk them. i tell them that. idc how much i tell them i STILL dont know them. therapists are strictly strictly business to me. i mean strictly. when times up on the dot i get up and effing leave. then again i grown to hate therapy. partly because i hate being around people. lol. i sit on the furthest end of the couch close to the door away from the person. etc

I'm sorry you are finding it so difficult.

its ok.
it really is.

im like that with all people IRL. i rarely talk or to anyone. even family. it doesnt bother me too much but rarely. been like that my whole life.