Should i?

So my T has always told me to email her if I need to talk while in between sessions. I've done it a couple of times and she's responded before, but lately I haven't heard anything. She said that sometimes she doesn't know if I'm just venting or needing a response (she said either way was okay) but I've been asking her questions in my emails and now she's not responding at all. I'm feeling particularly alone recently and I felt like she was the only one that maybe understood but now I'm just thinking that I'm really alone. I've overstayed my welcome and I really just am that crazy girl that who gets too attached and is too needy.

I really want to ask her why she stopped responding but I'm afraid that I'll just make it worse. Any suggestions?

I would feel worried and insecure about this too. My suggestion is to definitely ask her, maybe just print this post and show her if that makes it easier. It's so important to communicate your concerns in therapy to make progress, and I believe that solving this mystery will be easier in the long run than just leaving it unspoken, even worst case, if it is intentional.

Can you just ask her? She may not realize she is doing it.

Silence is the worst response a T can give, in my opinion. I hate being ignored and that's not a service I want to pay for.

I agree!! We pay for a service (and often not just a little bit), so we have some rights in this. We have the right to ask why there is this silence, we have a right to state our needs or concerns. I wish more people would realize that we are not victims of a T we are clients in a very emotional setting and the T has certain responsibilities to fulfill their part of the relationship.

Ugh, it actually makes me mad to hear about T's ignoring their clients when, as others have said, we pay them for this.

My best work came out of telling my T that it wasn't working. We talked a lot about it (over a period of months) and worked through all of it. I can say with 100% confidence it was worth the effort. I encourage you to bring up these issues with your T, with brutal honesty, and see what you can hash out with her.

I;m sorry she's ignoring you

My therapist allows emails. She told me in the beginning that it was fine for me to email her, as long as I did not expect a response. There have been a few times she's responded - usually a one sentence thing. Other than that, if I wrote her about something that required a response, it would be discussed next session.

What has impressed me about how she handles it, though, is that there have been a few times that I have written her from a place of anguish. She has a real instinct for recognizing that.. and has always called me right away if she thinks I am in a really bad place.

I would keep it as specific as possible, as in: "I emailed you last Wednesday and asked you X, Y, and Z and got no response and that made me uncomfortable, like you did not like my emailing." Hopefully she will say: "I received that email but did not have a chance this week to reply but we can talk about that now if you'd like" instead of, "Oh! I don't think I got that email" or, "I got the email but did not realize you were asking me questions, just thought you were using the email to ask yourself those questions or, this part where you said, 'I think I know the answer. . .' I thought would be better if you worked on that yourself instead of giving my opinion."

Why your T does/does not answer may not have anything to do with you? Or, her feelings are probably not going to be what you are afraid they might be; that's your head doing a number on you rather than anything coming from T.

Maybe she is just sick or something and hasn't been able to check her emails. I talk to my T a good bit between sessions and one week he just stopped answering for days. I told him how I felt and it led to a good discussion.