E-mailing T

Although i use and benefit from email. It is for me to express my emotions as I have/feel them as I am an avoider, so in session, I am unable to "avoid" what i was feeling last week or yesterday as my t brings them forward and we deal with them there. Or else, I may never get those out. It elicits an enormous amount of response in session with her. She has set boundaries on her emailing acceptance/response and capabilities. i know not all her clients are "alowed" this, so I am confident that she has reviewed me and what will work for our dyad and I have respect for that......she will let me know when/if this tool is becoming something other than a positive.

I think yes, if the t is capable and ethical and responsible then it their decision to create boundaries regarding the use of email is absolutely acceptable in individual cases.

Hey. I don't think there is anything wrong with your wanting to email your t and p-doc.

I also don't think that email is necessarily used to avoid. I say things by email that I simply wouldn't say face to face. Am I avoiding face to face? For sure. But opening up by email is a way for me to get up the courage to say some stuff.

I'm wondering whether the issue is that the emails become time consuming?

I'm wondering whether it might be a good idea for you to talk to them about boundaries around email contact. If that were to happen then you might be able to continue emailing. Examples of boundaries include:

- How often. Is every day okay? Every second day? Twice a week? (I'm wondering because it might be that they are too time consuming)
- What kind of a response you might be likely to get and when you are likely to get it. Acknowledgement is nice. But it might be the case that your t would prefer to discuss the emails in session rather than by email. This could be because of time constraints.

It might be that your t got a bit burned out with the frequency of them. It might also be that she felt under pressure to respond to them fairly quickly and that that was simply not feasible long term.

Of course she should have raised this issue with you well before now. But... Better late than never. How can you work within her boundaries if she doesn't let you know what they are?

Some therapists / p-docs will email. Others find it a strange request. Some don't seem to see a problem with doing it. Others do. But the change suggests that yeah something has changed. I'm sorry. This must be hard.

my T is a DID specialist, she use to take emails, her practice grew and she was getting a overwhelming number of emails... so she stopped

This has become an interesting thread OliviaC. Thanks for bringing it up - it's nice to know how different people handle the email thing.

My T has his email address on his business cards and accepts them but never responds. So, I've stopped sending them. I called him once between sessions and it was in the beginning of my attachment. I hadn't realized it yet.

I thought he was mad at me and said "he seemed different this session"...he chuckled and said he tries to be the same each time and would love to chat more about it but had someone waiting. I felt stupid at that point.