Asking T to stop reading my emails

This makes perfect sense to me. He did a power move, now you want to do one back. To me, what I see from being over here, this is part of the problem. His argument that his responses were not helpful seems weak given what he is currently doing, isn't helping (completely) either. So where's the compromise or the better ground?

His argument that it's too difficult for him to tell which emails need responses and which ones don't also seems like he's taking away your ability to be even more clear about your needs. (Actually, I see it as a cop out.) Maybe he doesn't need to make that distinction, maybe he could leave it in your hands to tell him when a response would be nice or you think would be helpful. Wouldn't that be the healthier way to deal with this impasse anyway. He has owned up to his discomfort of not knowing how to determine which emails need responses and which ones don't. Seems to me, the logical step would be to say ok, then it's up to me to say which ones I want a response to and which ones I don't... and even within that, which ones a simple, got it would be enough and which ones I'd like more of a response. He could then determine ok a got it email, I'll charge x or not charge at all while a longer email I will charge y or maybe still not at all. Also, I will only respond between x and y hours on z days. This doesn't mean he has to agree to responding. He can hold the line of 'no' and to some degree that is completely is right to decide. He is selling a service after all and what he chooses to sell is his time (and yes he uses his skills during that time). He could decide he doesn't have any more time to sell, in other words, his schedule is full.

However, you ultimately have the power here in deciding how you'll be treated. You are paying this person to do a job that, as I understand it, somehow initially included email communications as part of the agreement (you could call it a contract). He is now no longer willing to perform that duty. As your employee, is that acceptable to you?

As a clinician, is that acceptable to you - can you trust that the pains it is causing you at this moment are healing pains and not damaging pains? What do they feel like to you? Again, from over here, it sounds more damaging at this time in your life; however, I don't know the full picture so, you'll have to make that decision yourself, in some way. I know coming here is part of the process of deciding for you - getting different people's perspectives and some venting.

As an adult in a relationship with another adult (that is supposed to be about equals); how do you typically determine if a relationship is healthy for you or toxic for you? How do you address those areas of friction? What leads you to decide you've had enough - can you leave relationships that may not be toxic but are not being helpful?

As a therapist/guide/coach, are you usually a person that response better with pressure/pushing or with support and praise (are you a carrot or stick motivated person)? Are you at a place of mental stability to handle being pushed or is that pushing eroding away at the foundation that is you?

Also, how is his behavior being a good example of how you'd like to be within relationships? On one hand, he is showing you how one may can change their mind on what is and is not acceptable to them; to declare a boundary and stick to it; and how to own a mistake in the process without compromising the outcome. On the other hand, he is also being uncompromising to what feels like is an obstinate level simply because he can. In the face of the level of distress this brings you, his unwillingness to even consider changing tactics seems simply wrong to me and for me (see me talk about me here) would be damaging to the point of adding another traumatic scar in my psyche.

What is your initial gut response to the idea of not seeing him because you quit therapy with him (regardless if you start with someone else or not)? Panic, ambivalence, relief, ... ?

The way I see it, I think there are 2 camps when it comes to this situation - those clients that need to be responded to because they need to feel heard/seen; they need to know that it's ok to need/lean on another person; to depend on another person even when that other person isn't always available; and to learn what is "good enough" in their relationships. And those clients that need to have limited responses in order to foster independence; personal decision making; use of a larger support network (that is there for them); and general personal growth. Which side are you? I have my opinion based on what I have understood from your posts. You'll have to decide for yourself which side are you on - or if you even see it this way.

And of course there's other situations/clients where it's irrelevant, that this type of interaction doesn't have a therapeutic need either way.

I'm sorry this is long, I don't expect you to answer these questions, they were only presented as my thoughts and things that might be good for you to think about.

I appreciate your thoughtful response. At this point I’ve invested quite a bit of time in my relationship with my therapist and I do believe he’s a good person and that he cares about me, so I’d like to sweep this all under the rug because it would just be easier. I kind of feel like I’m being petty and demanding when I look at the big picture. Nevertheless I keep coming back to this.

I like what you said above about the 2 camps. If we look at it that way, I definitely fall into the first one where I don’t lean on others, so making this attempt with my T and being told no feels extra hurtful and makes me want to retreat which is my usual style anyway. It seems like he wanted me to get upset with him so that we could talk about how I’ve felt this kind of rejection in other places in my life. We sort of did that, but I still feel semi-annoyed with him. I told him that if I were to look for a new T I’d ask if they respond to emails right off the bat and he said I could do that but he hoped I wouldn’t.

Because I am independent, I can function just fine without my T’s responses. It’s just that I let myself feel connected to him and now it hurts because if I let down my walls and share something via email, it sometimes (not always) seems like I’m being pushed away, and who needs that? Maybe it would have been better to never have had the connection. So that’s where I am right now with all of this.

I've been in a similar place as you before. Not with my therapist, but psychiatrist. We didn't establish any ground rules before though. Email was our primary form of communication. No office phone or text, although he did give me both. He works in a hospital though, primarily doing ECT, so he's almost never in his office, doesn't have a secretary to take messages, and it feels weird texting — too personal, so I try to avoid it.

Long story short: there have been times I've been a little too excessive with the emails (not as frequently as you it sounds, but more than I normally would between sessions). A lot of times he would respond, usually within a reasonable amount of time, even weekends and in the evenings, but sometimes he hasn't, which (I'm not going to lie) has been anxiety-provoking and/or hurtful. I never brought it up to him, probably because it was too embarrassing that him not replying mattered so much on even the most trivial of things, including scheduling follow-up appointments. I just assumed and told myself that maybe he was too busy at the time or he was planning to address it next time we met. Over time, though, I was able to get a better feel for him and realize that he's a busy guy at work and has a wife and two kids outside of it, so sometimes he misses things or sees it and then gets distracted and forgets to go back to it. So, that's made it a little easier to tolerate.

But to reiterate as others have said: asking your therapist to not read your emails is ineffective at best and undermining at worse and could interfere with your (what sounds like generally) positive relationship and takes the control away from you, even though it might not seem like it. Also, as others have said, whatever is going on, some subconscious process is at play and I think it would behoove you to really dissect and talk about it in therapy. Obviously I don't know your life story, but maybe you had a tough childhood and one or both parents were absent or neglectful to your needs and because of this your attachment style in interpersonal relationships took a hit. In other words, maybe subconsciously you treat your therapist as one or both parents and get distressed when your needs aren't met i.e. reply to your emails.

Just my two cents anyway. Sorry for the novel.

I was reading this book called “How We Heal and Grow” by Jeffrey Smith and he talks about the therapist/ patient relationship and how it opens up hope for the inner child’s unmet needs to finally be satisfied and can manifest in ways that seem strange to us as adults. I wonder if this is maybe what’s going on?
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oh, I don't doubt that is some of what is going on. The question remains as to what is the best way (or maybe good enough therapeutic way) for specifically you and your relationship with your T to address this impasse.

I emailed him and asked him to please say that he wants me to come in tomorrow to talk about stuff in person and he did. Just a one-liner saying he absolutely did want me to come in and talk. Now I feel a mix of relief and guilt.

It doesn't sound like you did anything wrong or have anything you need to feel guilty about, but I know the feeling. I hope tomorrow goes well.

How about saving to draft? Reading the next day & then deciding.
I started doing that for work just to check spelling, grammar, complete thoughts. Was surprised how the next day that email was either a brilliant analysis of a situation (rare!!) or not even understandable to me!!!!! Then you have the option of delete, send or print. Re T stuff, I was able to pear down all the words and see the issue. My T doesn't like emails. He wants to 'see' the words. But writing something out when it happens, is definitely helpful.

As I think about this, I’m not sure how much I really want to stop emailing. I share so very little of what’s going on inside me with others and this feels like the safest way to start doing this. And my T has said that he completely welcomes it. Ideally I should also talk about these things in person which I am starting to do more of, and I should eventually expand this to other important people in my life. I think I’m starting to do this with my husband at least a little bit. Yesterday when my T sent a one-liner response it actually felt helpful and also helped me see him as less rigid. I see him in a few minutes so we’ll see how it goes in person.

I found this to be true, the opening up in writing first, then to being able to read in session what I wrote, to being able to talk about what was written with out having the paper in front of me. All the while, parts of this "openness" trickling out to my wife.

Did your T suggest you bring things in to read rather than send via email? I can see the benefit of that, but my T hasn’t suggested it. My emotions are much more muted in session than via email so maybe that would help.

No, my T invites me to email. I also journal that I share with her. I give her the journal and she reads it between sessions. You might want to see if he'd be willing to do that. It's another way I get to write to her whenever I want without emailing her and I know she still gets it. There are days where I write her almost every hour then other days that it's one summary at the end of the day or just a few sentences at some point during the day when something happens.

I read more from the journal than emails, and work my way up to talking about stuff in the emails. Lots and lots of times we never talk about what is in the emails. We often talk about what's in the journal because I bring it up. She very rarely directly initiates conversation about something that she's read. Sometimes something I say in session reminds her of something I wrote either in email or in journal and she'll comment about how whatever I said relates to what I wrote.

perhaps he is waiting for you to take the initiative....???

It wouldn’t even occur to me to “take the initiative “ in this particular way except that I’ve read about it on this forum.

How is it normally in your everyday life? Does it occur to you there to take initiative in terms of things you want for yourself?

In general I don’t think I have a problem with this. Maybe with respect to emotional stuff it might be more of an issue which is the whole reason I’m seeing a therapist. I don’t know what I don’t know and I’d hope that he would help me figure this out.

Sure, I wasn't trying to attack you. It's just that I had an association about myself when reading your statement about how at one point I discovered that indeed, other people have to offer things for me and only then it seems valid to me. When I want something myself then it's not that valid because maybe I'm actually not worth it or maybe my request is somehow wrong and I shouldn't even ask it. The fact that the other person offers it first, is kind of proof that I'm allowed to want it.

It could be totally different with you of course but because you said that it did not occur to you that taking an initiative would be an option then I somehow had this thought that maybe this pattern is wider.

I didn’t feel attacked by your comment, but I do feel a little stuck in my therapy at this moment and so your comment may have struck a nerve. Perhaps I heard it as you saying that if I just took initiative, it would all be better, and in the therapy world I’m not sure how to do that.

I can relate quite a bit to your statement. For example even my choice to go to therapy and in particular the type of therapy I’m doing can sometimes seem less valid because I chose it. This probably contributes to my ambivalence. Maybe I’m not even sure what is meant by “taking the initiative.” It seems like such a broad term.

I haven't been looking at the in session thread for a long time now, so I don't know if you've posted over there. In general, how do your sessions go? Do you feel like you lead the sessions or your T leads them? If you don't speak and are not in significant distress, how long will he let the silence go on, allowing you to sort out and sit with whatever is going on with you?

With my therapy, I completely lead and my T will let the silence go on for some time if she thinks I need the space to be with whatever is going on. So for me, taking the initiative is simply making the choice of how I want my therapy and sessions to go. Everything I do in my therapy, short of her statements that it's ok to email or call, is something I've initiated, asked for, or suggested. What holds you back from doing something that seems completely out of the box of what people think about when they think therapy? You say you feel stuck, it's your time, what would be an out of the box way of dislodging the block you seem to have found yourself in? Are there things you want to communicate or talk about but can't seem to find the words either at all or verbalize them in a way that sounds right? How else might you communicate those thoughts/ideas - music, drawing, diagramming, pictures, collage, movie clips, ...? Do you struggle with talking about something because of having too much attention on you at the time? If so, have you thought about doing another activity while talking about it - playing a game, going for a walk, coloring, hiding behind a pillow/blanket/furniture?

Again, it's your time and your therapy - why are you there, what are your goals, would doing worksheets be helpful, or other DBT/CBT type homework? If you think so, why not start on your own and bring them in to share with him?

Short of a few things, you don't need permission to do stuff in therapy.

btw, for what it's worth, I do find that time wise where you are in your therapy is one of the places where people often get into this weird space of ambivalence. It's like you've shared the big blahs of what stress brought you in, you feel heard and that often helps a lot even if the reason why you started therapy hasn't been resolved, you somewhat feel better, so, you start to wonder why continue. It's life after all. Yet you know you are not done - you know you haven't really figured out what/why/how of it... so you don't want to stop. And then any transference that might have come up has also started to play out so leaving a specific T starts to get weird - why do I want to leave or why am I staying, is it because ... and that list is varied and long.

Sorry for another long posts. Hope it helps.

In regards to that other situation I messaged you about, nope chickened out again. It's not easy, that's for sure. Might talk to my T about it today and see if she might be able to help in some way - though that is not usually her style.

Thanks, Elio. These are all helpful ideas/thoughts. I still hate leading my sessions, but I’ve gotten better at getting started. I’m still much better at doing all this via email. I’m not always in the mood during our sessions as I might be when I email, so it can be hard to figure out how to talk about certain things in session that I am able to bring up in email. Yesterday I left feeling like it was all pretty superficial so I felt frustrated afterwards, and I’m not exactly sure how to change that. I had brought up an issue with my in-laws in my email and we talked about it, but it didn’t feel especially helpful. I had also brought up some transference-related stuff in my email as I sometimes do but we didn’t talk about that at all because I just can’t find the words and I’m not sure if it’s important. He also has a vacation coming up which might not help.