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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 04:00 AM
  #1
The therapist has always allowed outside contact. I could text her about pretty much anything, and if I'm struggling, I could reach out to her for a call. She would occasionally feel spammed and that it's too much. During those instances, she would get upset with me, but wouldn't necessarily deny giving me a call.

Last month, she felt suffocated by my high need for outside contact, and that played out in one of our therapy meetings. We decided to take a two week break partly because she said that she couldn't be a therapist to me while she was feeling overwhelmed. She also said that some changes needed to happen, but that it wouldn't be rigid or absolute. She said that we would work together to figure out outside contact, but that her ultimate goal is work towards no outside contact. That sounded to me like any changes we make would be a gradual transition. The therapist and I have also always been able to come together to talk and work things out.

But after we returned from our break, the therapist seemed to have changed her stance, and enforced no contact right off the bat rather than working together on a gradual transition. We did agree on one message of no more than five sentences, but she said that that wasn't what she had in mind. She said that she agreed to it just to give me a sense that we're working together.

For one, I don't want to have the mere sense that we're working together; I want us to be genuinely working together to figure it out like she reassured me that we would before we went for our break. Furthermore, one message of no more than five sentences over the weekend was actually her idea a couple of weeks before we went on a break.

On one hand, I understand that the therapist is observing her limits in order to preserve our therapy work and relationship, but at the same time, I feel "cheated." I was holding on to her reassurance that any changes would be gradual and that we would figure it out together. But instead of a gradual transition, we're going from being able to text her about anything and having a call if I'm struggling to no contact or her reluctance of one message of no more than five sentences. I feel like I'm suddenly being thrown into the deep end of the pool.

I was backreading on some threads about outside contact. It seems like most of your therapists allow outside contact and encourage you to reach out if needed. Some of you are worried about disturbing your therapist, but it seems like most of your therapists reassures you that they would observe their own limits and boundaries – such as saying "no" if they can't talk in that moment, setting the length of the conversation, et cetera. This seems like a better alternative to me than a rigid or absolute rule across the board of no contact.

Anybody care to weigh in?
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 04:09 AM
  #2
I am not a fan of outside contact because i think it blurs the lines between client and therapist.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 05:11 AM
  #3
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Originally Posted by mindmechanic View Post
I was backreading on some threads about outside contact. It seems like most of your therapists allow outside contact and encourage you to reach out if needed. Some of you are worried about disturbing your therapist, but it seems like most of your therapists reassures you that they would observe their own limits and boundaries – such as saying "no" if they can't talk in that moment, setting the length of the conversation, et cetera. This seems like a better alternative to me than a rigid or absolute rule across the board of no contact.

Anybody care to weigh in?

My T is like what you said at the end...if they can’t talk to me at that moment,then they won’t. But as soon as they can they will, especially if I am struggling.

Please don’t see this as me making excuses for them because I am definitely not, the client is the vulnerable party in the relationship for sure. With the pandemic ongoing it really really seems like many therapists are struggling. Struggling with themselves, their boundaries, even their professions. Of course we as clients are struggling more too, and I am aware that more people are seeking therapy now than ever before, so I assume therapists workload has increased because of everything. My own T used to be available at many different times if I had to change my appointment, and now they only had one hour to fit me in.

I think when things ease off they will be able to relax the boundaries a little, can you still contact her if it’s a crisis? I think that is the most important thing to have at the moment, she needs to still be there for you.

Can you tell her how you are feeling about it all? It might not change anything, but I don’t think some therapists understand how important this is to us.

The problem with Therapists saying these things to clients, is that it sort of puts a lot on us...like should we try to keep them ‘safe’ by not contacting them outside session? Will they resent us for doing so? Will we be ok without it? Does it feel like abandonment or issues we have struggled with in the past? Ideally a client shouldn’t have to consider the Ts feelings in this way. But nothing is ideal at the moment, and I trust that everyone is doing the best the can.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 07:32 AM
  #4
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She said that we would work together to figure out outside contact, but that her ultimate goal is work towards no outside contact.
I think this encapsulates the tension. "Her ultimate goal" and yet it is not her therapy and nor is this one of your stated goals. Obviously, she needs to uphold her boundaries and no outside contact is a common boundary, but her framing of the work in this way is painful for you and minimises your needs. Sometimes our pain is immense and it can't be contained in a hour a week slot - she should be gentle and careful with your position. I feel for you, this is really hard.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 07:56 AM
  #5
i am sorry your therapist changed things. Thats always so hard. My first therapist did that, and i was devastated. After about a year of allowing phone calls (probably once every two weeks, maybe less) she told me on the phone that there would be no more phone calls. I lost a lot of trust in her, even though I knew she was just taking care of herself. I guess it was how she told me, and her tone. I felt like a burden on her, and I felt so guilty.

This therapist and I text a few times a week, no always about therapy, sometimes its just “heres a funny picture that made me think of you” or asking a question about therapy. I try to be very careful to not overwhelm her. She and I already spend a lot of time together, so I dont want her to have to change boundaries on me.

Have you and your therapist talked about this since then?
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 09:41 AM
  #6
This is really hard.

Why do some T's expect the client to do something they themselves couldn't or didn't do? We come to therapy with all kinds of issues often with boundaries being one of them. How could they reasonably expect us to keep their boundary? Why isn't the T the one the responsible for maintaining this boundary as well? Sometimes I wonder if they are giving themselves an out if treatment fails. The client communicated too much instead of them not enforcing clearer boundaries.

Additionally, therapy is a relationship so there can be room for this dance or coming closer with more contact in times of need and a reestablishing of a more typical communication pattern for your particular treatment. I do not have the answers but understand it's painful. Hopefully T's will really listen and work WITH the client to get back on track. Not just slam the door shut with some declaration that now it's too much. It would be great to have conversations along the way instead of it just one day being a big problem with a painful solution. Maybe your going to one shorter contact was your T's attempt at that. Idealy the working toward no outside contact could go at a pace both agree with and tolerate well. When my T and I go through this it's scary to me.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 09:53 AM
  #7
The entire profession is set up to induce this sort of dependence and then those people who set the game up, can't handle what they have done and blame clients.
The truth is those people don't know what they are doing - they may or may not be ill-intentioned -but therapy is not a real science and they play with fire but unfortunately, it is the client who suffers - not the offending therapist. I would suggest breaking out of the system altogether as it is simply there to keep you subservient.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 10:06 AM
  #8
I'm really sorry this happened to you. I've had similar experiences with ex-T and ex-MC, and it's incredibly painful. It's not right for them to abruptly change the rules like that.

Out of curiosity, does your T charge at all for outside contact? My current T does for emails (or texts, but he mainly just uses that for scheduling) that take longer than 15 minutes for him to respond to, or if there are a bunch in a couple weeks' time (like a whole bunch of short ones). Though he's generally waived that since the pandemic started (I do wonder if he'll charge me for some from Saturday, but we'll see...). But he said he does that so that he's getting paid for his time, which keeps him from resenting the extra contact.

It did bother me at first that he charged for it (ex-T and ex-MC did not), but then I came to understand it. And it also helped me learn to limit contact somewhat--writing shorter emails and saying something like "no long response needed." Or if I *did* feel I wanted a longer response, saying "longer, paid response fine." But it made me think more about what I was really looking for and needed from the communication. Like "Is this worth potentially paying $45 or more for a longer reply? Can it just wait until session? Or should I request an extra or earlier session instead, which would be partly covered by insurance, where an email wouldn't?"

If you don't pay her for it (and could afford to pay some), I wonder if you could try offering that? Whether for a phone call, texts, etc. She may say no, that it's her policy not to do that, but still worth an offer.

I have talked to my T about concerns that he'd end up limiting contact, because of what happened with ex-T and ex-MC. Like what if he stopped allowing email entirely? He said it wouldn't be right for him to do that, because it was part of the initial agreement in working together. So he wouldn't. And that if it started to become an issue for him, then he'd talk to me about it early on, and we could figure it out together.


We also came up with a sort of traffic light signal for when I was sending enough brief emails that it could lead to a charge, so I'd ask "Am I in the yellow or the red right now?" and then I might base whether to send an email on that. I send email much less frequently lately, and they're much shorter (aside from this weekend), closer to the 5 sentences you mentioned. It's like I trained myself to reach out less often by saying "Do I really need this?" Or typing an email then putting it in drafts.

I guess another thing with my T is that he generally only replies to emails in the mornings (unless it's, say, a scheduling or payment issue). He's made a few exceptions (one that ended up in a big rupture, but that's another story), but his boundary tends to be replying in the morning only. So that helps me think "Is this something I might feel better about after I sleep on it?" Or if I'm typing it at, say, noon, see how I feel later? I'm mentioning this in part because it's something you could maybe suggest to your T. If, for example, you're used to her replying within a couple hours or even sooner if a text. Like, "What if you still allowed contact, but, assuming it's not a crisis, you could have a day to respond?"

Again, I really don't think it's fair that she did this to you, especially after saying she's willing to work on gradually reducing contact. I have to wonder if she got consultation/talked to a supervisor during the 2-week break, and that's what made her shift to suddenly "no contact"? Or maybe something's going on in her personal life? Or she's getting outside contact from many clients and is feeling burned out? If outside contact is important to you, could you consider a different T?

I will say, even though many people here mention their T's allowing outside contact and being pretty relaxed about the amount, there are many T's out there who do not allow it. I know that's the case for a couple of my friends' T's. And some T's I looked into when I had the rupture with my current T didn't allow it at all. Or they might allow in a crisis only, or that a client could send an email, and they'd read it but not reply. So it's not universal. And it sadly seems to happen fairly often that a T will allow unlimited contact then suddenly get overwhelmed and shut it down or limit it severely. It seems like a pattern.

I'd try talking to your T more about it, maybe suggest a plan of "OK, for the next month, I'm allowed x, then that will reduce to y the month after that..." something to that effect? And the offer to pay? She may say no to all of those things, then you'd have decisions to make...

ETA: Sorry for the novel! But this is a topic I have a fair amount of experience with, as you can see.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 10:13 AM
  #9
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Originally Posted by stopdog View Post
The entire profession is set up to induce this sort of dependence and then those people who set the game up, can't handle what they have done and blame clients.
The truth is those people don't know what they are doing - they may or may not be ill-intentioned -but therapy is not a real science and they play with fire but unfortunately, it is the client who suffers - not the offending therapist. I would suggest breaking out of the system altogether as it is simply there to keep you subservient.
I think this is really important and I agree with it. Individual therapists might not be deliberately or maliciously aiming to hurt clients, but the business of therapy is inherently unequal.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 10:30 AM
  #10
In some ways, I blame myself. I have a problem of destructively spamming the therapist – one message after another. Things had been going extremely well between us, but I had a disturbing dream in December that made me push her away. I wrote to her that "if I can't have you, I'd kill you." A couple of days later, we ran into each other in the parking lot in her office. In my deep state of pain, that statement was an expression of how it's painful to desire her yet not really be able to have her. But I sent that message over the weekend when she's resting and it felt to her like a threat rather than an expression – especially after it was followed by us running into each other in the parking lot by her office building. I had dissociated and lost touch of who she is, and dropped by the area to try and regain some connection. I have been doing that since the lockdown started because of the pandemic; the therapist knows this. Logically, she understands, but emotionally, it had an impact on her.

Yeah; it is upsetting to me that the therapist strayed away from the spirit of us coming together to work things out with the approach of a gradual transition. She said that she consulted with three advisors. One advisors told her to terminate me. I feel very bad about myself.

Before therapy, I felt strong and independent. But when I'm in therapy, I become attached to the therapist, weak, and like a baby. I hate it; I really do. The therapist said that maybe my need for outside contact is valid and that I deserve it, but that she has to observe her limits and boundaries. She said that she rarely takes such a firm approach, but she has to now. She said that she needs space because she feels suffocated. It makes me feel like I have traumatized her because any message from me – even positive contact that brought us closer in connection – now seems off putting to her.

It seems that time and time again, I work up to an intense point with a therapist, something major happens, and the therapist gets overwhelmed or scared of me and terminates. In this case, the therapist didn't terminate, but she came up with an abrupt and strict rule. I wish that therapists could be more composed and help guide rather than come down hard like that when things get hard. The therapist even gave me an ultimatum that one spamming would mean termination. She later seemed to change her mind and said she wouldn't know what she would do.

I feel that my therapist works very hard. She felt like she needed a break during the pandemic, but held it off because she felt that her patients needed her. In the same way, she always gave a call back even when she was needing rest. I think that she's very committed to helping patients and wanted to be available to me that she didn't observe her limits and boundaries and say "no." In the one year and six months of our working together, if she had said "no" sometimes when I needed a call and she felt like she needed rest, perhaps things would not have built up and led to one big "no" or an abrupt rigid rule now. My former therapist could ignore me, but this therapist feels like she can't ignore me because she doesn't want my messages to fall into a void.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 10:55 AM
  #11
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I wrote to her that "if I can't have you, I'd kill you."
Perhaps this is less of an issue about contact between sessions and more of an issue about threatening actions.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 11:34 AM
  #12
After reading your first post, I felt sympathy, but after reading the next one I must say I understad your T. Maybe "gradually" was not a good thing for her to have said, but if you had sent her a message of "killing her if you can't have her" and stalked her in the parking lot I totally understand her wanting to have zero outside contact, I am sorry. Many would have terminated you for that.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 11:48 AM
  #13
They do get a little twitchy about threats.
However, I also think some of that is on them - often they tell clients - "you can say anything, the polite norms don't apply here" (or some version of that) - and that I think can lead to confusion about the situation

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 11:49 AM
  #14
I did not realize that my message came across as a threat to her. Had I known that she felt it as a threat, I would have backed off and probably would not have gone to the town where her office is at or drop her a note that I would be going there to find some grounding in the here and now in my dissociative state. I rarely dissociate, but I had dissociated for a few days at that time. I am very withdrawn and don't go out to many places, but taking a walk around the neighborhood or town where the therapist's office is one of my go to places. The last time I dissociated before the lockdown, the therapist and I walked a trail by her office. I went by to walk that trail. But I see how it came across as stalking after my initial comment.
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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 02:09 PM
  #15
My T is similar to yours. But she eventually had to stop outside contact because it was becoming a boundary and a safety issue. She said that if I sent an email at 3PM saying I was going to hurt myself, and she didn’t see the email until 6PM and I did something, it could be a liability. I was just asking for a lot of reassurance in my emails to her and also I had sent a lot of ones talking about self harm. So I do now understand where she’s coming from. We made a safety plan and I do think the sessions have been more productive without the emails and she seems less frustrated by me now.

But before when I first met with her she said “call me whenever you need me.” And then when we went to virtual it was “email me whenever you need to as much as you need to.”

And she had said we could talk about anything

So I guess I just didn’t understand her.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 02:33 PM
  #16
It does seem like therapists change their boundaries on this quite a lot. I had one T that let me email or text however much. She wouldn't necessarily respond but looking back I think it was unhealthy. With current T, I might text her once in between sessions (generally our sessions are every two weeks). This time I texted her twice back to back days. The first letting her know I was in crisis and having suicidal thoughts but that I was safe. The second was in response to her text to me this morning and letting her know today is going better than the past two days. She seems fine with short texts. Though if I texted her all the time I think that would be a problem. She has told me before when I have to call her. Like if I am suicidal and I have a plan and I've already called three people and I'm not feeling better then the next step is calling her. I think it's all about safety.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 03:01 PM
  #17
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Originally Posted by SlumberKitty View Post
It does seem like therapists change their boundaries on this quite a lot. I had one T that let me email or text however much. She wouldn't necessarily respond but looking back I think it was unhealthy. With current T, I might text her once in between sessions (generally our sessions are every two weeks). This time I texted her twice back to back days. The first letting her know I was in crisis and having suicidal thoughts but that I was safe. The second was in response to her text to me this morning and letting her know today is going better than the past two days. She seems fine with short texts. Though if I texted her all the time I think that would be a problem. She has told me before when I have to call her. Like if I am suicidal and I have a plan and I've already called three people and I'm not feeling better then the next step is calling her. I think it's all about safety.
Yeah they change their boundaries a lot. I had a T who gave me her email and said it was fine to email her. So I did and then awhile later she got mad and accused me of getting her email from the internet even though she had given it to me and was fine for a long time about it.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 03:49 PM
  #18
How many people who contact their Ts have discussions with thr T about it in the beginning?

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 04:04 PM
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How many people who contact their Ts have discussions with thr T about it in the beginning?
With former T she said I could email her when she was on vacation. Then she found that I opened up way more on email than in person so she suggested we continue email in addition to in person therapy.

With current T, she texted me first but we didn't have a discussion about it. So we just text approximately once between sessions and it hasn't been an issue thus far.

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Default Feb 03, 2021 at 04:05 PM
  #20
From a client perspective I can see why you feel the way you feel and I can completely empathise.

But from a health professional perspective I also understand why your T may feel she needs to cut the contact. I would personally think she shouldn't have allow the contact level to get overwhelming to what her limits would be, a good therapist should have a good idea of their own limits regarding boundaries. I don't think it is ethical to experiment that on clients, you should learn that whilst training, and going through your own therapy.

That's just my opinion. I think outside contact is a very grey area. Managed well it can be useful, but often times can be damaging if not managed properly. As professional I lean towards restricting contact to a minimum, but I do allow contact, of the case is I allow clients to email/text whatever, but I also tell them, I may not reply, or it will only be a very short reply, not that I'm ignoring them, we will discuss it during our next session. Of course unless it is a crisis, which is what I will decide base if it is or not by what I'm presented with. That's my way of working.

As a client, what I experience with other Ts. They operated similarly.
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My Support Forums

My Support Forums is the online community that was originally begun as the Psych Central Forums in 2001. It now runs as an independent self-help support group community for mental health, personality, and psychological issues and is overseen by a group of dedicated, caring volunteers from around the world.

 

Helplines and Lifelines

The material on this site is for informational purposes only, and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment provided by a qualified health care provider.

Always consult your doctor or mental health professional before trying anything you read here.