[peaches100]

Hi everybody,

My t and I are having some boundary issues - mainly regarding email. I want to give a short summary of my situation to find out if the majorify of people here at PC believe that my expectations for contact with my t are too high/demanding or not. I realize this is something my t and I have to work out between us, and comparisons don't always work. But the problem is that I don't know if my t is overly strict or I am acting overly needy and entitled.

I've been in therapy 10+ years for various issues, mostly related to my childhood (alcoholic father, emotional neglect, verbal abuse, SA, frequent moves, social rejection, overly sensitive nature, etc.). My t is committed and capable, and I know she cares about me. We have done much work together and I have grown a great deal over time.

The problem is. . .I've always needed email contact between sessions in order to hang onto a feeling of connection with her, and to tell her difficult things I have trouble saying in person. Even after all this time, I find it excruciating to express certain emotions and fears. So email has helped me "break in" a subject ahead of time in an indirect way so that it is easier to discuss it in session. Also, there are times when my therapy causes intense pain to surface or I get triggered and have trouble "putting it away" when the session ends. When this happens, I have problems concentrating at work, sleeping, dissociating, and/or containing emotional distress. At these times too, sending and receiving 1-2 emails per week has helped me greatly. Though there have been times when there has been some misinterpretation or misunderstanding of the meaning of something that was said in email - which had to be clarified - in general, it was an important component of my therapy. For a long time, my t seemed OK with it, would accept a couple of emails each week, and would respond promptly, sometimes in detail.

Over the last year though, I've noticed a definite change in how my t reacts to my email messages. She responds to them less promptly and with a very brief 1-2 sentences. There have been a couple of times when I've emailed her in a crisis and told her that I need her to respond as soon as she could. (One of those times, she texted me that she was busy driving, and called me 6 hours later; the second time, she replied a few hours later saying she was busy with family in town and would get back to me in a couple of days.)

Needless to say, I was very hurt and disappointed! I have major issues with abandonment and having been left alone as a child during times of crisis when my parents didn't pay any attention or respond with help. It has been one of my biggest fears in therapy that one day I would need my t, and she would not be there for me. And my t has been well aware of this all along. Yet this last year or so, it has happened 2-3 times.

When I email my t and tell her that I need her support, and it feels like she "blows me off," it is a huge trigger for my past issues. It unleashes loads of pain and feelings of deprivation that I know aren't reasonable in the "present moment," but they feel every bit as traumatic as what happened to me as a child! My t is well aware of my sensitivity to abandonment and how much it hurts me if I reach out and she doesn't respond. I admit that it has not happened often that I have needed her and she hasn't responded. But when it has happened during a time of great distress and I've made it clear that I need her help and she has either failed to view it as a crisis - because she is busy with her own activities or minimizes it in her own mind as "not really urgent," despite what I've said, it feels like a betrayal of my trust and a lack of understanding/empathy toward this very painful issue.

These two occasions of "lack of response in crisis" took place during October-December, and since then, my t and I have had trouble getting past the rupture it has caused, even though we've talked about it several times. Initially, my t blamed it on me, saying that it was unreasonable for me to expect her to reply to me 24/7, and she indicated that I needed to learn to respect boundaries. But it didn't feel to me that I was asking for too much. As I said, I usually emailed a couple of times between sessions. I did not leave phone messages. I didn't call her after hours, or at home. I didn't make middle-of-the-night phone calls or threats to hurt myself. I never asked her to meet me outside session or to be my friend. All I wanted was for her to allow me to email 1-2 times per week and to reply within a few hours, or at least that day. Is that unreasonable?

After talking to my t about it several times, and her telling me that she can't always respond to my messages as promptly as I want her to, I decided to stop emailing altogether. It caused me to feel too hurt at times when she was too busy to get back to me when I needed her to. She also let me know that if I did continue to email her, it needed to be brief and infrequent. She never really explained to me why she decided she didn't want to email anymore between sessions. I don't think she is overloaded with patients because in the past, she worked full-time, and now she only works 2-3 days per week. But for whatever reason, she has changed how she responds to my requests for email contact/support.

It has been about 3 months since I decided to stop emailing her between sessions, and with the exception of 3 or 4 occasions in a 12-week period, I am doing pretty well in scaling back and trying to meet her new boundary. But I feel increasingly distant from her without any contact between sessions. Also, although we talked about having me write things down instead, and then bring them to my session, it isn't working. I thought it sounded like a good idea and was willing to do it. But I don't seem to have anything to say now. I don't feel motivated to write. Nothing comes to me.

I'm very attached to my therapist, understand that my needs for email contact are probably too great and representative of the issues that have driven me into therapy, and don't want to terminate. I also am not angry with her most of the time, as I know she is not trying to hurt me on purpose. She must feel that I need this boundary. But inside, I am hurting. Sometimes I go to session and can communicate logically and in an adult-like fashion, and feel that we make headway. But there are large parts of myself that I hold back now. I don't share the deeper, more painful and vulnerable parts of me now. I'm too afraid that if I resume deep work in therapy and should suffer some kind of emotional fallout, flashbacks, etc., I can't trust my t to respond to me when I need her support. My therapy feels stalled out. As time goes on, I feel increasingly like I'm losing touch with not just her, but my own inner self. I have a lot of pain inside me, and I don't want to be alone with it. I was alone with it too much as a child. If I can't have my t's support when I need it, then I'd rather push those parts of me away forever. I can't do it alone again. I can't!

I honestly don't know what to do. I don't feel right about demanding more support from my t if she doesn't feel it is appropriate for some reason, or if she doesn't feel she has the capability to provide it. The last thing I want is to feel like a burden around her neck or make her feel obligated. (This is exactly how I felt with mom.) Yet trying to adjust to no contact between sessions just isn't working for me.

I read on PC about other people who have t's who let them email as much as they need to, sometimes even contact them at home, or even have sat up and talked to them for 1-2 hours in the middle of the night if a crisis occurs. I don't expect that. I just want to be able to have contact with my t via email between sessions, and it hurts me that she doesn't see it as a NEED, but perhaps just a WANT.

I'm at such a loss. . .after all these years and hard work with my t, I feel like she has let me down. . .abandoned me when I need her. . .and I don't know if I can get my trust back. I also don't know if I'm the one at fault for having extreme demands and expectations, or if my t is being too strict.

If you can, PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND . . .

[Leah123]

Do you pay her for the email contact?

I don't believe clients should have the expectation of free services from a therapist. Some do provide those services for free, and some will reply to an occasional crisis situation for free, but to keep the relationship healthy and balanced, mutually beneficial, I'd suggest you offer to pay for the extra services you want to receive. I agree your wants are valid and I personally find email very helpful in therapy.

It does sound like you may need a different therapist though, because this one, like many, isn't offering the level of availability you want. If it's been many years with her, you may also want to evaluate your overall progress with her. Either way, I think compensation for time is critical to a good therapeutic relationship.

Also, 10 years in, if you're not able to manage your distress, I think that's an important area to focus on in terms of skill building, with a method like DBT or other.

[unaluna]

Something is not working correctly in this client-t partnership, because you remember and write here about the times she failed. I would expect to see, if therapy was working, a gradual improvement. But this is more like an extension of how your parents werent there for you. But you experience things as getting worse.

As for other clients being allowed to email or text their ts - my t offered to be available over the xmas holidays one year (in addition to our regular sessions). But that was his choice of time, his offer, and it was time-limited.

Maybe more frequent sessions would help? Do you leave feeling up or down? It helped my mood when i figured out it was okay to be happy arriving and leaving my sessions. It seems counterintuitive - we go to t because we are depressed - but actually we go to improve our lives, to have hope. Otherwise, when are we supposed to make this switch from sad to happy? I actually asked him this - then i started leaving happy. He used to annoy me coming to get me in the waiting room and he would be grinning like an idiot - but then my mother was never happy to see me. T is.

Hope this helps.

[HazelGirl]

I did not read everything. However, this is what I will say:

Boundaries are not "overly strict". They're people's opinions and comfort levels. You can't and shouldn't try to change your T's boundaries. This is why boundaries are something to talk about at the first or second session. If you can't handle your T's boundaries, you need to switch T's.

[Lauliza]

Hi Peaches,

I think I can give you some insight here. It might be way off but it is how I see it, at least from what you've written here.

the first thing that stood out is that you mentioned that you've been in therapy with her for 10+ years for a variety of very difficult issues. I think one of the reasons could be that she feels like your need for emailing should be decreasing with time, not remaining the same. Therapy doesn't rid you of the trauma that happened to you as a child, nothing will do that. I think the goal is to help you come to a better acceptance of your past and help you improve your methods of coping in the present.

When you first began therapy this was all new, so she made herself available through email to serve as an extra support if you needed it. But with time I think her hope was that you would find support with other people in your life - like friends or family - and would not need to email her so much. This doesn't seem to have happened and she might be trying to wean you off emailing her by not being so available.

You haven't done anything wrong, so don't put yourself down for needing her. She encouraged you to email her and didn't discuss the issue of boundaries with you at all. I can see why you would be upset - she fostered a dependency of sorts on her (probably unintentionally) and now she is probably trying to undo it. I think she should be more direct with you and initiated an open, gentle conversation about this. But since she hasn't do you think you can?

A therapist really can't be there for you at all hours once they are off the clock. Not that you expect that, but sometimes even a reply in a couple of hours just isn't possible. You don't know what she is doing - is she with her family, out with friends, at a movie? It's really above and beyond to be so available, especially for a long period of time. And when there is a crisis, it is usually expected you go to an ER, not call your therapist. My pdoc and T are both in a private practice that has email and voicemail, but it is over their server, not personal. So that boundary is set from the beginning. Even though it is frustrating, it does help you find other ways to handle distress on your own. They have a crisis line to call which can page them, but I have only done that once in 7 years for medical reasons. Still it is expected that I should have gone to the ER beforehand.

It definitely seems like you aren't connecting with her. And after 10 years together you should have made much more progress if therapy was effective at all. Do you feel like you've made tangible progress, or just become dependent on her presence? At this point you may need a more interactive, goal oriented therapy.

[Perna]

I think you are asking too much asking someone to respond to you, the way you set it up, that would not be about them and gives them no say, is not a true response. Wanting that is something else; we all want that, to be special and have someone(s) who tries to anticipate our needs but I don't think one can "buy" that.

How hard are you working to not email and operate only in the confines of the actual relationship? You say you have "always needed" this but do you want to be always needing it, not moving on to the real relationship? I wrote my T often and mailed stuff to her office but after 6-7 years I decided I wanted to have a real relationship with her, only in session, person-to-person without my imagination in there running wild and thinking this or that which was not based on anything other than what I wanted, felt, or thought; had no reality to it. It was extremely hard at first, frustrating and painful, but eventually was thoroughly rewarding and worth all that work.

[Petra5ed]

Originally Posted by peaches100

If you can, PLEASE HELP ME UNDERSTAND . . .

If your T let you depend on her by keeping up this kind of email contact, that would be her letting you down, not showing she cares. For you to grow you will need to walk through pain, it won't be easy. She's your therapist, and she's there to comfort you, but she cant shield you from reality, she cant coddle you. Your desires are normal for someone with the issues you say you have, I have the same issue actually. I've felt so desperate to talk to my T it made me suicidal when I didn't get an email response for a couple days. I think this is something you need to discuss and examine with her in session. Why do you feel this way? Is this not your issue? Is this not what's causing you pain? I'm sorry about the stupid rhetorical questions, :P I'm talking to myself here as well. If your therapist did just give in and email you back all the time you'd never have to look at this issue. But you cant be truly secure and happy if you don't know how to ground yourself. Also, if you really have a crisis you should call. Not in the middle of the night of course though.

[peaches100]

[quote=Leah123;3819352]Do you pay her for the email contact?

I don't believe clients should have the expectation of free services from a therapist. Some do provide those services for free, and some will reply to an occasional crisis situation for free, but to keep the relationship healthy and balanced, mutually beneficial, I'd suggest you offer to pay for the extra services you want to receive. I agree your wants are valid and I personally find email very helpful in therapy.

It does sound like you may need a different therapist though, because this one, like many, isn't offering the level of availability you want. If it's been many years with her, you may also want to evaluate your overall progress with her. Either way, I think compensation for time is critical to a good therapeutic relationship.



Hi Leah,

I'm glad you mentioned payment. I had recently thought about this also as a potential reason why my t might not want email contact with me like she used to. She told me once that I sometimes bring up questions or issues in my email that she can't always provide a quick or detailed answer for. Maybe it takes her more time than I realize to respond.

I tried to acknowledge this by saying "I understand that you are probably willing to provide extra support, but you want me to pay for it." I didn't mean it in a snarky way, I was trying to acknowledge that Hey, I realize this is what you do for a living (even though it's sometimes hard for me to view it that way because it makes me fear that she doesn't really care about me as a person). But she took it the wrong way, as me saying "You are only in it for the money." She told me my comment was very hurtful to her. (It was the first time she has ever told me that I said or did anything that hurt or bothered her.) Since then, we've talked it over and reached an understanding, and that part is OK. But perhaps it still would be a good idea for me to offer to pay her for her services?? But I need to word it in a way that conveys that I appreciate the value of her help and that I don't expect any more "freebies."

You make a valid point too about the need for me to be able to contain my own distress. I admit it is a super hard thing for me to do!! I was raised never to express feelings like anger or disappointment or fear or pain. I was yelled at or threatened with punishment when I did. So I got very, very good at not having negative emotions at all. It sounds odd, but true. For decades, I didn't get angy or upset with anybody, didn't confront people when I felt hurt, allowed myself to be taken advantage of and sought to forgive, gave people "the benefit of the doubt" when they were displaying obvious signs of abusive treatment, etc. And I honestly thought I wasn't disturbed about those things at all. I let them roll off my back. I didn't express upset or expect or demand better treatment. I worried more about upsetting them than about what I needed. And I think it must be deep rooted because I can recall a time when I was about 7 years old and I took a spanking for my friend, who had picked all of her mom's peony bulbs. I told her mom I did it and took the spanking because she looked so scared and I didn't want her to hurt.

So, fast forward to my major breakdown about 10 years ago. My mind just kind of imploded I guess. I got really sick, lost tons of weight, couldn't get out of bed for 2-3 weeks. It's all kind of a blur now. I had no idea what was wrong or what had caused it until I went to therapy and was told I had clinical depression. Since then, I have loads of emotions that I've stuffed away since childhood coming back to me. They feel intense and terrifying, and I'm truly frightened of the feelings themselves. I never learned how to manage emotions as a kid, which is why I stuffed them down. And now that they are suddenly back in full force, I feel just as upended and scared and rattled as I did then when the emotiions hit me. Most of the time, I feel numb. But when the emotions come up, they feel (I know it's stupid) life threatening. Like I'm a little girl who has been left all alone in the face of danger, and nobody is around to help. Or like I am going to go crazy. I have been through DBT before, and my t and I are doing it again, and I TOTALLY understand how badly I need to learn the skills. But I seem to function best when I push all my pain to the background, bury it like I used to do. Then I can function without my t's support. But she says I need to learn to feel the emotions and ride them out. And that's where I get into trouble.

I don't want to find a different t because aside from the email situation, she's very committed to helping me and knowledgable. My husband says he has seen huge improvement in me since I started therapy 10 years ago. So I know I'm progressing. But it feels unbearably slow, I feel frustrated with myself, don't know how to shake the fearful neediness when it comes up, and kick myself that despite knowing I'm intelligent, that I seem to be lacking in some very basic "something" that allows other people to maintain self-composure in times of stress and feel confident that they can manage their lives themselves without someone else to rely on.

[InRealLife45]

My T pretty much did this exact thing with me- all rosy for a year with prompt real responses, then shifting without explanation into generic 1-3 line responses or no responses and saying I'm suddenly crossing boundaries, that suddenly she can't be there for me just bc I have a need.

aka "the feeling is gone."

I don't know about your relationship with your T, but this deterioration started after a major rupture when my T began to dislike me, and lost interest in doing the extra things like email/text for me. She told me she "didn't feel excited about it" anymore.

Maybe just try to let it go, or it will get worse (the T's resentment and withdrawal in response to our need for between session contact)....I think maybe they think the need will diminish over time, but when it doesnt they get annoyed? I dunno.

[Leah123]

So, you started experiencing these overwhelming emotions *10 years ago* (?) and right now you're not able to maintain the level of well-being you want, not able to manage those emotions unless you contact her regularly out of session? Sorry if that's sounds harsh: I realize I don't know what your starting point was in terms of if you had other issues to deal with, self-harm or other disorders or such, but 10 years is a long time to be mired. Admittedly, I'm not a patient person.

I would suggest some serious adjustments are necessary. I'd consider adding sessions, doing more intense work around this, or changing therapists.

I don't think the issue is not relying on someone: we all do best when we have a support network, but if it's been 10 years and you don't have enough distress tolerance skills and external support to not expect prompt, thorough replies from T... it's just worth looking at.

As for payment, I see how it could be a touchy subject. I would approach it as: "I really respect your time and don't want our relationship to feel unbalanced because you're spending out of session time helping me without any reciprocation. Can we add one paid email to our therapy schedule per week?"

Or something like that. Perhaps it can be a less expensive alternative to another session and give you that written communication to hold onto in between live work, at least til you manage the DBT skills and make the larger adjustments.

P.S. As far as "trying to shake the neediness" I would not try to shake it. Feelings you try to push away don't stay away. I'd sit there and feel the unbearable-seeming neediness. Let it eat me up and accept it. When I do that type of thing, I often find as painful as it was, the power of it is defused and I see it was just another experience, I can put it in perspective, my life goes on. The feeling of "needing" anything besides food, water, oxygen, and shelter is really just a feeling of wanting something. Sure, there are things that enable us to thrive better, but neediness around contacting her is really just a want.

At any rate, I don't think wanting things is unreasonable, just a matter of whether your therapist can or will accommodate and whether or not it will help you in the long run.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by hankster

Something is not working correctly in this client-t partnership, because you remember and write here about the times she failed. I would expect to see, if therapy was working, a gradual improvement. But this is more like an extension of how your parents werent there for you. But you experience things as getting worse.

As for other clients being allowed to email or text their ts - my t offered to be available over the xmas holidays one year (in addition to our regular sessions). But that was his choice of time, his offer, and it was time-limited.

Maybe more frequent sessions would help? Do you leave feeling up or down? It helped my mood when i figured out it was okay to be happy arriving and leaving my sessions. It seems counterintuitive - we go to t because we are depressed - but actually we go to improve our lives, to have hope. Otherwise, when are we supposed to make this switch from sad to happy? I actually asked him this - then i started leaving happy. He used to annoy me coming to get me in the waiting room and he would be grinning like an idiot - but then my mother was never happy to see me. T is.

Hope this helps.

Hi Hankster,

Thanks for replying. I agree that something is amiss in the therapy relationship, and I think both my t and I agree on this and are stumped as to how to move forward. I don't think I have adequately shared how much I have progressed in therapy. I've been able to change many things since I began working with her. I am much more able to express my feelings now, I can stand up for myself at work and at home when I need to, request a promotion and give evidence why I deserve it, and handle conflict when it arises with my husband or a friend by approaching them about it, rather than ignore it like I used to do. I have more self-confidence than I used to, although I still need to work on my constant second guessing myself! Even though I still feel the need for more support from my t than she can give me, I have learned some ways to manage my distress that work, as long as the pain doesn't get too great, such as deep slow breathing, visualizations, sitting in my massage chair, distracting with physical activiities like gardening, and refocusing from my own pain to helping other people, which I like doing and it makes me feel good doing that. My husband says I've made great strides. The ONLY part of my therapy that feels stuck and is not moving forward is the issue of needing between session email contact. I can't seem to move past the feeling that I NEED it and that not having it feels like a deprivatioin I can't tolerate! It doesnt' make sense logically, I know that. And I am trying to accommodate to not emailing, but it feels so terribly hard!

So I don't think that the therapy isn't working or hasn't helped. I just think I'm stuck at this big hurdle. My t tells me that the problem is not really about her, but about my feelings of deprivation and abandonment in childhood. . and that until I'm willing (and able to tolerate) confronting those traumatic experiences, facing them and coping with the pain, I will just keep getting trigggered in the present by what feels like rejections and abandonments by her. This makes SENSE to me, as I've done some reading on past trauma and how it continues to get triggered in the present (think of war vets when they hear a car backfire). I get where my t is coming from. But the problem is this: It is precisely AT those times when we attempt to contact and process those traumas of the past in my session that I have trouble coping the following week and need that email contact from my t. As long as we DON'T do the deeper work and I DON'T get too stirred up in session, I can manage myself between sessions. I don't need extra support. If we stay on easier subjects in my session that don't access my deep pain, then I do fine. But the flip side is that I never do process those old traumas and so they keep popping up here and there as present-day triggers that unleash the old unprocessed pain.

Since I decided to stop emailing and not ask for extra support from my t, I also put the deeper painful work on hold. To me, that seems the only way for me to continue therapy without being too demanding of t's time or having difficulty coping myself between sessions. That is how I CAN accommodate the new boundaries. But like I said, it has changed the feel of the therapy relationship in that it feels more superficial and distant, and like the important things are not being worked on because it brings up the conflict around the need for Support.

Maybe I just need MORE DBT skills. . .eat them. . .sleep them. . . live them. . .until I get stronger to cope on my own without needing so much support.

My t approached the issue of meeting twice per week with me, but my husband is much opposed to this, believing that I need to become stronger myself so that I need my t LESS instead of MORE.

I guess I should admit too that I have a problem with accepting support in session. I feel unworthy often to ask for what I need, whether it is to do a certain visualization or exercise or ask for a hug when needed. I hate asking for help and feel ashamed, stupid, and childish. So I'm afraid I have this habit of going to session, NOT being able to ask for what I really need, and then leaving session without having gotten what I need, and then feeling needy and wanting the between-session contact. In a very real sense, a part of me is terrified of attachment or emotional closesness. The only way I seem to be able to get it is from that "informal contact" of email.

Sometimes I feel so hopeless, like I'm such a wreck, pretending to the outside world that I am a strong, capable, confident woman who doesn't need anyone or anything. . .when inside I feel like the opposite. Nobody in my life other than my husband and t, know how many issues I have and how much they cause me suffering. I can "play the part" so well. But that's just it -- I'm pretending to have all those inner qualities that adults need to function in this world, but I actually lack many of them. It's exhausting keeping up this front. . .exhausting having to hide who I really am inside because I know it's not normal.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by HazelGirl

I did not read everything. However, this is what I will say:

Boundaries are not "overly strict". They're people's opinions and comfort levels. You can't and shouldn't try to change your T's boundaries. This is why boundaries are something to talk about at the first or second session. If you can't handle your T's boundaries, you need to switch T's.

Hi Hazelgirl,

Thanks for offering your opinion. I guess I agree in part. It won't work to try to "change" my t's boundaries. What I have tried to do is explain why I believe I need the boundaries to remain as they were in the past, in the hopes that my t would understand that it's necessary for me and agree to it. I have no desire whatsoever to "force" a change of boundaries. I abhor the ides of manipulating, using guilt, anger, or anything else to make my t provide what I feel I need. Forced care is not willling care, and forced care would not make me feel good at all. I would feel guilty and wrong if I insisted on my rights at the expense of what my t wants. And I would not take pleasure at all in receiving care that I somehow had to beg for or that I forced against my t's will. This is exactly how I felt about my needs with my mom - that she really didn't want to take care of me but did it only because it was required.

I'm not sure that changing therapists is the solution - especially if the problem resides with me, rather than my t. If the problem is that I can't tolerate and cope with my own emotional pain, what difference would it make to change therapists? The change would need to occur with ME, not with a change of therapist boundaries. My t has suggested at times that perhaps she doesn't have enough skills to help me. But I'm 90% certain that the lack is not with her - especially after reading the replies here.

Originally Posted by peaches100

I guess I should admit too that I have a problem with accepting support in session. I feel unworthy often to ask for what I need, whether it is to do a certain visualization or exercise or ask for a hug when needed. I hate asking for help and feel ashamed, stupid, and childish. So I'm afraid I have this habit of going to session, NOT being able to ask for what I really need, and then leaving session without having gotten what I need, and then feeling needy and wanting the between-session contact. In a very real sense, a part of me is terrified of attachment or emotional closesness. The only way I seem to be able to get it is from that "informal contact" of email.

I think this is what is going to need to change in order for your "need" for email contact to lessen. You are using email a bit as a crutch to avoid one-on-one communication, and it's become habitual for you. So you've stopped emailing, but you haven't started using your sessions productively either. Double whammy. Time to start using your sessions to communicate properly and I'm willing to bet your "need" for in between contact will lessen. Are you ready to do that? This is hard work, but if you don't put the work in IN session, things aren't going to change outside of session.

[stopdog]

I think part of the trouble with this sort of thing is the feeling or reality that the therapist changes the rules in the middle or without agreement or more gradual change etc.
For me, I find a problem with email in general is the expectation of immediacy. I, for example, tell students I will respond within 48 hours, not at all on certain days, and that there are some things I am unable to discuss via email and I will tell them directly to come see me if that is the case.

[CameraObscura]

Hm. This is sticky.

I agree that doing the trauma work is necessary, eventually, to get past the trigger cycle. I also agree that extra support during trauma work is necessary for a lot of people (it certainly is/was for me).

Do you think you could do the deep trauma work with this therapist? Are you willing and ready to settle in for that work? If so, maybe you could talk to your t and negotiate boundaries for out of session contact for the duration of the trauma work, with an agreement to taper off of out of session contact as the trauma work becomes less intense and overwhelming (and it does, it really does).

If not, maybe a new t is a good plan, this one may have gone as far with you as she can, and a fresh t relationship might help you move into deeper work.

Hugs. I know that time between pressing send and hearing back can feel like millenia.

[unaluna]

Maybe its time for the backwards hug! Thanks for the clarification on the progress you've made. You're right, for me too, it seems like in the middle of moving forward is when it was the scariest. I havent asked for a backwards hug in a looooong time. (The backwards hug is t wrapping his arms around me, my back to his chest, sitting down, no "fancy" body parts touching).

A book and magazine writer from michigan who now lives in new york and who teaches writing (how i met her) and writes about love and life and psychotherapy and stuff, said her t wrote her a prescription to have her husband hold her for an hour like every day or something. No canoodling, just holding. An hour seems excessive to me, i certainly didnt expect that from my t, but do you think your h would be up for that? Like try it one time and see how it goes?

[msxyz]

I think if she let you depend on regular email contact for years and then suddenly changes her mind then that doesn't reflect well on her in my opinion. Surely she must understand how difficult and painful this is for you, but she doesn't sound compassionate at all, instead she is just blaming you for not respecting boundaries. Well, she let you do this for years, were you supposed to intuit that this was violating her boundaries for all this time?

[Virginia1991]

Threads like this make me love my T. I tried therapy 3x before this with 4 different therapists. I didn't last past 5 sessions with any of them. But here I am almost a year in with this T. She gets me. She knows I need connection in between sessions. It is vital for me. She responds to every text and email (briefly). Even if I send a text that says "do you have a pet?" She answers the same day. Yet she is professional, consistent, kind, and nurturing. Now that I know there are therapists out there like her and therapists out there that can meet my needs.....I would not settle. If for some reason I had to get a new T, outside contact would be a requirement for me. I didn't even know that was an option before her. Now that I know therapists do that and do it in a helpful way, I would want nothing less. State what you need, want, and why. Your T has a right to respond how they feel comfortable responding but you have a right to shop around. Different T's are open to different things.

[ScrewedUpMe]

Hi Peaches,

Just wanted to say that I have every sympathy with you. If your T had been allowing email contact all this time and replying in a certain manner, then to change it without explaining why is not very helpful or beneficial to the relationship. If T did feel that it was getting too much or realising she had created a dependency in the first place, then that is not your fault and she should have approached it properly with you and explained how it might help you to try to rely on her less, rather than to make you feel like you did something wrong regarding boundaries. My T had always let me email between sessions, has always encouraged me to email as much as I want and always responds in a thoughtful, detailed manner. If she were to suddenly withdraw this, I would be devastated to say the least. I would be so hurt that she had suddenly changed and that would be more of a problem that the actual emailing itself. So I totally get where you are coming from and it's not a nice situation to be in. I don't know what to suggest really, other than as someone else suggested, asking for a paid email session per week just so you're both clear about it. I have never paid for emails but I do pay for any phone calls to T. If your T wanted payment for emails, it is up to her to let you know that. Anyway, just wanted to say that I get it.

Don't have time for lengthy response now, but here are some articles to read.
I Love These Emails, or Do I? The Use of Emails in Psychotherapy and Counseling, by Ofer Zur, Ph.D.

With this one the first paragraph under Boundary Violations I think is important
Mismanagement of Psychotherapy

[tinyrabbit]

I can email my T as much as I want, but he won't necessarily read or respond. And I completely get where you're coming from as I feel the same about needing that in-between contact.

But what strikes me is that maybe if your T helps you out of your distress each time, she's rushing in to rescue you and that's not her job. It seems like these feelings need to come out and it's possible that providing instant relief isn't ultimately what you need.

I think she could have managed the change better. But if these feelings weren't an existing problem they couldn't be triggered like this. I really hope you can discuss all this with her.

[rainbow8]

Peaches, I finally had the time to read your thread with the attention it deserves. Your T is right! You got many well-thought out replies and comments. I hope you'll soon post how the rest of your session was, and what your T decided to do about the emailing. I agree that you have used emails as a kind of crutch to avoid facing your T. But not always! Like me, you crave that connection and even in a "good" session, sometimes I leave feeling disconnected and dissatisfied with my T.

In another thread you posted about how you realize that you are afraid to have the close connection that you really want to have with your T, and that you only have it through emailing. I can't find that thread, though! Is that what you talked about in the rest of your session?

I still feel the need to email my T, but the boundary/rule is that she never emails back unless it's about scheduling or very rarely at other times like when my daughter was in the hospital. I don't care that she doesn't respond; I just want her to know what's going on with me, usually right after my session. I may email a couple of times, and then I am able to go the rest of the 2 weeks without emailing again. I'm not going to force myself to stop. It's too painful for me. I'm not asking her for support; I just want her to know my feelings. I'm not naive enough to think that she always reads my emails right away. For all I know, she reads them the day of my next session, 2 weeks later.

I hope you and your T can work out this problem with email, to your satisfaction. It's hard. My T says she wished she'd never allowed email in the first place! Once she did, though, it's hard to give it up. I also want to add that for those of us who are writers, either by profession or by interest, it's much easier to connect through writing. I can always write what I can't tell my T. I love to write, so it makes sense that I want to use writing to express my feelings and thoughts to my T. Talking face to face is difficult, but I know it is much more rewarding.

Sorry if I went off on a tangent here. You know how much I care about you, and want the best for you.

[Parley]

Originally Posted by rainbow8

Peaches, I finally had the time to read your thread with the attention it deserves. Your T is right! You got many well-thought out replies and comments. I hope you'll soon post how the rest of your session was, and what your T decided to do about the emailing. I agree that you have used emails as a kind of crutch to avoid facing your T. But not always! Like me, you crave that connection and even in a "good" session, sometimes I leave feeling disconnected and dissatisfied with my T.

In another thread you posted about how you realize that you are afraid to have the close connection that you really want to have with your T, and that you only have it through emailing. I can't find that thread, though! Is that what you talked about in the rest of your session?

I still feel the need to email my T, but the boundary/rule is that she never emails back unless it's about scheduling or very rarely at other times like when my daughter was in the hospital. I don't care that she doesn't respond; I just want her to know what's going on with me, usually right after my session. I may email a couple of times, and then I am able to go the rest of the 2 weeks without emailing again. I'm not going to force myself to stop. It's too painful for me. I'm not asking her for support; I just want her to know my feelings. I'm not naive enough to think that she always reads my emails right away. For all I know, she reads them the day of my next session, 2 weeks later.

I hope you and your T can work out this problem with email, to your satisfaction. It's hard. My T says she wished she'd never allowed email in the first place! Once she did, though, it's hard to give it up. I also want to add that for those of us who are writers, either by profession or by interest, it's much easier to connect through writing. I can always write what I can't tell my T. I love to write, so it makes sense that I want to use writing to express my feelings and thoughts to my T. Talking face to face is difficult, but I know it is much more rewarding.

Sorry if I went off on a tangent here. You know how much I care about you, and want the best for you.

I so relate to this. I don't know if I would talk to my T when I send an email but sometimes I need to get my feelings out and it just so happens we aren't in session so I write them. without email~ it wouldn't be shared.

My therapist doesn't respond for the most part but will for appointments or something that concerns her business.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by Lauliza

Hi Peaches,

I think I can give you some insight here. It might be way off but it is how I see it, at least from what you've written here.

the first thing that stood out is that you mentioned that you've been in therapy with her for 10+ years for a variety of very difficult issues. I think one of the reasons could be that she feels like your need for emailing should be decreasing with time, not remaining the same. Therapy doesn't rid you of the trauma that happened to you as a child, nothing will do that. I think the goal is to help you come to a better acceptance of your past and help you improve your methods of coping in the present.

When you first began therapy this was all new, so she made herself available through email to serve as an extra support if you needed it. But with time I think her hope was that you would find support with other people in your life - like friends or family - and would not need to email her so much. This doesn't seem to have happened and she might be trying to wean you off emailing her by not being so available.

You haven't done anything wrong, so don't put yourself down for needing her. She encouraged you to email her and didn't discuss the issue of boundaries with you at all. I can see why you would be upset - she fostered a dependency of sorts on her (probably unintentionally) and now she is probably trying to undo it. I think she should be more direct with you and initiated an open, gentle conversation about this. But since she hasn't do you think you can?

A therapist really can't be there for you at all hours once they are off the clock. Not that you expect that, but sometimes even a reply in a couple of hours just isn't possible. You don't know what she is doing - is she with her family, out with friends, at a movie? It's really above and beyond to be so available, especially for a long period of time. And when there is a crisis, it is usually expected you go to an ER, not call your therapist. My pdoc and T are both in a private practice that has email and voicemail, but it is over their server, not personal. So that boundary is set from the beginning. Even though it is frustrating, it does help you find other ways to handle distress on your own. They have a crisis line to call which can page them, but I have only done that once in 7 years for medical reasons. Still it is expected that I should have gone to the ER beforehand.

It definitely seems like you aren't connecting with her. And after 10 years together you should have made much more progress if therapy was effective at all. Do you feel like you've made tangible progress, or just become dependent on her presence? At this point you may need a more interactive, goal oriented therapy.

Hi Lauliza,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I talked to my t about this situation again yesterday at my therapy session. She said she wasn't consciously trying to make me stand on my own two feet more (although I think there may have been a subconscious motivation/hope that I would rely more on my own ability to cope rather than contact her between sessions).

What she told me is that she has never ruled out email altogether. She was/is OK with me sending her an email to express something that I find too difficult to bring up in session. But she didn't want to receive multiple emails per week, or emails that would require a long time to reply to. Also, she was concerned about the potential for misinterpretation of the meaning of something in the email, which has happened on occasion. She also mentioned about my tendency to use email to connect with her at a distance and get my need met for attachment that way, rather than being able to feel close and connected to her 1-on-1 in the therapy room.

I realize the email has served some useful purposes, and some not so helpful. My wants me to really work hard at "doing the necessary work in the session." She knows how scary that is for me! I have experienced so much rejection in the past, it is very hard for me to relax and connect with her in person. I'm fearful of asking for what I need in session, of feeling too demanding, etc.

My t said that her biggest worry is that when she retires, I will not have learned to ask for what I need in session and get it, and then I will experience the t relationship as just another relationship where I didn't get what I needed and was ultimately abandoned.

[peaches100]

Originally Posted by Perna

I think you are asking too much asking someone to respond to you, the way you set it up, that would not be about them and gives them no say, is not a true response. Wanting that is something else; we all want that, to be special and have someone(s) who tries to anticipate our needs but I don't think one can "buy" that.

How hard are you working to not email and operate only in the confines of the actual relationship? You say you have "always needed" this but do you want to be always needing it, not moving on to the real relationship? I wrote my T often and mailed stuff to her office but after 6-7 years I decided I wanted to have a real relationship with her, only in session, person-to-person without my imagination in there running wild and thinking this or that which was not based on anything other than what I wanted, felt, or thought; had no reality to it. It was extremely hard at first, frustrating and painful, but eventually was thoroughly rewarding and worth all that work.

Hi Perna,

No, I don't want to always need email to feel connected or say what I need to. It just is so much easier to express myself in writing, and always has been. I do alot of poetry and journal writing, and putting words down on paper has always been much less stressful for me. Part of it may be about control. When I write something, I can think about what to say, how to say it, edit or change it until it feels "just right." I can't do that with speech in the moment. I don't feel "prepared."

Also, if I'm expressing something that's embarrassing, I don't want my t looking at me, and if I think what i say will bother her, I dread to see it in the expression on her face. It's kind of like, if I am going to ask her about something (or for something), and she is going to say NO or tell me something that is going to hurt, I would much rather read it in email, away from her, and then deal with the emotional reaction/fallout on my own before I see her again.

I loathe the idea of letting people see me in a weak or vulnerable state, and it feels especially threatening if I've put myself into the vulnerable position of asking for something and being turned down. It feels as dangerous as standing there naked and vulnerable, and then getting a knife thrust into my chest. I know that probably sounds silly, but that's how rejection feels to me. I'm terrified to attaching/needing/asking and then being let down or abandoned later. It paralizes me.

But badk to what you said -- yes, Perna, I think I really do need to work on the real relationship in the room. I wish I wasn't so scared. My fear seems ridiculous in the face of how long I've been in therapy and how nice my t is. If I could do the work face to face, and know for sure that my t cares, and feel it inside, I would probably not need constant reassurance that she is still there, still cares, nothing bad is about to befall the relationship, etc.