Asking T to stop reading my emails

Today I told him that I didn’t think sending emails was helpful to me any more and that I’ve decided not to send them. He said he thought they had been helpful in the past and that I had been able to express myself in ways I never could in person and that it helped him understand me better. But if sending them caused shame and no longer felt helpful, then he didn’t want that. I think I was feeling shame because I could feel my face flush and my eyes water as I thought about how how intrusive my emails might have seemed (he said they were not) and how he said (after I asked) that his other clients don’t email with any significant content, only for scheduling. He thought maybe we were re-enacting something (maybe something with my parents) where I’d express a need for connection and not be heard. I said I didn’t need that any more and I didn’t want to give him the power to do that to me. He never once discouraged me from sending emails. In fact, he reminded me that that was our agreement- that I could send them and that he’d read them.

That sounds like a really brave conversation.

It’s so very hard when we want something badly and wish we didn’t.

I hope you’re able to determine which path is best for you and take it without regret or shame.

Your therapist seems to handle these situations beautifully.

Did he have any suggestions on how to work through this if it was a re-enactment? It would seem to me that you knowing he reads them without any kind of response at all is not enough for you to feel heard. I highly doubt I would feel heard by know that my T reads my emails.

His suggestion is that we talk about it in person during our sessions.

Stopping the emails may be part of the reenactment, too, as you mentioned power dynamics... Shame is such a yucky feeling.

Funny, my T once said I was the only one who emailed him like I did. I emailed him all the time to rescue me, or sometimes to connect with him, a child part wanting to play or share excitement. When he didn't email back, it felt like I didn't matter.

How did this get resolved for you? It feels like an impasse for me. I completely understand all the logical reasons for accepting that he isn’t going to respond, but I’m just angry about it anyway. His reasons all seem like lame excuses. He’s just taking the easy way out. I see him again in less than 4 hours and I’m up in the middle of the night stewing about this. I wish I had more time before our next appointment to calm down about this because right now I’m just livid and I don’t see how I’m ever going to feel ok about this. And on top of everything I told him I wasn’t going to email him any more (so I won’t) which feels like taking away one of the tools in my toolbox.

My need faded when my dependency on him faded. What he did/didn't do didn't have as much power over me anymore. So it just happened organically through the therapy work. This was a result, I believe, of his being a separate person from from me, not engaging in my patterns. Like your T is doing.

Maybe it would help to read about people pleasing, as that is a form of dependency on others.. He's not playing into your pattern-he's being a separate person from you.

Your anger is understandable. I think its easier for your T to just respond to your emails than to handle your anger and help you resolve your dependency. He's helping you grow, rather than appease you, which I think is loving.

Like a parent who doesn't just give her kid candy because the child is crying about it, going on and on about it, bugging Mom.

I think when you access the feelings under the anger, it will make more sense. You still have not accessed those feelings.

Well I just got mad at him for the first time. I’ve just left his office, so I’m still processing it all.

Might be a good thing to finally be angry with him.

People who had trauma try to control their environment/people, though normally out of awareness. Your T does not engage with you, so it makes sense you may be taking actions, such as stopping the emails, to try to regain control.

Just about anyone gets very angry when the other does not engage in their patterns, so your T is probably expecting you to be angry. The thing is, people don't change if they are able to control the environment. When the environment refuses to cooperate, a person has no choice but to change (or to quit therapy).

This ^ is probably what the email issue is really about all this time? So it seems like you are connecting with that aspect of your past as those types of things are underneath the anger.

Hope the anger energy takes you to a better place. Hopefully letting out some steam will vent some of the frustration that's been building. Take care.

Yes he was totally and completely expecting the anger. I’d say he was even pleased by it. I can understand and appreciate your explanations of the theory behind why he has done what he’s done, but I also can’t help but feel like he was messing with me and trying to provoke anger in me. It feels like he was playing games or like a was just a subject in a study.

absolutely agree^^^ this is such a good point to make and one i often wonder is a major element leading to the reasons why some clients tend to get stuck in this particular and similar painful dynamics in therapy.

this definilty was a similar occurrence in my therapy with the relationship with my T, but the way i experienced it is a bit differnt to you. i didn't see it as my ex-T who was not engaging in my patterns, but it was me who made the conscious choice to no longer give into what i started to perceive as the 'head games' or ways to manipulate and elicit my reactions to the decisions he was making in our work together (i.e. saying he would no longer respond to emails or other means of what experienced as withdrawing from the relationship or simply as unhealthy reenactments of my early childhood). his power and hold over me diminished as my strong transference reactions calmed, and the importance and need for him being a central part of my life began to diminish as well. this allowed me to finally address the issues i needed to address in my therapy and make positive progress without continuously getting mixed up in the transference/counter transference drama loop that often was being reenacted between us in the relationship.