Paranoid

Hi,

I texted T just now to say the following:

Hi,

I do not feel ill at all and am very much still able to keep my appointment tomorrow at 12.45pm. However can you confirm that you are ok for me to see you with my voice being a bit squeaky and me having a slight cough please?' (I have a cold)

She has replied saying, no problem with that blah blah. However, I am puzzled because because she added 'Also no need to stress about texting me'

By her saying that, do you think she is saying to me that I should always feel able to text her and not feel guilty for doing so, or do you think she is telling me never to bother texting her outside of session and keep it to the sessions and never tell her I have a cold, just to turn up regardless?

If you guys think she is saying for me never to contact her out of session even for reasons like this then I'd like you to be honest with me, so that I never text her again out of session and pee her off?

Thanks xxxxx

If you're concerned about texting out of session just ask her

Ask her, every T has different views on texting, what they allow and how often etc.

My understanding of the text is she's saying - no need to give her a head's up if you're a bit under the weather.

Have you mentioned feeling worried about texting her, in the past? Sometimes even when clients are invited to use text or email they find it really hard to do so because they think they're bothering their T. Have you ever said anything like that to her before?

I read it more like she was reassuring you it was okay for you to text. If you've expressed hesitation in the past then I think that's even more likely.

Of course you should ask your t tomorrow but I take it as your text was ok to send and you did the right thing. It sounds more like she’s reassuring you to not worry or to stress out about having had to text her.

I would read that as "BTW it's fine to text me" as in no need to apologise.

In my experience it's very helpful to have an explicit discussion about contact outside of sessions. Maybe you could have that conversation in your next session? I was lucky when we first talked about it because my T brought it up. It is useful I think to clarify these things, and also to feel comfortable asking T to clarify what they mean if it's not clear.

I think she meant that in the future, you don't need to stress about whether it's ok to come to session when you have a cold. She was saying you don't need to bother about notifying her.

Edit: But I wouldn't read this as necessarily telling you not to text her.