Asking T to stop reading my emails

I'm not arguing with you, but I don't think what people do on Reddit is illustrative of the real world. And I don't feel sorry for anyone, T or not, who loses business because of how they do it. I don't care at all how T's do business and I think it's their responsibility to do so. If people want to hire a T who replies to emails, or fire a T because he doesn't it's a-ok with me. But I don't agree that emails in therapy are always a good idea or that if the client wants it, they can expect it, or that therapists have to do anything in any particular way. I just see this in a completely different way than you do, and I have my own business where my clients are quite fine with how I handle things because I am good at what I do, and I don't need to do things that are not useful to the work to brown nose anyone.

Well, I agree that we rarely see eye to eye, which is good for a robust forum discussion. You are arguing with me, but it makes me smile because I like the multiplicity of voices and views on the forum. It's the OP's decision how important a T attentive to email is to her, and what attentive means to her: reading only, reading and writing back. It might be a deal breaker for some on PC, and it might be the preference of others. I email my clients back not to "brown nose" them but because I am very invested in them and genuinely care to return an attention bid with a bid in return ( something my T stresses) , I get joy from their success and the web of relationships. It is all about a good, productive fit. You spend a whole lot of your daily time right here on social media for someone who doesn't think the pyschotherapist's group on Reddit isn't illustrative of people in the real world.

i'll admit I am not a fan of emailing your T in general. I think it sets up a murky boundary where the client thinks the T is always available and the T feels like they always have to be available.

I think if the T sets clear boundaries about emailing (and other outside contact), it can be OK. Like mine tells me he won't reply to any sort of contact after, say, 9 p.m. and that he usually replies in the morning. So I know that if I email him at 9:30 at night, I won't hear back till the next morning at the earliest. He doesn't reply as frequently on weekends unless it's more of a crisis situation. If he's going out of town, he'll let me know his email availability, such as, "I'll only be checking and replying once a day." Emails that take him longer than 15 minutes to read/reply to, he charges me for (short ones are free if not overly frequent). He only allows texts for scheduling. And with phone calls, just if they're scheduled.

I think those boundaries help me to know not to expect him to always be available. He's also said he'd let me know very early on if I was overdoing email, before the point where he would be upset, and we'd talk through it. He does always reply in some way, which I appreciate. The consistency really helps me.

I struggled more with ex-MC and ex-T, who didn't initially put any sort of limits on emails or texts. Ex-T usually didn't reply, and ex-MC did maybe half of the time. They never charged for any of it, including phone calls as long as 45 minutes with ex-MC. Then at one point, ex-T complained about how long my emails had gotten, and I felt crushed, because she'd never set any limits on them--so how could I know what was and wasn't OK? Ex-MC kept insisting that my contact level was fine (and refused to give me any sort of limits), then eventually said I had to reduce it. And texting (which I did more with ex-MC, only very rarely with ex-T) made it feel like he was more available than he was, and it would be frustrating if I texted him then didn't hear back for a day, because presumably he saw it.

I'm rambling now...I guess I'm just saying if limits are pretty clear, I think email with a T can be fine and also helpful. But with vague or inconsistent boundaries around outside contact, it can lead to issues.

I'm with you on this. I did so much better mentally when long term T when I decided not to do them anymore and with baby T not doing them at all. I never felt needy or dependent with them etc. It's a easy road to get stuck on.

You are correct, I am arguing with you. Perhaps the line between saying what I think and arguing is not as clear as I thought.

However, you are not correct with what you think you know about me. And it is a tactic of "dirty fighting" to say you know how much time I spend daily here. It was a cheap shot and I don't think I deserved it. It's one thing to stick to arguing based on your own opinion and what you know about yourself, and another thing entirely to say you know something about another person. And you have no idea how much time I spend here, regardless of what "information" this website might provide about who is on or when they are on. It doesn't really matter to me what strangers on the internet think, but I'm definitely not going to spend my time arguing about myself.

Okay, Anne. The implication that I reliably answer my client's email simply to "brown nose" them is the first cheap shot. If you come out of no where aggressive, you might get some mild pushback here and there.

In any case, the thread belongs to the OP, not us to bicker so we should self-monitor .

I am really glad my T allows between session emails and that she responds to them. It did take me a while for me to get to where the waiting was not also painful. I think it was worth it. I have a level of belief in her that I didn't have then. I know she'll reply and usually within 24 hours. Her policy has never changed though we did have to hash out her phrasing on it and it helped when she finally understood my statements that she isn't always with me and confirmed that I was right. Though I think I'm getting closer to internalizing her and that will change the sense of her I suspect.

In the end, I think between session contacts is very subjective and something that needs to be carefully thought out by the T.

Back to this situation, I feel the biggest issue is in the unilateral decision to stop replying with what seems to be me an indirect explanation. The only 2 explanations I can see as valid is that the T no longer has the ability to consistently respond (emotionally or time wise) or therapeutic (the T does not see their response being helpful to the treatment). Several of the explanations I've read/understood indicates that the T made the change due to the therapeutic helpfulness stance. I do not believe this stance should ever be a unilateral decision. I believe it should be discussed in terms of how do you see this as being helpful, do you see ways where it could be impeding our progress. what would it be like if I did x, how do we know if this change is being more helpful, what might be a more helpful approach given y observation.

While I do believe there needs to be a level of trust that the therapist has a reason/method behind the treatment plan (intervention styles), I also believe that the client may have a better internal feeling as to what maybe needed at any given time.

Personally, I don't see why he doesn't just reply with a simple 'got it', depending on his mail program he could even set that up as an auto-reply and not really have to do anything when each email comes in. I don't see how his decision to go to completely a no response is helpful and I do see it as harmful. I think he could still show Lrad the lack of engagement/boundary by responding to receiving a email without addressing, or significantly addressing the topics in the email. My T has a fairly template response, I can pretty much write them myself; unless I specifically ask for something different, I get the template.

Such a well thought out post, Elio. Agree.

they can't read what you don't send.

write them & save them as a draft...but never send them.

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.

You can also do this and give yourself a waiting period. I think, Lrad, you mentioned doing this at night? So you can write it at night, then decide "OK, I'm gonna wait to see if I still feel this way in the morning, and if I do, then I'll send it." I've found this to be helpful. Because my T often doesn't reply till the morning, he suggested this, and it's kept me from emailing him a few times (typed something up at night, then chose not to email it in the morning, just shared in session).

Yes, this is my plan for now. We’ll see how it goes.

There are some times when it just feels good to get something off my chest, and I’ve liked being able to send him an email even knowing that I wouldn’t get a response. I’m telling myself that I will no longer do that, and time will tell if that makes me feel resentful. Occasionally, I’ve sent a brief thank you email about something that happened in session and although I don’t expect or need a response, I’d welcome one.

I had never done therapy before this T, so had no idea that some T’s email and others don’t. Before I sent my first email, I looked through some handout he had given me when we first met and there was a sentence saying he welcomed phone calls or emails but would only respond during work hours. What I didn’t understand until many months later was that he intended emails to be for scheduling and not for content. He said in the beginning he was afraid I’d leave therapy which is why he continued.

I think your T does a nice job with emails as do several other T’s on this forum. I just wish mine could figure it out!

My T has apologized for the way he handled abruptly stopping the emails and not including me in the decision which I guess helps a bit. His reason was that he didn’t think it was helping and he even said he sometimes wants to respond. As I look back, I can acknowledge that maybe he’s right that it wasn’t helping, but it still pisses me off sometimes and wish he hadn’t decided to stop replying 100% of the time. I still think there are some emails that merit even just a brief response. I understand not wanting to email with significant content. But he says it’s too complicated to decide which ones deserve a response and which do not. In an ideal world I think he should be able to figure that out or at least take the risk of trying to figure it out. I’m glad your T (and others on this forum) do a good job responding.

I also had an email compulsion with my Ts and, in my case, it was definitely part of a larger pattern I developed in my mid 30's (never before). A big difference relative to yours was that I did not really expect them to engage and did not feel hurt when they did not engage, actually preferred it, because I knew how unhealthy it was. Mine also started out responding quite reliably, then gradually in more limited and minimalistic ways and no response to many emails. Of course I got a kick out of getting a reply from them but it felt very similar to other addiction-like experiences I'd had - the pleasure of instant gratification, nothing else, nothing useful. Of course I still wanted my instant gratification and would sometimes feel pissed when I did not get it but, in parallel, a much more realistic and healthy part of my consciousness always knew what was going on and that it wasn't healthy for me when many other people in my life engaged with me in that pattern. I would still give in to my momentary urges on and on. My first T made the mistake to misinterpret it and he did engage in a very erratic way, then withdrew, then obviously he could not stop himself from responding while stating we should not email. Second T was much more consistent and did not reinforce my compulsion - that was the most helpful as eventually the desire got extinguished, including in my everyday life. That was a relief! But he never said that he would not read my emails or that I should not send them, even when I once explicitly asked if we could make a mutual deal that emailing is inappropriate. I eventually understood better why he left it so open and up to me: it was much more effective that I came to a conclusion and changed my behavior myself, without external rules and boundaries set on it.

Stopping (and stably quitting) any kind of compulsive behavior is usually quite uncomfortable and most often not a linear process at all, usually for a good while. But not reinforcing it at all is the most helpful thing, IMO. Otherwise why would the desire dissipate? One can still analyze it and derive insight about the nature of the compulsion and need but it work much better if that analysis is done in the absence of feeding the behavior, I think. Your Ts decision to one-sidedly stop responding might just be that simple, that he does not want to engage and thereby feed it endlessly and especially not apply intermittent reinforcement (sometimes responding other times not), which is usually the worst. In my case at least, that pattern of excessive online communication (whether with Ts or anyone) was part of a huge avoidance and distraction complex. At first, I also only did it with one person and no one else (a romantic interest in a limited, secret relationship) but soon it was everywhere in my life and blocked me from resolving real problems and from true progress. This was one area where constructive, healthy , productive relationships with mentally healthy and disciplined people helped a lot (what I mentioned on your other thread). Of course, while in the throes of that pattern, I tended to hook up with a lot of unhealthy individuals who did engage and reinforce because they were in denial of their own issues as well.

Personally my T is happy to read my emails and will respond when appropriate. She knows that it can be difficult for me to express myself in person because I am very guarded and like to pretend that I’m perfect and all but in reality I am a survivor of intense trauma. I think both of us agree that I am less likely to dissociate when I tell her things in an email and save is able to approach it with care in sessions. I think sometimes in order for therapy to be successful, our T’s may need to know more about our internal world than we are comfortable sharing face to face. Ask your T how he feels about your emails. Do they help him? Maybe they’re actually giving him an advantage while working with you. Just some thoughts. You’re not alone, I think it’s completely natural to be able to express these things in email not face to face, but that’s why you’re in therapy, to Heal and learn how to better deal with these emotions. I don’t think this can be rushed.

Thanks. My T has said many times that my emails have been very helpful to him and that he’s learned more about me than he ever would have otherwise. I was (maybe still am?) much more guarded in person than via email, so my internal world definitely comes out more in emails. The fact that he won’t respond sometimes makes me feel like I don’t want to share with him via email even though he has always said he welcomes them.

It is a hard situation, especially since he shared that he read/responded to them at first so as not to lose you as a client. Now you are bonded and invested, but the rules changed. The question becomes is this email policy change grounded in a good theory of practice on his part in which he is in control of a therapy arc for you that makes sense, or was it more haphazard / arbitrary in which he felt overwhelmed by replying, and decided to stop, giving you various rationales as make up calls. I think you are right to dwell on it, and try to figure it out, because it gets to the heart of if you are in good hands. The other thing is the matter of your voice , and what is called up by repeatedly stating a bid/ want/need for something that was reasonable to your T at the opening of therapy. Sometimes, when my T days no, I know it is for my own good; he is able to articulate in depth why he says no connected to a deep theory of practice and also to me very specifically so I feel felt. You're in a tough position bc you are invested in your T, but you are at an impasse with the email. I believe impasses are survivable, and I have made it through two big ones. However, something has to spark a creative change in the stance of each, a resolution of the forces at work keeping it stuck.

I believe my T stopped responding because he thought it was better for me, but he has not done a good job of articulating his reasons to me which is part of what makes it hard. In fact, each time I’ve asked he’s given a different reason. I feel like he cares in other ways, so is that enough? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Logically I believe it should all be good and we should move past this, but then I have a small part of me that wants to no-show next week just to mess with him. I know it likely wouldn’t have the desired effect, but it would at least make him wonder.