Ah… email! It’s been quite a learning and growing process for me.
Over time I’ve come to understand a few things about email and how it works specifically in my therapy.
M doesn’t offer email therapy per se, so whatever gets brought up in an email will ultimately get routed to be processed in session… or not at all (there have been times when what was shared in email was not revisited in session).
So knowing that the actual processing will happen in session, the question then becomes what besides processing this am I trying to accomplish by emailing M about it. A related question is would this processing in session be served (supported) by me sending an email about it or not.
The main reason for me to send an email is that I genuinely believe M reading it before session will help us have a better session. There have been times when it really helped a lot that M had some processing time of his own, the opportunity to wrap his head around what I was sharing, so that he came to our session already having a good understanding of the issue. One time M told me that me sending him an email ahead of time probably saved us a session that would have been spent in him simply seeking to understand me and what was going on. But thanks to the email we were able to jump right to processing through the issue with a mutual understanding of what it was.
That said, there are plenty of times when I choose not to send an email. Perhaps I’ll compose one as part of my own work but I won’t send it. The reason is that a lot of times it’s more important for me to get M’s in real time response to what I’m sharing than it is for him to understand it right away. I see a lot of value in seeing the impact what I share has on him, which includes his efforts to understand me. In making the decision to send an email or not, I weigh those two things against each other to see what feels most needed.
Whenever I send an email, there is always an aspect of it that is also simply seeking a connection with M. Our agreement is that M will send me a brief reply to those emails I send… but he’s not the most consistent at that. If I feel I truly need a reply from him, I will specify that I do in the email itself so he knows. There are times when sending an email with no reply feels like I’m shooting my vulnerable thoughts out into the void and I really hate that feeling. If it’s going to feel that way I try to let him know I really need a reply. More and more, though, a response from him has seemed less needed by me, and it’s bothered me less when he hasn’t responded. More often than not I phrase my emails in such a way that does not indicate any expectation of a response, but rather expresses a desire to talk about it in session. I do feel confident that M will read anything I send him.
If the main thing, or all I need, is to connect, I have found that less is more. In that case I’ll send a brief text with an update of some sort, and he’ll respond with something (usually), I feel that connection and life goes on. Reaching out by text to schedule a session often serves the same purpose, and sometimes I’ll include an update with a scheduling request.
As for how often I’ve felt the need to communicate outside of session, that has varied considerably. Right now it seems to be about every other week or so that I reach out to him by text or email. I’ve definitely experienced over the past year a solidifying of the internalization of our relationship, which has largely eliminated the need to reach out to him simply to make sure he’s still there. That’s freed me up to focus more on what said communication I am considering will actually accomplish beyond that “checking in” factor and make my decision based on if I believe emailing will be helpful to our work or not.