[Glowworm80]

What are your T's boundaries regarding outside contact or messaging them? I can email and text my T if I need to but I struggle to understand what that actually means. I have used it a few times but mainly only for scheduling purposes. There has never been any issues on the rare occasion I did message and they were always brief and to the point. I keep strict boundaries myself so would never impede on his personal life or time outside office hours regardless of the purpose of the text and would never expect a lengthy conversation which I think he is aware of. I do have an intense desire to message him at certain times for one reason or another mainly connection and attachment but have had difficulty doing so. It ends up causing me a lot of pain. Lately I have felt that although he wants to make sure boundaries are maintained that he thinks reaching out to him when I need to is a good thing but I am not sure if this is the case. I asked him this and he just skirted around the question and made a reference to me not worrying so much about boundaries and leaving that up to him. I'm not entirely sure what that means and it's confusing trying to figure out when might be okay and not. Has anyone else had a similar experience?

[DP_2017]

What I'd say he means, he would tell you if it's too much or you are crossing boundaries. However, it IS good you are making your own, with attachment issues, that is very helpful. I speak from experience.

Mine has unlimited access to him in any form BUT he wont always answer... and he never answers on weekends, holidays or evenings (unless its related to my evening session) and I limit myself the best I can because I can't stand being ignored and because I need to create my own boundaries for my sanity. attachment is bad enough without being sucked in too much.

Sounds like you and your T are doing good with this. I get the need to want to reach out more though... but it's good you are able to have the strength to fight the urge.

[Glowworm80]

Originally Posted by DP_2017

What I'd say he means, he would tell you if it's too much or you are crossing boundaries. However, it IS good you are making your own, with attachment issues, that is very helpful. I speak from experience.

Mine has unlimited access to him in any form BUT he wont always answer... and he never answers on weekends, holidays or evenings (unless its related to my evening session) and I limit myself the best I can because I can't stand being ignored and because I need to create my own boundaries for my sanity. attachment is bad enough without being sucked in too much.

Sounds like you and your T are doing good with this. I get the need to want to reach out more though... but it's good you are able to have the strength to fight the urge.

Thanks DP... I think you might be right in your interpretation. If this is the case though doesn't this approach just set me up for inevitable rejection. I mean who knows where the boundary lies? I'll only find out when or if I cross it and then it will lead to more pain? This doesn't seem right to me..
Any other relationship professional or personal I am very good at understanding and knowing the boundaries so it's not something I generally have difficulty with yet in this case I am completely thrown.... I do have difficulty reaching out to others so do wonder if this is one thing it would help with.

[DP_2017]

Honestly one thing I've learned in therapy. There will be rejection. They just tend to be more gentle about it than most

[Jazz1971]

Originally Posted by Glowworm80

Thanks DP... I think you might be right in your interpretation. If this is the case though doesn't this approach just set me up for inevitable rejection. I mean who knows where the boundary lies? I'll only find out when or if I cross it and then it will lead to more pain? This doesn't seem right to me..

Any other relationship professional or personal I am very good at understanding and knowing the boundaries so it's not something I generally have difficulty with yet in this case I am completely thrown.... I do have difficulty reaching out to others so do wonder if this is one thing it would help with.

I think a lot of therapists sometimes do set clients up for unnecessary pain when it comes to emails and texting. Rather than being upfront about what they can and can't offer as an additional service, these therapists use vague language and are even condescending about how the limits will be set (allowing or not allowing email, for instance). Boundaries are usually set naturally, regardless of the relationship. If a therapist offers their email to clients, they should explain when they're available and what they can do. If I asked my T if I could email them, I'd want more of an answer than they'd worry about boundaries. To me, that says that he doesn't really know the answer.

we live in different countries so all we have is outside contact. we text and email and call each other. it doesnt matter what time of day. she reads them when she has time. we talk on the phone a couple times a week.

[emeraldheart]

My T allows me to e-mail and text him outside of sessions. He encourages me to write if I am having a difficult time. He sometimes mentions that he feels partly responsible for opening up this box of trauma, and that he wouldn’t want to leave me completely alone with it during the week.

I email once in a while. I don’t text because nothing has been too urgent so far. He replies most of the time. I mostly make it a point not to expect a response from him so I don’t get disappointed. It’s worked so far for me and I don’t feel hurt during the times, albeit very rarely, that he doesn’t respond.

[abusedtoy]

This applies to my case:
"But many therapists flex the boundaries in working with dissociative identity disorder and I agree wholeheartedly with that: you can’t cram 50 parts of the personality into 50 minutes; you can’t squeeze the trauma of disorganised attachment into six sessions. And in most therapeutic dyads, contact between sessions is part of the contract: it is hard for dissociative survivors, especially when in crisis, to contain their distress without support or a ‘safe haven’ for 7 long days and 7 even longer nights. And working with it is prolonged work, and intense work, and many of us have missed out on a raft of tiny but normal human interactions so that being offered a cup of tea can model self-care and comfort and nurture a thousand times faster than talking about it ever will. Perhaps this is why therapy in the private sector seems so much better equipped to work with dissociative identity disorder, where individual therapists can take thoughtful risks and work according to their own clinical judgement rather than being constrained by policies and procedures and risk assessments that at times seem designed to safeguard the institution more than they are there to empower the disempowered."

[DP_2017]

OP

I would say, just keep doing what you are doing, with your own limits and on those times when you are struggling... write about it. You can either bring it to session and discuss all those thoughts in person or you may find in a few days time, its not such an issue anymore

OR

IF you really want to do more contact, although you seem content with things on your post, just outright ask... with an example... if I was to text you on a weekend, would you reply? something like that.... good luck and be prepared for rejection, it sucks but its a part of life and sadly a part of therapy

[ElectricManatee]

I think that if you're confused, you should keep talking about it. My T thinks that learning to reach out and having the experience of being heard and supported is an important part of my therapy, so I'm allowed to call or email her whenever I feel the need. (She probably trusts my judgment/discretion more than I do, and so far she hasn't ever seemed to think I shouldn't have reached out when I have.)

My T has said a similar thing about letting her worry about her boundaries. I think it's because at first I wanted a very concrete list of what to do and what not to do in order to keep her happy. She wanted me to practice a more fluid approach of trusting myself and trusting her to navigate things together. She is an incredibly steady and generous person, and so far our relationship has been a very healing experience. Hopefully your T can clarify his thinking about allowing you to contact him and you can work out what that looks like together.

[elisewin]

I can message her as much as I want, sometimes it is almost daily, sometimes maybe weekly. She always answers. Often it is just something small, just to stay in touch. I muchly appreciate her being there for me.

[abusedtoy]

My T is the best T I ever have in my life. Feeling blessed!

Emails--my T actively invited me to email her whenever I need between sessions and said that there is no boundary. She has reassured of this many times. She gave me the email address of hers without me asking too.

SMS--my T has promised actively, without me asking that she would always respond to my text messages to her. Sometimes she maybe slow in replying, but she has clarified that she cares about me, just that she needs the time to think sometimes in how to reply me, which makes sense. She actively invited me that it is okay to text her many times. The first ever SMS I have received was from her and not me also.

Phone--my T would phone in unconditionally, sometimes would last for over an hour of phone call conversation, in times of crisis to calm me down and even when she is sick, she has actively offered support still to me via video phone call.

[elisewin]

I also want to add that the outside contact has been really valuable to me. It has not made me any more dependant or agonizing over communication that is naturally not always perfect. Instead it has made me more secure and more trusting and self sufficient. Unless it is something really urgent I save all the hard stuff and problems for sessions. To me the contact itself is therapeutic, not the content of it so much.

[BudFox]

The confusion around outside contact seems common, and i think it's a symptom of core dysfunction in therapy relationships. The focus on boundaries is a red herring. The focus ought to be on how the structure of therapy leads

And yes I found it was a setup for various rejections and humiliations that served no purpose.

[elisewin]

I don't see the need for confusion. Talk, talk and talk as long as there is confusion what is ok and what is not. Ask what you need/want and what is possible/doable as long as there is confusion over the subject. Every relationship has boundaries.

[TeaVicar?]

It's confusing isn't it? I could call my therapist if I was in crisis but I never really knew what that meant. I translated 'crisis' as being about to end my life. So I never did call him, despite being really very desperate at times, feeling suicidal and wanting to self harm or actually doing it. More recently I did push him on it and tried to get him to define it a bit more. He wasn't really keen but it seems that I probably could have called him and I didn't need to be about to end my life - it would have been too late by then anyway. Even more recently he's agreed to letting me email him during the break but it's also agreed that he won't respond.

The anxiety around being rejected is a big part of therapy I think. Maybe you need to experience it from him. As a therapist he should be gentle and kind with maintaining boundaries. It's hard to trust though, isn't it?

[feralkittymom]

I'm not a fan of e-mail and text, period. But phone contact has always been available and valuable to me. I think all contact has a practical side, and the logistics of it need to be made clear--how to contact, times, and response options. And I agree that "in an emergency" isn't really helpful because the line is ambiguous when you're in the middle of it. My T's answering service always asked if it were an emergency, and I'd never know what to say. My T told me to just say that I needed to speak with him. Made life a lot simpler. But beyond that, contact represents a need, and I don't think it's productive to try to regulate need. Unmet needs will and should show themselves in the course of the therapy process; squelching them can be counter productive. But I think it helps to recognize that any shortcoming in response--timing, content, whatever--may feel like rejection, but more often than not, is not rejection. It seems like a lot of the anxiety experienced around "boundary issues" comes from conflating what it feels like with what it is.

[ElectricManatee]

Email is more helpful than phone for me in certain circumstances because I can go back to what I said/felt at the time and what my T said and try to integrate the two halves. It's easier to hold onto both sides with email compared to something more ephemeral like a phone call where my emotions are so strong and I'm likely to mostly forget the supportive things my T says. But if I'm really upset or need to work through something or need to feel the connection more, then phone is still the way to go for me.

[WishfulThinker66]

I can understand the conundrum. You don't want to put your T in an unprofessional situation. I agree with this. But I also agree with others that this needs to be sorted out with the T including the offering of concrete examples of what is appropriate and what is not.

[Whalen84]

Originally Posted by Jazz1971

I think a lot of therapists sometimes do set clients up for unnecessary pain when it comes to emails and texting. Rather than being upfront about what they can and can't offer as an additional service, these therapists use vague language and are even condescending about how the limits will be set (allowing or not allowing email, for instance). Boundaries are usually set naturally, regardless of the relationship. If a therapist offers their email to clients, they should explain when they're available and what they can do. If I asked my T if I could email them, I'd want more of an answer than they'd worry about boundaries. To me, that says that he doesn't really know the answer.

I'm going through this crap right now. It definilty feels like a set up. I can hardly deal with this pain. Thank God I have my husband. I couldn't do this alone I feel so betrayed