Do you email your T?

I email my T about every 3 werks. I’m actually much more open, honest and vulnerable in emails than I am in person and I can say things that I could never say to his face. My T says eventually with time i’ll be able to be this way in person too. I have always been good, reliable and a rule-follower, but to my surprise I sent my T a super angry email last weekend basically attacking his ability as a therapist as well as his rule about not responding to emails on weekends. I later sent an apology email and when we met in person he was incredibly nice about it. During our session though, I was surprised to learn that none of his other clients email him except to discuss scheduling issues. I cried when he told me this (I’m not a crier) I think because I felt bad for being so different from everyone else. I mean, I had just sent an angry email rant, and none of his other clients do this apparently despite the fact that he’s been in practice for 30 years! Does this seem odd to anyone? Do you send emotional emails to your T? Am I odd for doing this? Is this a sign that he might not be experienced in seeing people like me?

Never anymore. Too many misunderstandings but I do handwrite things to discuss there

All the time

I average about once a week, sometimes more sometimes less. Usually I ask him not to reply, to avoid misunderstandings/disappointing responses but sometimes I ask him to confirm receipt and sometimes I ask him for a response.
I've learnt over the years that telling the therapist what you need from them is the best way to reduce the risk of hurt.

ETA - to answer your question your needs are totally normal. It does indicate he's not massively experienced with clients who have out of session contact needs. That's not necessarily a bad thing if he's willing to work with it, but I think it makes it doubly important that you have a discussion together where the boundaries are clearly laid out.

I did a lot and it was interesting for me. I definitely think that one needs to be prepared for disappointments, waiting, misunderstanding, misinterpretation with emails, so if you think those would be hard to tolerate, maybe better not to email or keep it at minimum.

I send emails to my T about therapy content. Sometimes once a week or so, sometimes less. Kinda depends on what's going on. If I'm really angry, I usually go straight to a phone call, though.

Personally I have found email helpful for getting things out efficiently and in exactly the way I want to say them. I don't know if other clients email my T, but I don't really care. I know she's okay with my email patterns, and we both know why I do it, so it doesn't really matter to me what other people do.

Occasionally when I have felt self-conscious about being so vulnerable and needing contact with her, she has said that other clients who don't express those needs can sometimes be challenging to work with because there can feel like a wall between them that prevents a more authentic connection. So I don't think there is a "perfect" way to be a client, and I think you can cause yourself a lot of unnecessary pain by trying. All you can do is be yourself and keep working through the things that brought you to therapy in the first place.

I mostly WA with her. But yes, some outside session contact few times a week.

I probably average 2 a week. Sometimes less, rarely more. It's been a process ironing out the boundaries around email and we still tweak it even after 2 years. I don't think he's dealt with someone who feels the need to email because he once said I was his email guinea pig. I don't expect a response from him but sometimes it still hurts when I don't get one. That's the last thing he wanted to tweak but we couldn't come to any conclusions on that. The majority of my emails to him are used as a coping mechanism when I've become emotional and can't stop crying.

Not very often. She doesn't do therapy by email. I've occasionally sent a brief email asking if I can send a longer one (like when we haven't met for a while due to illness), just to keep her abreast of what I'd been going through.

I do email my T and have emailed previous T's without an issue. T has said it's perfectly okay. I always say in the email if I want a response or not. It is a way for me to be real and let T know what I'm thinking or feeling, otherwise we wouldn't get a lot accomplished in therapy because I am prone to shutting down and hiding. And while I have not sent my current T an angry email, I have before with other T's and I understand your need to do that. I certainly don't think you're odd for doing so.

I agree that you need to have a discussion with him about it. My T has clearly laid out for me that my emailing her is okay. Maybe clarify with him and see what he says. I'm surprised that he mentioned other clients do not email him though. I wonder why he would tell you that? From what you said, though, it does sound like he is okay with you emailing and has outlined his policy of not responding on the weekend. Shows he has thought about the issue and has a plan in place.

I don't email my T for anything but scheduling issues. I don't know if T allows it, I haven't asked. For me it's important to work on face to face communication.

There are some people here who email their Ts regularly and find it helpful. There are others who run into problems when they email. It seems like the important thing is to talk to your T about what is appropriate out-of-session contact, how much is okay and what kind of reply to expect.

I have to say that we are not a truly representative bunch when it comes to therapy. Many , many folks here have attachment issues and abandonment issues so have different expectations than the once a week therapy with outside therapy contact limited to scheduling or the occasional second session for a specified amount of time. In this part of the country if you need much more than that then it's iop or partial hospitalization.

I have learned from this site that therapist do their client a great disservice when they agree to more service and then over time decide it's too much stuff and tighten boundaries or cut back. It's always the client that gets intensely hurt and that is maddening for me to witness here.

I try to only email once a week. I'm also her only client that writes emails to her.

I’ll weigh in here. Obviously, I do not know the whole story and I could be very wrong but here’s my take on the situation: It seems to me like he was very hurt by your angry email message in which you attacked his ability as a therapist. That’s understandable as he is only human and, especially, if deep down he felt parts of your email message were actually true about him. However, instead of working on or managing his anger with himself regarding your email, he took it out on you by letting you know you are an isolated case of a client who emails. He most likely knew in advance that this information (you being the only one who emails) would hurt you...no one wants to feel like an isolated case of anything in an already tough world. It seems like he was trying to get back at you. This could maybe also explain how it was easy for him to be “incredibly nice” to you and especially if he maintained a caring and gentle tone of voice and a high level of attentiveness throughout the session. In short, you both hurt each other. How you both move forward will make all the difference...the words will matter greatly. I wish you all the best.

I used to, it was good for me. Then she said I shouldn’t because of data protection, a cop out basically! I can email and just say hi, miss you but nothing deep of pages of content.

If my therapist has an email account she doesn't give it out, so no I don't email my therapist because it's not possible.

But most of the time I am glad, not being able to email her takes away all the anxiety of "should I email her?" and that is something that I would obsess on WAY to much.

I wonder if we self-select here as a group who is comfortable in writing? I completely relate to why you wrote an angry email, and why you retracted it too.

All emails to my providers become part of my chart.

That makes so much sense- great post

Yeah, I would agree that this is definitely not a random sample of therapy clients. People here are probably more comfortable than average expressing themselves in writing and also have or had a longer/more intense/more affecting (in a good way or a bad way) experience in therapy.

I will say that my wife, who mostly talks about present-day work and family stuff in therapy and doesn't have attachment or trauma issues, doesn't contact her therapist for anything except scheduling. But I can tell that occasionally she's a little jealous about my ability to contact my T when something stressful is going down in our lives. So just because people don't do it doesn't mean that they wouldn't like the option. My outside contact started out of pure necessity and now it has become a therapeutic tool, but I don't think everybody hits that low point the way I did.

Thank you for reassuring me that I’m normal. He is a psychodynamic therapist specializing in relationship issues so I’d assume he’s dealt with attachment issues before, but I guess I’m not sure. He has pretty clear boundaries around email written in the introductory info he gave me when we first met. He specifically says he’ll respond Mon-Thurs during working hours. I sort of boldly (for me anyway) asked why he won’t respond on weekends as that seems to be when I need him most. I already understand that he deserves a break from work and shouldn’t be required to be there for me 24/7, but was interested in hearing how he’d respond. I was surprised that he seemed uncomfortable with that question and I even asked him if my question made him uncomfortable to which he replied, “yes,” saying that no one had ever asked him that before. He almost seemed like he started to talk himself into saying that there may be a possibility that he’d make an exception for me, but I felt uncomfortable with that and changed the subject. I’m not sure he would ever really do that, but I know he thinks I have “relational trauma” as he calls it and am very independent, not comfortable asking for help, etc, so maybe that’s why.

I should clarify that he didn’t just tell me out of the blue that others don’t email him. I specifically asked, and so he answered. I was just shocked that his other clients don’t email. How could that be? It just made me feel so needy and in real life I’m the opposite of that. He didn’t make me feel bad about it at all. In fact he said something about how he thought my needs haven’t been taken care of (or something like that) so he thought email was good since it seemed important to me. I think he said he might not allow email for everyone even if they asked. I know the eventual goal for us is to be able to process emotional content together in person, but for now, I’m better at communicating via emails.

May I ask how you know you’re the only one who emails her? How did it come up?

I really don’t think he was hurt. The reason he told me I was the only one who emails is because I specifically asked. Otherwise I don’t think it would have come up. He hasn’t been defensive about anything at all. In fact when I sent an apology email after my initial angry rant he responded by saying that he definitely felt my anger and upset and distrust of him and that by not telling me how I affected him he would be concerned that he’d be showing that he wasn’t invested or was being dismissive of me. That was via email. Our actual visit was nice and we even laughed a bit when I told him he needs to give his clients a rule book about how to act in therapy.

So true. I like this.