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Text counselling - what's it like?

I'm always thinking about how I can change how people access therapy so that it works for more people. I created an asynchronous text message package so that you can message me whenever is good for you, day or night, week day or weekend, and you would know when to expect a reply from me.

This has gone really well. Clients have told me that they really like having the time to think about what they want to say and to send messages in their own time, instead of being ready to talk about their problems at 9am on a Monday morning. Autistic clients have also said that they find texting easier because otherwise they would 'perform' for the therapist if they were face-to-face and they think this would impact the effectiveness of their therapy.

So, how does this work? I work with clients to build a way of working that works for them. Clients can send messages whenever they want to throughout the week, I read these messages as they come in so that I can move swiftly if there was anything that needed my immediate attention. I then reply to messages twice per week unless we've agreed differently. This gives clients time to process my response, to think about what they want to tell me and also to tell me the moment something crops up in their week that they'd like me to know about. Equally, I set aside dedicated time to read all of your messages, to think about the therapy theory that would be most helpful to you and to create my therapeutic response.