emails

i don't think my therapist wants me to email him anymore :-(
i think he has clued in to the fact that i'm trying to shift the therapy frame and he doesn't like it one little bit.
but how else is he going to stay in contact with me when i go to another city for a couple months?
and how else is he going to stay in contact with me when i go to another city for a year?
wah.
no fair.
he doesn't have to abandon me :-(
but it is shifting the frame, huh.
providing him with options that he would rather not have.
can't see him in person = we can no longer work together.
bad t
:-(

I'm so sorry, Alexandra. I guess you have to ask him outright? Does he have any contacts in the city where you're going to be going so you can see someone there?

I've had two therapists, an online therapist and my face-to-face one at the same time before; my f2f therapist went out of the country for such a long time so I worked with an online therapist on a "different" problem. However, when my face-to-face therapist got back, she wanted me to get rid of the online one. I don't imagine your T can do e-mail therapy, not every T can/wants to.

Maybe he thinks the lines are getting blurred between now and when you leave? You know, like he understands that email and phone will be necessary once you leave for another city, but right now you are still here.... and he feels you are shifting the frame too early... Just a thought. Either way I know it feels like abandonment and that still sucks.

i think you should talk to him about your concern.. which is valid. Hopefully he can understand. My T has grown wary of email too. I love it though. I feel like all my splintered parts can talk that way in a way I can't in person.

alexandra, I think you should have a face to face talk with your T about your worries and fears. When are you moving to another city? Can you continue face to face therapy until then and switch to phone therapy once you relocate? I think if I were a T, I would not want to switch the frame until absolutely necessary (when you leave). Can you take advantage of his full presence while you are still in town? Or is it too painful to see him since your separation is on the horizon?

I'm sorry this is so hard.

I'm sorry Alex. I'm hijacking your thread regarding this topic.

I'm seeing a pattern with some of us, including myself, who try and contact between sessions whether it is phone calls or emails.

Is this helping us or hurting us? It seems like it hurts more than helps. For example, I know myself if I call or email and get no response, it sends me into a tailspin and it seems to do that for many of us.

Let's say we do get a response but the tone isn't right or what we expected. That seems to have a not so good effect too and results in more emails and calls to the office.

Here is what I see that could solve the issue potentially. Sometimes many of us do need a second session and I know I've asked for that a few times to no avail.

I think if we were able to get that second session to get us through critical times, this might help us and our T's with contact between sessions.

I am excluding emergencies from this post because that is a different story. Although, many of us believe our contact is an emergency so that is an individual decision.

Thoughts??

more on almedafan's post (alex_k, I hope this is not too off topic for your thread):

almedafan, I do believe it is up to the therapist to set his boundaries regarding phone calls and emails. If he doesn't want them or thinks they are harmful to the client, he should not permit them or set limits.

I am very careful of my T's boundaries and have really only called once for support, and it did cause me some angst, as he didn't call back when he said he would (he called 3 days later), and it made me feel ignored/abandoned. But in the end it worked out OK. We have an understanding of our boundaries and he knows I will not abuse the phone and call him all the time, but save the hard work for the sessions. (Phone calls when in dire need of support only.) Yesterday I really went into a tailspin due to crisis events and even then I didn't want to contact my T (I had just seen him for 50 minutes the night before, for gosh sake). I wasn't sure he could help me anyway, so I sent a desperate email to my lawyer. She phoned me back immediately and that was sooooo helpful. It made me feel good I had reached out to her when I needed her (for support and legal advice) and gotten such an immediate response. Then later I got an email from my T with the header "I'm here/call me!!!" and that made me feel so good. (My lawyer had called him to say sunny needs to talk to you or something along those lines, who knows, probably "sunny is a basket case, help her!") After a few crossing emails and missed phone calls (gawd, I hate the phone), we were able to connect briefly, and we have a longer phone call scheduled for today. So I felt like when I reeeeeally needed my T, he was there, and very anxious to help out.

So I think it is partly up to the T to establish phone/email boundaries and partly a matter of learning to judge for ourselves when do we really need our T versus when it would be helpful to talk to our T but we can hold out to our session. It's a learning process, and if one's T is withdrawing phone/email privileges he previously offered, it could be he is trying to help a client "learn" since he has experienced too many "non-essential" calls and emails from that client. If a T is OK with phone calls and emails all the time, but the client still experiences harm from them (as almedafan suggested might be happening), then I think it needs some discussion in session. Maybe the T can be recruited to help the client stop making the harmful emails/phone calls (by setting firmer boundaries).

Very good post, almedafan. Thought provoking.

Alex,

I am sorry. It sucks ( I hope it is okay to use that word ) It has become my favorite phrase lately. I received the strangest response back. I feel like I shouldn't have emailed him. But I did and oh well if he doesn't like then he can tell me - acting all brave is a fraud - I am horrified by the response but would rather not admit that and am not so please don't think I am.

Anyhow back to your topic. Maybe he feels that email is not the best forum right now. It is hard to convey a lot of things through email. But I know it is safe in email. They aren't there, they can't balk, etc. Have you talked to him about it, just ask him outright if you can. I know that is easier said than done. But you are so brave and intutive.

Thanks everyone. I talked to him about this today. He said... That I'd told him that I'd prefer to do phone therapy. He came up with a couple arguments why it would be better to see each other ftf.
1) Because one of my goals is to get better with disclosing my feelings etc in my real like relationships.
2) Because of the absense of ftf information.
In response to the first point I said that generalisation is required anyway. The hope is that I'll generalise from my disclosing okay to him to my disclosing okay to people outside therapy. That I do have trouble disclosing to him ftf. That disclosing to him over the phone might generalise in the sense that I find it easier to do ftf.
In response to the second point I said that if some modalities aren't available to give information (e.g., vision) then other modalities often start conveying information. For example, people who are blind typically get more information than the rest of us from auditory cues. I said I've gotten to know some people so well in chatrooms that I can tell within two minutes that they aren't doing so well. Their responses are longer to come through than usual. They write in shorter sentences etc.

He wasn't really sure what to say in response but he seemed a little anxious...

Then I said that I'd figured it wasn't about my wanting to stop seeing him ftf and do therapy over the phone instead... It was more that... I wanted us to be able to keep working together (rather than just brief check ins) while I go to the other city and especially when I go to the other country (for a year) because otherwise I'd have to find someone else to work with over there. Blush.

Then... He backtracked. Said 'oh, I didn't mean to suggest that we couldn't do that or that it wouldn't work...' So... He is okay about the idea that we do that when I'm unable to get in to see him ftf.

:-)

(((((((my t))))))

He said he hasn't tried to do depth therapy by phone but sounds like he is willing to try :-) ANd I asked him about his typing... But he said he doesn't type so fast... So... That is probably why he isn't so into emails and also... Given that, chat probably wouldn't work out so well either.

(((((((my t)))))))

Hey. I don't mind if my threads evolve so that there are different strands... Or if my threads evolve into different topics, even. I'm just happy that people kind of free-associate along and get something (no matter what) out of them :-)

Contacting between sessions can be hard. Sometimes it really can help get that sense of connection to help us through. Sometimes it can really hurt when that sense of connection isn't there. Hard to know which... Hard to know... Is it about what they say? Is it about the way we interpret what they say? Because sessions can be like that too, you see. Sometimes one can feel wonderfully connected in a session and other times one can feel horribly disconnected. Hard to know which way it is going to go.

How come you can't have a second session? Is your t all full up?

alex, it sounds like your session went really well. I'm proud of you that you were able to bring up your fears about losing T when you go away for a year, and that was partly why you wanted to start non-ftf now. That was hard to say, but now he understands so much better and can better meet your needs. Sounds like it worked out great! (((alex and her t)))

You've got a point Alex, the flip of emotions happens differently session to session too.

He says that he is busy and I know that on Thursday's he goes to a different location that is far away. As for Friday, tomorrow? Who knows.

I know he has second sessions with other people because I've heard some of them schedule one when they leave. It's none of my business though and can't use them as an example. Therapy is different for all of us.

You might remember the insurance nightmare T and I had when we did two sessions for two weeks. But I have new insurance now and it is unlimited for outpatient mental health sessions.

I hope he's busy and not just pushing me to the side. I brought up a second session last week and he said 'yes' and he even commented that we needed to get caught up on some things.

When I first arrived yesterday, I asked him if he wanted to start with anything and he looked confused and said no so I brought out my chart. I don't know if he forgets what he says, or changes his mind but it's confusing to me.

It doesn't matter, in my mind I know, there will never be a second session and he's not going to check on me like some of the T's do on here when I have rough sessions like last week and this week.

It's just not going to happen so why wish for it right? I'm sitting here with my mind over mood book trying to figure out how this is going to work...thanks for asking. Bet you didn't think my response would be this long...