All or Nothing

Lately I've been going deeper during sessions and even opened up about self-harm, something I've never talked about before. This has stirred up a lot of emotions and dredged some things up from my past that I haven't thought about in a long time. I have been more uneasy between sessions and having strong urges to contact my therapist. Thus, I've felt like I either need to see her physically 2x a week or have a check-in (phone, text, e-mail) between sessions or not come at all.

I often feel like 1 hour a week and then radio silence does more harm than good, especially when discussing more difficult topics. I am allowed out-of-session contact but don't want to get annoying/bother her. I want it to be productive without abusing the privilege.

I guess I don't really have a specific question, but any thoughts/comments on this would be helpful.

I agree that one hour a week can feel worse than no appointment when things get stirred up. Going twice a week has helped me. I won't do this forever, but for now it's working. A lot of it depends on your therapist's schedule and how she works (mine had said early on she is fine with more than once a week, maybe there are others who don't do that, I don't know). Have you talked to her about increasing for a while?

My t would be perfectly ok with me telling him exactly what you have said here. You are definitely not alone in feeling like one session per week is not working. It also might help to ask what your t thinks is annoyed no when it comes to out of session contact. Talking about that stuff is hard, I need extra support.

I also think one hour every week to ten days is just not enough. What I do is type up a list of everything I want to say,or talk about and give it to the T when the session starts. He reads faster than I could articulate some of it, especially if I'm upset anyway. That gets a lot of info across quickly, so we can use the 55 minutes that are left more constructively, and he has the notes to look over any time he wants.

I've also experienced the same anxiety about infrequent sessions, and can certainly relate to the fear of becoming annoying if I contact mine between sessions. I don't contact her outside of our time for this reason, but like you, I continue to struggle with it. It certainly seems like a difficult balance. May I ask what the barrier is for you to get more sessions with yours? Is there a financial barrier? Or does the therapist prefer to space out the sessions?

I have two T's, and I see both of them twice a week. Yes....it's a lot, I know, but I'm dealing with a lot, too. My insurance pays for them.

I do have a third T, but I usually just call on her when one of the others is on vacation. Actually, most recently, they both were on vacay at the same time!

Thank you for all your responses and expressing similar feelings. I can't see her twice a week partly because of money and partly because I have a fairly packed schedule and it would be too difficult to block off another session. In the past, I have e-mailed/texted and even talked on the phone between sessions for extra support. But last week she seemed apprehensive about our out-of-session relationship after a misunderstanding about a scheduling conflict over text.

I see her in a few days and would like to have a proposed plan to handle this. Like even setting a day and time for a quick check-in text or call but I'm not sure she'll go for it. We'll see...