Is It Okay to Email a Former Therapist?

This post is part of my Ask a Therapist series, where I take questions I've answered on r/askatherapist and go a little deeper than the comment section allows.

The Question

I'm in a unique situation: I had the perfect therapist, and I worked with her for 2.5 years. She had to go on maternity leave around a year ago and ended up switching job locations to an inpatient facility, so I could no longer work with her. It was a very heartfelt goodbye, both of us crying. Fast forward to now, I have been struggling a lot. I am at my lowest of lows. To be frank, I am miserable. I looked up her name on Google, and her email came up. I am worried that if I email her it could be considered stalking (even though I recognize all I did was look her name up). I want to email her asking if, assuming it is still not possible for me to work with her, she has any other therapist recommendations. The problem is that I have worked with many therapists in the past and they were never like her, she understood what I was going through. I am desperate to email her and just ask, but I do not want her to get freaked out and think I am a creep. I am also 17 and am worried she might tell my mom that I emailed her; I do not want that to happen because that will make my mom feel bad. I was going to preface it by saying that "even though I am miserable, which is why I am emailing, I am not a danger to myself." Any therapists here who could tell me if this is very out of line?

A related question comes up constantly in the same subreddit, most recently as "My therapist of 1.5 years left unexpectedly. Is it okay to message her to thank her?" I answered that one too, and everything below covers both.

My Answer

I don't think this is inappropriate if it's a professional email. If anything, you're tapping into the network at your disposal.

Therapists know therapists. So even if she can't see you, I'm sure she can help guide you in the right direction.

Best of luck!

Let's Go Deeper

Let's answer the actual question first: no, this is not out of line. What interests me is why it feels so out of line, because the word that stops me in that post is "stalking." Someone typed a name into Google exactly once, found a public work email, and is now worried that wanting to contact the person who helped them for two and a half years makes them a creep. I hear versions of this fear all the time: is it weird to send a thank-you card, is it pathetic to ask for a referral, will she cringe when she sees my name in her inbox. And the fear comes from a real place. Therapy is one of the only relationships that is deeply intimate in one direction, held to a professional frame in the other, and then ends without any social script for what you're allowed to be to each other afterward. You know what to do when a friendship fades or when your doctor retires. Nobody teaches you what a former therapist is.

The rules are more reassuring than people expect, so we'll start there. There is nothing in the ethics codes that prohibits a former client from emailing a former therapist, and nothing that makes it wrong for her to answer. The prohibitions people have vaguely heard about run the other direction: they constrain the therapist, not you. The strict ones are about romantic and sexual relationships, which the APA's ethics code bans for at least two years after termination and in practice essentially forever (American Psychological Association, 2017). A short professional note asking for referrals doesn't live anywhere near that territory. If anything, the ethics literature treats connecting a client with the right next provider as part of a responsible ending, not a violation of one (Melba Vasquez, Rosie Phillips Bingham, and Jeffrey Barnett wrote the standard paper on the clinical and ethical responsibilities of termination). And her side of the confidentiality agreement doesn't expire either. She still can't tell people you were her client, years later, whether or not you ever email.

Now the part the rules can't tell you, which is how it actually lands on our side of the inbox. When John Norcross and colleagues surveyed therapists about what they do in final sessions, the near-universal moves included reviewing the gains, processing the goodbye, and explicitly leaving the door open for future contact (Norcross, Zimmerman, Greenberg, and Swift, 2017). That last one isn't politeness. I tell my folks that my goal as a therapist is to get fired, and the flip side of working toward that ending is that the door genuinely stays open after it. I've had clients come back years after we terminated, which is not uncommon at all. I've also written before about how therapists genuinely think about clients between sessions, and that doesn't switch off at termination. When someone asked almost this exact question about messaging a therapist who left unexpectedly, my honest answer was that I would genuinely appreciate a thank-you message. It warms my heart when a therapist has had that kind of impact on someone's life. What reads to you as an imposition often reads to us as the answer to a question we rarely get to have answered: did the work hold up once you left the room?

About "they were never like her." I believe it, and I also want to gently push on what it means. The research on therapy outcomes keeps finding that the working relationship between two particular people, the therapeutic alliance, predicts how therapy goes better than almost anything else about it (the Flückiger meta-analysis, covering roughly 300 studies, is the standard reference). Which is to say: what you had with her was real and it mattered, and it also wasn't magic that lives only in her. An alliance is co-built. Your willingness to be known, your capacity to trust once trust was earned, all of that was your half, and it travels with you. The practical version of this point is exactly what I said in the thread: therapists know therapists. A directory profile tells you someone's degrees and modalities. Your former therapist knows how you work, what actually helped, and which colleagues practice that way rather than just list it. She can match you on the thing that actually predicts success.

If you're going to send it, here's the shape I'd suggest. Keep it short, three or four sentences. Name yourself clearly, since she may have had hundreds of clients across settings. Say the one thing you want her to know, that the work mattered, and then make the specific ask: given that you can't see her, does she have two or three names she'd recommend. Resist pouring the whole update in, and try not to write it as a reopening of treatment, because an email isn't a session and can't hold what a session holds. Then hold your expectations for the reply loosely. Some settings restrict staff contact with former clients, inpatient jobs are consuming, and some therapists keep a blanket policy of not responding at all. None of that means your message was wrong to send; it's just the frame they practice under. A slow reply, a brief one, or none at all says something about her constraints, not about you. For whatever it's worth, we hold this loosely in both directions. I've had folks ghost me cold turkey and I don't take it personally, so I promise she won't be keeping score over one email.

Two more things specific to this poster, because they matter. Being 17 complicates the privacy picture a little. Parents generally have some legal right to a minor's treatment information, though how that plays out depends on the state and on the agreements made at intake. Many therapists (myself included) talk to parents at the very first session and ask them to respect their teen's privacy. Either way, an email sent after treatment has ended isn't a protected session, so I wouldn't put anything in writing you'd be devastated for an adult to conceivably see. That's a reason to keep the note simple, not a reason to skip it. And the line they planned to include, that they're miserable but not a danger to themselves, deserves to be taken seriously in both directions. If it's true, it's a thoughtful thing to say. If it ever stops being true, an email to a former therapist is not the tool; calling or texting 988 is, at any hour. Either way, please don't let the search for the perfect next therapist postpone getting support at all. Being at your lowest of lows is precisely the moment to start with someone good who's available now, and keep looking for great from a steadier place.

Here's the larger thing I want anyone in this situation to hear. The urge to reach back says something good about the therapy, not something worrying about you. When the fit is right, therapy creates a real attachment, and real attachments are grievable. That includes the ones that end well, with both people crying in a heartfelt goodbye. Write the email if you want to write it. Keep it kind and short, and ask for the names. Whatever she's able to send back, the part of the relationship that was always yours, the part that learned how to trust someone with the hard stuff, comes with you into the next room. Helping people build that next room is most of what I do all day, and the first thing we build is the relationship, because everything else in therapy runs on it.

FAQ

Is it okay to email a therapist you no longer see?

Yes. No ethics rule prohibits a former client from sending a professional email to a former therapist, and none prohibits the therapist from replying. A brief thank-you note or a request for referrals is appropriate and, for most therapists, genuinely welcome. The strict post-termination prohibitions in ethics codes restrict the therapist, and they concern romantic and sexual relationships, not ordinary professional contact.

Will my old therapist think I'm a stalker for finding their email?

Looking up a professional's publicly listed work email one time is normal, not stalking. Therapists expect former clients to be able to find them. What matters is the content and frequency of the contact: a short, respectful, professional note is entirely within bounds.

Can a former therapist still tell anyone what I shared in therapy?

Confidentiality does not expire when therapy ends. Your former therapist is still bound not to disclose that you were her client or what you discussed, with the same limited exceptions that applied during treatment. For minors, parents may have certain rights to treatment information depending on state law.

Can I ever go back to my old therapist?

Often, yes. Returning to a former therapist is common and most therapists explicitly leave the door open at termination. Whether it's possible in practice depends on their current setting, since some jobs (like inpatient facilities) don't allow outpatient clients. If they can't take you back, asking them for referrals is a smart alternative, because they know your history and their colleagues' actual styles.

References

American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and code of conduct (2002, amended effective June 1, 2010, and January 1, 2017). https://www.apa.org/ethics/code
Flückiger, C., Del Re, A. C., Wampold, B. E., & Horvath, A. O. (2018). The alliance in adult psychotherapy: A meta-analytic synthesis. Psychotherapy, 55(4), 316-340. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000172
Norcross, J. C., Zimmerman, B. E., Greenberg, R. P., & Swift, J. K. (2017). Do all therapists do that when saying goodbye? A study of commonalities in termination behaviors. Psychotherapy, 54(1), 66-75. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000097
Vasquez, M. J. T., Bingham, R. P., & Barnett, J. E. (2008). Psychotherapy termination: Clinical and ethical responsibilities. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 64(5), 653-665. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20478

If this resonates, it's the kind of work I do. You can book a free 15-minute intro call, or read more in the Ask a Therapist series.

Olivier van Hauwermeiren, PsyD, is a licensed clinical psychologist serving New York City via telehealth, licensed in New York and Wisconsin and PSYPACT-authorized to practice telepsychology in 40+ states. He specializes in anxiety, OCD, trauma, and performance challenges among high-achieving professionals.