Should I call my therapist or should he call me?

Call now that office hours are over (or email?) and say:
"Hey T it's Neutrino. I hope you had a nice vacation. I'd like to make an appointment with you this week. I can do all day Wednesday, Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. Let me know what works for you.Thanks."

What? I can't call this late, can I? (It's 7:25pm over here.) Perhaps I could email him, but I'm not even sure I'm allowed to.

Doesn't he have voicemail? Just leave a message. I'm pretty sure he didnt give you his personal number for scheduling appointments. (Do you find it easier to leave messages? I definitely do.)

If he gave you his email or it's on his website or business card then you're totally allowed to use it to schedule appointments.

Of course he wants to hear from you. Most T's leave the ball in your court for scheduling appointments.

I don't know if he's using the same phone for work and personal stuff (really, I have no experience with these things). Perhaps I should email. The email address can be found at his website so perhaps it would be ok to write. Emailing is easier than calling, though I still need to find a way to gather enough courage to do so.

Am I the only one who thinks it's difficult to know what's ok when it comes to basic boundaries like if you're allowed to call or email your therapist? He's never really talked to me about it.

It would be really unusual for a T to use a personal number for work. Even if he does (improbable) he has the option of turning off his phone or screening his calls if it's not a good time. You don't have to worry about him. You cannot interrupt anything that he doesn't want you to interrupt.

Basic boundaries at their most very basic: it's ALWAYS ok to call or email for scheduling issues. Otherwise how would you ever make, change or cancel an appointment?

Cut and paste the little template from me or mastodon into an email for him and send. I promise it's okay.

No, I think it's hard, too. For instance, when I had just started seeing my T, he sent me a txt message about a scheduling issue. Some time later, when I had tried to leave messages on his broken answering machine, he said "But you have my mobile phone number, I know I have txted you. Why don't you use that number to message me?" I was all , because to me, that was a boundary thing, contacting him on his mobile phone rather than his office landline, and I would never have done that if he hadn't explicitly said it was ok.

It's best to just ask what's ok, I think. But if he has an email address on his website you can definitely use that to write him about scheduling.

Oh, and what Favorite Jeans said.

Good luck with your exam! *lyckospark*

Ok, I did it. I emailed him. I wrote the following (translation's a bit weird):

"Hi,

This is Neutrino.

Hope you've had a good vacation. I remember you told me you'd be back at the office today and since we agreed on getting in touch with each other to book a new appointment I thought I'd email you to see when you've got time. What day would suit you?

Thank you,

Neutrino"

I hope that was good enough. I guess the ball is in his court now. Thanks for helping me out with this. I know contacting your therapist is a seemingly simple thing to do but I think it's very difficult. Anyway, it's done now. That's good.

Oh and thank you, Mastodon, for wishing me good luck. I'll need it. Exams make me anxious.

Nice job! You did great. It was scary and figured it out.

Thank you.

nice work! I hope you hear back shortly.

Well done

Seriously, thank you all. It's really nice to get such great support. I really appreciate it (probably more than you think). I probably wouldn't have contacted him today if it wasn't for you.

Well done, I hope you hear from him soon

I get it - I totally hate talking on the phone.

Great job! I totally get it, I hate talking on the phone...I tend to write scripts and then pray I get voicemail. Yes, for most people, making a phone call or contacting someone to schedule an appointment is easy, but for those of us with anxiety, it's like climbing Mt. Everest.

Hey neutrino, this whole thread motivAted me to make a call that I've been DREADING for weeks. I figured to be fair to you I should actually take my own advice! My hands were shaking and if I hadn't been in a somewhat public place I would have cried after hanging up but... I did it and I'm glad it's done! So thanks!

I'm a bit too late to jump in and say "Call him!", but I'm glad you found a way to reach out. I remember a time when that was one of the bravest and scariest things for me to do. And I just wanted to say that I used to have extreme anxiety about calling anyone when I first began therapy. In fact, I'd never call anyone at all, ever.

I didn't have a G.P when I first started therapy and none of them were taking on new patients, and one of the very first things my therapist asked me to do was make a call (to follow up a letter she'd written to a G.P). I sat with the phone in my hand for about three hours, terrified and obsessively going over every possible negative, slightly negative, and even just a teeny tiny bit negative scenario before making call. The call turned out to be easy (and as I found out at my next appointment, it was because my therapist had decided it was such a big ask and she called and had me accepted as a patient first).

Anyway, what I just wanted to say that these days I pick up the phone without much of a second thought. Though for me, there is still a little bit of anxiety about reaching out to a therapist by phone or any other way. But it really is possible to change those types of anxieties in a big way if you push yourself.

I'm not sure why talking on the phone scares me so much. I don't even like talking on the phone with people I know. I guess I find it difficult to know exactly when it's my turn to talk and when calling people I don't really know (my therapist for example) I just get really anxious and fear that I'll forget what I'm supposed to say or that the words won't come out right. I usually write things down before calling someone but that doesn't really work out a lot of the time because as soon as someone asks me something that I can't answer with my "script" I get a bit stressed out.

Oh and well done, Favorite Jeans! I'm happy this thread motivated you to make that call. Maybe next time I'll be brave, like you, and call my therapist instead of emailing him (though emailing is better than nothing).

I think you did the right thing by reaching out. I just found that I really identified with what you were going through when you were considering making the phone call, all of the what ifs and I shoulds. From your posts, it seemed like there were so many things you were saying to yourself that fed into that anxiety. I don't mean that as a criticism at all, I just recognise how hard it is to reach out when those things that you're telling yourself are what you believe.

I find that now, looking back, those things I said to myself, back when I was in that moment of anxiety, were really important.

I hope you have an answer soon if you don't yet. A month long break can feel like such a long time, I find.