[MRT6211]

It has come to my attention that a lot of people here say they can text or call their Ts after hours when they are struggling...so I wondered how common this is because I’ve never had a therapist that I could do this with or heard of one.

[Hazelgreen]

I text my therapist about once a week. I feel closer to her if I can say some words with her or share my fears. It is easier to say these in a text. I am thrilled when she texts me back with encouraging words.

[Argonautomobile]

I don't think it's really as common as reading this forum would suggest. My T doesn't allow this - well, I've never asked, but I seriously doubt he does. I wouldn't take phone calls/texts after hours if I were a T.

[stopdog]

I emailed or wrote and mailed the first one and the second actively encouraged me to telephone her anytime. I tried calling a couple of times but did not find it useful Usually I found it more useful to write to get it out and away from me. I did not particularly find it useful to get responses from them.

[Amyjay]

No, mine doesn't. I asked her about emailing between sessions a few months ago and she deflected by saying we could have a conversation about that in the future and we haven't yet. I am doing fine without it so I am not wanting to revisit it at this stage.

[Nammu]

Had MDs that took emergency calls but never a T that did regular outside contact and I glad. From what I've read on here that just makes it more likely to cause serious problems with individuality. I treasure my independence.

I could call anytime, she won't answer it if she's not available to. I don't think I've ever called her past 4pm. I don't put any time restraints on emailing though. I figure a phone ringing is one thing, but email you have to purposely check right? lol

I can email him and he will sometimes respond though usually a few hours later or the next day. I think he would suggest scheduling a session rather than any more communication than that. I like the boundaries as they are.

[Carmina]

Yes but I won't

[DP_2017]

Mine does. Although that may change since I opened my big mouth
He has emailed late in evenings and texts after 9pm sometimes

my therapist and i live in different countries. i can text whenever, and if she is asleep, she will just get back to me the next day. when we are together in person, we are night owls. we have had sessions that lasted way into the night. she doesnt really have off hours. we are both so busy that we fit our talking into our schedules whenever we both have a chance, even if its at 4 a.m.

[ElectricManatee]

I can call my therapist's voicemail line and leave a message whenever I want to (it doesn't ring anywhere). She will get back to me as soon as she has time to talk, although it's pretty much always the same day (yes, including evenings and weekends). This isn't necessarily a service she advertises doing, but she deemed it necessary for the work I am doing in therapy, and I'm glad she did.

[LonesomeTonight]

It depends on what you mean by "after hours"--do you just mean outside of their office hours? In that case, yes, it's OK to call or e-mail my current T after hours--but if it takes more than 15 minutes, he charges at his hourly rate for every 15 minutes (in other words, first 15 minutes to respond to e-mail is free, but if it takes a half hour, he charges $45 for the extra 15 minutes). And he's said he won't respond to text/calls between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m., which I can understand.

Marriage counselor has no restrictions on this. I called him at 3 a.m. once--called, let it go to voicemail, then called again--and he answered then talked to me for a few minutes. And he's fine with texting or e-mailing whenever, but can't guarantee how quickly he could read or respond (sometimes almost immediate, other times, several days...). And he recently asked me to reduce outside contact, which has contributed to our decision to start the termination process with him...

It can be very difficult if a T basically allows unlimited access, then suddenly decides to limit it. I now think it's much better when a T has clearly defined boundaries from the start...rather than saying it's all OK, then being like, "Oh, that's too much, you need to pull back." I think boundaries can be a healthy thing for a T, like not checking e-mail/texts or answering phone calls during certain hours. It's a part of self-care. As much as I'd like to have 24/7 access to a T...I'd also prefer they practice self-care and know their limits.

[zoiecat]

I do not think mine does and I have not asked. I would definitely call or email for a scheduling issue with normal hours but I would not want to start contacting out of session for anything else. After reading this board I would be too afraid of becoming dependent or attached. When something is bothering me that I do not feel I can say in person I will print it out and hand to him at the beginning of session. I have emailed this right before session from the waiting room a couple of times for him to print off at the beginning of session if I did not have time to do so myself.

[ChickenNoodleSoup]

I can text/call whenever I want. But he only turns his phone on on the days he is in his office, and only at the times when he is there. And he won't usually pick up his phone if you call him at that time, but he will call back whenever it works for him.

I wouldn't want a T that provides the possibility to constantly call and have a chance for them to answer. The first reason being that I kind of feel more comfortable saying what my issue is without having an immediate response. The second reason is that I know I would develop some kind of dependency if this was offered.

[healinginprogress]

I have literally never called my T, but as she has an office line, I'm sure I could call at any time but getting a response is different. I'm not sure she checks her voice mail during her off times.

No texting, which I'm cool with because I'm pretty sure I would never text her because I would feel guilty and that I never "really" needed to.

I can also email anytime. She has set the boundaries that she will not respond unless she feels it is therapeutically necessary, of if I specifically ask for a response. It seems to be hit or miss on whether she checks her work email on the weekends so I don't really expect a response over the weekend even if I ask for one. I'm glad she takes self care time. I think it makes her a better therapist and more able to help me.

[CharlieStarDust]

I don't have my T's cell number, but I email. She only checks her mail when she's in the office, so I never worry about bothering her.

[AllHeart]

My t doesn't allow texting or emailing anytime for reasons of confidentiality concerns, her own self care, and so not to fuel any kind of dependency.

As for calls after hours, I wonder if she tailors that a bit to suit each clients needs as she gets to know them. I don't know. When I first started with her a year ago, she told me she allows 2 emergency-only between session calls. After the second call, a discussion about how to better use coping skills would be needed. I have called her twice with non-emergency yet pressing matters. There was no after discussion on coping skills. She has since told me I can call her when I need to.

I do not expect my t to be at anyone's beck and call 24/7, or even 12/5. I greatly respect my t's boundaries and her need for her own self-care and personal life. Given the nature of the business though, I think t's would be wise to factor in a little time during their week (an hour?) to deal with brief, occasional, out of session contact that clients sometimes need.

[malika138]

My current T tells me I can call her cell or text, which I have never done. Nor have I taken her up on her offer of facetime when one of us is traveling. I do email her about 2x a month. She knows that a previous T abandoned me over the phone. She says she wants me to be able to reach out and know that she is still here. I'm not sure she does this with all her varied clients (neurological testing, short term EAP, short-term, and long-term). I know that she gets frustrated when her EAP clients want to stay even 1 minute over time so I doubt she lets them call her!

[WarmFuzzySocks]

I voted no, I wouldn’t want that, but it it’s really more that I don’t need that.

I’m glad there are t’s who offer it to clients who need that contact.

[88Butterfly88]

Most of my ts would let me text them after hours but my current one does not. I only have her office phone, not her cellphone. I have her work e-mail and she says I can e-mail at any time but she only checks it when she's in the office. I see her Thursdays so that is kind of helpful because if something comes up over the weekend I can e-mail her and expect an answer Monday, which is better then having to wait until the next Thursday.

[junkDNA]

We would text daily and for a period speak on the phone every night . However,naturally, i grew incredibly dependent on it and it caused a lot of distress for me (and he admitted he had some too) so we have limited out of session contact now

[starfishing]

We don't text (and I wouldn't want to). I've been encouraged to call his office line and leave a voicemail in the event of an urgent situation, though since he's a psychiatrist the connotation there is more medical urgency rather than personal crisis. For a personal crisis I'd be more likely to email to try to schedule an urgent appointment or a phone call than to just call.

[RaineD]

I have my therapist's cell phone number, and he's never told me that I can't text him. But aside from scheduling issues, I've only texted him twice--once on a Friday afternoon and again the next day (saturday afternoon). It was when

Possible trigger:

my dad was threatening suicide, and I was struggling with how to respond/what to do.

I figured it was enough of an emergency to be justifiable. I would never text him in the middle of the night though. Even if the world was ending, I'm pretty sure I can wait till the next morning.

I've only emailed him three times. Once because I needed to reschedule a session, and the other two times I sent substantive emails after really difficult sessions where we basically got into fights. The first time was the week before Thanksgiving, and I wasn't going to see him the week of Thanksgiving and I just couldn't wait that long to talk about things.

The second time was the week before Christmas, and although we had a session scheduled the Thursday after Christmas, I was so distraught that I couldn't function so I wrote him.

I have to say that those two emails represent the most progress I've made in therapy so I'm glad he allows emails.

I really try to limit my between-session contact to times when I really really need it, and I don't think I'm creating too much of a burden for him. But I also really need to feel like he cares about me, and if he didn't allow outside contact at all ever, it would be really hard for me to believe that he cares.

[MessyD]

I don't know, I've never asked. And I just realized that in almost 2.5 I've never called him. Texted a few times besides scheduling. He always answered so I don't think it's unusual but it don't think he encourages it. He offered to schedule a phone call when I was struggling one day but I didn't take up on it. Don't really want to depend on him too much.