[Lamplighter]

Out of curiousity (and because I feel like the odd one out) is there anyone else on this forum who doesn't have any kind of out of session contact with their T?

I am apparently not supposed to text or call or email my T, though I haven't yet felt like doing any of these. He commented on it the other day, about how I keep to the boundaries and I immediately felt like, well sod you mate, I think I'll do it just to show that I'm not this biddable good little girl that I seem to be making myself out to be.

But it rankles all the same, as out of session contact seems to be the norm these days, rather than the exception, so I thought I'd check out if anyone else is in the same boat as me.

Come to think of it, this ought to be a poll shouldn't it? I'll see if I can do that as well...

LL

[RTerroni]

No but not out of choice, my Therapist only has a Voice Mail that I can leave messages on

[stopdog]

I am not fully certain of the yes and sometimes depending. I chose sometimes because I do not contact weekly. But there are circumstances under which I call or write and if I ask, she will call or write back. There are times she responds even when I have not requested a response.

[Jdog123]

I'm with SD. I saw it more as yes or no so I chose yes. Also for me it was hard to determine what is the difference/barrier between yes and sometimes depending (i.e., more than once/twice between sessions?).

[Lamplighter]

Ah perhaps I should explain - sometimes, depending - means that normally you don't have contact, not as a matter of course, but that if it's an emergency you do have 'permission' to contact T out of session. In my case NO out of session contact is ok, emergency or not

[Nightlight]

My therapist allows it, but has quite tight boundaries around it. She will only get back to me on one day of the week between two hours (except she didn't, last time I asked for help). Even before the tighter boundaries, out of session contact was such a bad experience, most of the time. So, I choose not to have any contact between sessions. Previously my therapist ended up annoyed that she felt obliged to reply and apparently the only time she had two minutes to spare would end up being after 10pm. Often she would not get the text and would not get back to me. Took me three years to work up the courage to contact her in between sessions. Totally not worth it!

[suzzie]

my last three ts were no contact of any kind.

[Daeva]

No contact. I can only leave a voice mail if I end up in the ER (For psych purposes like suicide attempt) or in the psych ward. Or if I have to cancel the appt. Anything else is a no.

[A Red Panda]

When it's not during work hours I can't call and leave a message - I always get transferred through. But I can email him, and he tells me I think probably every session that I can call or email if I need anything.

I can only call or text for rescheduling now as I went a bit mad and overstepped the mark. I do email not often, we haven't discussed this but if it becomes excessive I'm sure it will be brought up. I only email if I have question that can wait til next session or if something we have discussed is affecting my daily life or sleep and I need to "send it away"

We have contact all the time, texts and emails and phone calls

[murray]

I am lucky as I have out of session contact. It took us a while to settle on a good way to work together and out of session contact has been a tremendous help. My T allows me to email, text or call as I wish. I almost never call, only in dire emergencies. Texting is very rare as well, usually if I just have a quick note for him or a question about scheduling. Emailing is something that I do quite a lot of. Generally I send at least one email a day. It is a way for me to get things out and send them away, make sense of things, give T an idea of where I am at, let him know if something has happened and also to help me feel connected. He very rarely responds and usually if he does it is a brief note or a phone call if I sound like I need it. When I come into sessions he already has an idea of how I am doing and how my week has been and he helps lead the discussion. I know that many people don't believe in that much contact or with T leading the discussion but it has been very beneficial for me. Therapy was not progressing well at all until we found a way of doing therapy that worked well for us.

[sunrise]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Out of curiousity (and because I feel like the odd one out) is there anyone else on this forum who doesn't have any kind of out of session contact with their T?

I guess I am mostly in that category. My T hasn't told me not to contact him, but I don't. I do have his phone number and email, though. I prefer, actually REALLY LIKE, the face to face contact in the session. When I need to make or cancel an appointment, I do call or email him. So I can contact him, but it is not common I need to change the appointment. If I were having some kind of crisis, I think my T would be OK with my contacting him. I know when my father died, the next time I saw T and told him, he seemed kind of surprised I had not called him, so I knew he would have been been receptive to contact. To be honest, I would be kind of embarrassed to call him for support. I do not like admitting I need help, support, etc.

[tinyrabbit]

I can email and he will read it right before the session. If I text he will respond if he feels it is necessary. He categorically does not get into doing therapy outside of sessions though.

[critterlady]

I can contact my T any time I think I need to. I very rarely do.

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Ah perhaps I should explain - sometimes, depending - means that normally you don't have contact, not as a matter of course, but that if it's an emergency you do have 'permission' to contact T out of session. In my case NO out of session contact is ok, emergency or not

Oh, then I answered incorrectly; I'm sorry. I said sometimes because he actually encourages out of session contact, but I only contact him sometimes.

[tealBumblebee]

I put yes and Sometimes, depending on the circumstances because yes we have contact out of session - she allows me to email her whenever I want/need to and she replies as long as I don't tell her not to. But I also put sometimes depending on the circumstances because I don't just send "hey, how's your day" type emails. I did send her an email with just a link to two music videos one time, but it was in the context of our previous session.

[stopdog]

To clarify - The first one I see has never said don't and will return calls and answer email if I ask for a reply. I have called and emailed, but mostly I write letters and mail them. I rarely am looking for the therapist to respond to me.

The other one I see has encouraged contact by telephone. I think I have called 3-4 times in three years.

[critterlady]

Originally Posted by My kids are cool

Oh, then I answered incorrectly; I'm sorry. I said sometimes because he actually encourages out of session contact, but I only contact him sometimes.

That was how I answered as well.

[pinkkeith]

My T always me to email her. In fact, she encourages me to do so.

[Rzay4]

Yes I do with all my Ts. I choose email most of the time but sometimes call when feeling really low. My first T is quite busy with her two practices and three kids but my second T is on it, even on weekends but that was when I had a emergency, my third T prefers phone over email.

Only one I didn't have outside contact which was a college T but only was a few sessions as a very bad match.

[herethennow]

I don't have any contact outside of appts with T.. hospital's policy. What's even sad is that if I am admitted, and even though T works at the ward I am admitted, she can't talk to me :/

[Lamplighter]

Thank you everyone for responding, very interesting for me to see the results. I suppose I wasn't very clear with my questions was I - I acted from my own assumptions which were about T's attitude to out of session contact, so that 'yes' just meant that you do/could/would have oos contact, regardless of whether you acted on it or not. And the sometimes, depending bit was more to do with T's 'permission' ie that normally T would not 'allow' contact but in some cases would make an exception.

(Quotes around words because I totally resent Ts being in a position to 'permit' or 'allow' things - just my thing!)

I'm surprised at how many peoples' Ts do offer or even encourage out of session contact - I used to think that was an exceptional thing, seems not. I have a good T, but no way does he offer anything outside of the one hour a week therapy session. His thinking, which I understand, is that he is 100% there for me in the session and that effectively anything goes while we're together, but the payback is that he keeps his life outside of the session as exclusively his with no crossover.

I wish I did have extra contact though, regardless of the potential and obvious pitfalls (for me that is, not saying these obvious things exist in others' therapy.)

I can txt if I am feeling desperately bad; he has said that it is ok for me to do so if I really need it. He will usually acknowledge the txt and say "see you on Tuesday" or something similar, but he won't offer any support or therapy by txt. I have done that six times over the last year - I just counted the txts on my phone - and two of those times were this week. Oops.

[Bloem]

Yes, we have daily contact via message. And usually, T is the first in the morning, to ask how I slept and to wish me a good day.