Are you able to text/call your T?

I agree with that. I am, however, glad that my therapists and pdocs have always limited outside contact to phone contact and didn't venture into the whole email and texting world. For me, it kept the contact professional and something I put thought into rather than impulsively sending a quick text or email. It seems so much of the confusion about outside contact when it occurs seems to surround those forms of contact.

I wouldn't see a therapist who allowed no outside contact at all. I had enough serious crisis situations where I absolutely needed the outside help of my therapist or pdoc (and I really limited my contact to true crisis situations). A therapist who said, "Don't call me. Call a crisis line or go to the ER" would not be someone I would work with (and I've never had a therapist who did that).

I do think some people have a really hard time controlling the impulse to contact perhaps too often, but that is something the therapist should be monitoring and discussing with those particular clients as necessary. I know my therapists always told me how to get hold of them in an emergency (and what constituted an emergency particularly after hours). They never said I contacted them too often or unnecessarily, but I would go months between contacts so that isn't surprising. There were bad episodes, on the other hand, when I might speak to them multiple times outside of session if they couldn't get me in for extra sessions (which was the preferred way a dealing with a crisis time). They didn't mind those times either; in fact, there were times they insisted I call them once a day just for a check in as a way to stay safe and monitor my symptoms since hospitalization was usually on the horizon if things were that bad.

I do not text or call my current therapist.
I email only for appointment scheduling.

I can email at this point. I used to be able to call and leave voicemail to a private number then the clinic decided that all calls should go through a central line, so we switched to emails. In a few weeks, she is moving to private practice. Since her email is through the clinic, I don't know if I will lose email but gain voicemail or what? I'm more apt to email her than call. I'm also just as likely to call only to listen to her voice but not leave a message. And when I say call, if I'm there, it will be like 5-6-10 times in a row before I move on.

No out of session contact for either M or L. M has said explicitly that it is a boundary. L it just isn't something we do though occasionally she'll give me an "email every day" assignment for a week if she's worried about my stability. No calling or texting. I did talk on the phone daily with L after the fire though, because she was out of town. 45 minutes a day, no charge. That was an exceptional situation.

I am glad for the usual no contact boundaries. Otherwise I think our relationships would be too intense. I am glad we all have a week to ourselves.

There are weeks too where M gives me advance permission to call if I need to. But I never do. What could he say? What would I tell him?

It's my opinion, you're free to disagree. When I look at the way outside contact is handled for a lot of people on this forum, well I can't exactly call it healthy. It creates hurt feelings, miscommunication, unrealistic expectations.

I can text, email or call whenever I like. The question of when T answers can be a different one, but he tries to answer when he can - usually the same day. If I call T knows it's a serious thing and will call me back, because I very rarely call and it has been in a crisis situation when I've called in the past.
At the beginning of therapy - maybe the first year or so - T was encouraging me to be a bit dependent and contact him if I needed help or support with something. T was encouraging me to be able to ask for and accept help and support. This was a totally alien experience for me and something I was uncomfortable with.
However knowing that I could trust someone and rely on them to be supportive was part of what has brought about huge and life changing experiences for me, in a very positive way it has definitely changed my life.
Nowadays I have this sense of stability and trust, something that was really missing from my life before. I think it is really helped by knowing T is always there and I can contact him whenever I need to. But at the same time now I experience a lot of freedom in knowing that I can cope really well by myself and I don't often need to contact T any more. It feels a bit like an adolescent phase, in terms of independence! But these are really important experiences, which were completely missing from my life before. So for me this whole thing has been really really positive, although I found it very scary and uncomfortable to trust in this way for a long long time.
I'm so grateful for my T knowing how to help me. I could never have believed that therapy could change my life so much for the better.

I see T once a month. I can text her but her boundary is she won't reply. Some clients can email her, but same boundary. I don't have her email, I'm sure clients who email probably don't text her.

She offers several clients who need it the option to "call the clinic and have the clinic ask her to call the client back". Don't know about the frequency - it probably varies per client. I can call her at the two week mark. She offered it because we're supposed to meet once a fortnight but can't.

She focuses on building coping skills so clients don't get too dependent. Though she's OK with some dependency (because she does schema therapy) and expects / does push clients to become more independent. For example, I was asking for reassurance too much in sessions so she stopped reassuring me and we talked about comforting myself, reassuring myself, coping skills... she talked about breaking the pattern I was engaging in so I can grow rather than me seeking reassurance so much.

I can text, email or call anytime I feel I need to. It's been one of the most helpful aspects of my therapy.

A phone call is the only thing I expect an answer for- he will almost always call me back by the end of the day, or he will send a text saying he will ring me in the morning. If I text it's usually just a quick update to report that I am doing better after having a hard time. He might send me a quick reply to that, but it's not something I usually expect. Occasionally I would text him from the middle of a stressful situation (usually something medical), and those he usually answers with a quick reply whenever he might be free.

I use email frequently to work through difficult things or to record good times- it's probably most like a journal, and I regard it as something he's free to read or not, as his time allows. It's more about me working on this stuff through writing and having somewhere to deposit it.

He is the first therapist I have ever worked with this way, and he is the only therapist I have really found helpful. My first therapy experience was retraumatizing, and I can see now how much the lack of outside contact contributed to that. For me, the outside contact is a safety net that has allowed me to work on traumatic issues without being retraumatized, and to experiment with ways of helping myself while being strongly aware that there is a helpful presence nearby.

My therapist was very encouraging about reaching out for help early in our work together. I had always been pretty secretive about the grief and trauma I had experienced, so it was a new thing to open up to someone about the depths of my sadness and have someone actually be there to help me. His mode of therapy is very much about practicing to develop the strength to take care of oneself, and this has been working very well. I used to just abandon myself and give in to despair a lot, and now I realize there is so much I can do to help myself, and I have a responsibility to myself to do that.

Used to, when things were more difficult. But don't now. When things were hard I think my T knew that I wasn't able to contact anyone else, so was useful to have that option for contact with T. I'd love to have lots of contact with T, but for me right now, know that I need to practice using other resources as I know T is a temporary thing and some point I will be independent of T and need to know how to take care of myself. But I am sure if there was a crisis that I could make contact between sessions.

I'm not sure whether I can call or email (no texting for sure) my T for therapeutic issues outside of our weekly sessions. I do not know the guidelines. I have not felt the need to contact her. I cannot imagine there would be anything I couldn't handle on my own (with the help of family and friends too) between sessions.

I talk to my T in session and that's it. I prefer it that way. I find it really tiring to be constantly texting and answering emails and whatever. Can't imagine what it would be like for a T if they had 20+ clients all texting them all week. I think they'd burn out quick.

I can see how calling in a crisis situation would be appropriate, though.

I wouldn't call, but I have used text messages for session confirmation/cancellation and scheduling. If we've had a heavy session, from my perspective, I will email...or if there's something that's come up in between that is relevant, but not worth spending an entire session on.

I don't see those guys as any different than any other professional with clients. I teach full time in a law school - I have 60+ students each semester and I have a small private law practice. I manage to deal with students emailing me and clients emailing me all week along with teaching and handling cases. Some students will email me every day - some never contact me unless they have something due that they need to send me. I tell them I will respond to email within 48 hours. I often tell the students that I will talk them in person at my office hours or answer in class rather than teaching by email.

I do not text with them. I do not text with anyone but my closest friends. But the idea that a therapist is somehow less able to deal with such things than any other professional baffles me.

I'm not saying they're uniquely incapable. Just that I would find it tiring (I used to teach myself) and I imagine some of them do, too, especially if the messages they're getting are very emotionally heavy and urgent all the time. If you do fine with that sort of thing, hey great for you.

Heck, I'd find it tiring if I were the one emailing my T. So I'm glad I don't. I like my T in session, I don't need him in the rest of my life.

I text him during business hours usually but email when its outside of business hours so as not to interrupt him, though he never asked. He always gets right back to me and finds a time to talk to address my concerns, which I am grateful for. Text is faster than email, so I will sometimes text at other hours if a need a quick response. We don't carry on with conversations through texts and emails.

I think the emails and texts for work are getting out of hand. I have over 50 coworkers, and where it used to be 100+ emails a day where you could close your laptop and ignore them, it's now daily texting in addition to the emails.

This seems to be a trend with most workers with whom you'd have a long-term working relationship with. I noticed there are general practitioner doctors in the more wealthy areas of my country setting up care packages that allow for services that include unlimited 24/7 email access and sometimes unlimited 24/7 texts personally with the doctor as well for about $200 a month. These packages, for example, also include a dozen appointments per year, 6 Skype meetings, labs, etc. Prices and access are getting more competitive, probably due to technology in part.

I think online therapy is going to add to the competition and brick and mortar therapists are going to have to evolve as competition will grow. This will inevitably mean that electronic communication and evening hours will become the standard. I wouldn't want online therapy, but as other organizations pop up, they may start to develop niche services (eg trauma) and local therapists will face much competition.

In this day and age, it's nearly unthinkable to not offer some type of electronic communication/access. I would allow exceptions for some who don't ever use computers-there are still some people who don't. With these trends, it might be a good idea to start using the "do not disturb" feature on phones so people get a break! I think it can be a problem for burn out, but not for therapists in particular. For everyone. In this day in age, productivity is demanded and people are getting burnt out everywhere (thinking of the US where I live). Sometimes I think electronic communications adds to the burnout, not the productivity. Hmm.

I think that people are far more likely to discuss emails and texts if there are problems with them though. I've been using outside contact successfully for more than three years and it's been extremely useful, without hurt feelings or other drawbacks. (In contrast, working with a therapist who didn't allow outside contact left me severely retraumatized.)

I don't need to spend a lot of time on here working out problems with outside contact because I'm not having any. I think trying to gauge the utility of outside contact is difficult just using what people are saying on this board.

Fair enough. Still in my opinion I dont' think it's a good idea. But if it works for you, then great. Like another poster said, I think there's a risk the therapist will burn out if they allow outside contact with all their clients. And if they don't how fair is that to other clients ? Imo there's potential for things to go very wrong. But again if it works for you then awesome

I never called my Ts except when we had pre-arranged phone sessions, and rarely text (mostly just when I had to cancel last min and wanted to make sure they saw it). I emailed a lot with both of them though and found it very helpful, including actually breaking a compulsive online interaction habit. Now, if I were to look for a new T, I would always ask what their email policy is and would not choose one who does not allow/read emails. It was seriously the best, most productive part of my therapy, along with discussing the emailing in sessions.

Text.. no

Call yes, if its a crisis and I need to talk or if I am cancelling an appointment

Email, always... and he replies... I try not to do this at all but no more than 1x a week if I do, for me it helps me to write things I think about after session and make sure he is on the same page so I don't think about it all week

My therapist only text me to remind me of my appointment...That's about it.

I can text my T but I don't text her often, usually not at all, sometimes once a week. Usually with something that happened that I feel I can't wait to tell her. Usually she answers. I think it is wonderful there is a chance to reach out.

I text my T around 4-5 days a week. Used to be more. Sometimes it's less. I've only called her 2 in 5 years, and I email about once every 6 months or so. It's been EXTREMELY helpful for me. I shut down in sessions and opening up briefly in texts helps me to open up when I can't talk and lets her in on my inner thinking.

I see my therapist through a university clinic and have no way to obtain her number unless I asked her directly (and I'm sure she wouldn't give it to me). So no, I have not called or texted with my T. However, in our last session I became very vulnerable and told her about something I've been dealing with and she told me that if I felt unsafe or like I needed support in between sessions, I should call. She didn't give me a number, so I guess she meant call the clinic and ask to speak to my T? I haven't done it, though, so I don't know.
I also have never told her about suicidal feelings, so I don't know what she would do in terms of a safety plan if I did. The clinic has a crisis phone line, so perhaps she would give me the number to that?
But I've never felt the need to contact my T outside of session, so I've never bothered to ask.

I can call and leave a message with the front desk.