A Guide to Emailing Therapy Clients in English

Spending ages writing, correcting and re-writing every email you send to clients? Here’s how to avoid that (while sending professional and well-written emails).

Ah… emails.

Whether you love or hate them, read each one meticulously or cheerfully ignore the growing pile in your inbox, they’re impossible to avoid.

It’s easy to understand why they’ve become such a universal means of communication between therapists and their patients. They’re instant, flexible, and don’t require both people to be available at the same time. Besides, having a written trace of information shared is often very useful to refer back to in case your memory fails, or misunderstandings happen.

But writing them in English can be stressful, and often requires a little more thought and preparation.

That’s why in this blog post, I’ll summarise the best practices for email communicating with therapy clients. Then, I’ll make more specific recommendations to write them in English.

Best Practices in Therapist-Patient email communication:

1.        Have a clear policy around email communication.

Emailing a patient is convenient. That doesn’t mean it’s the best way of communicating in every situation. It’s a good idea to have a clear understanding of what you consider to be an appropriate, responsible way to use emails.

Sending a brief email to confirm, reschedule or remind a patient of an upcoming session is one thing. A complex, detailed back-and-forth conversation discussing an alliance rupture or giving recommendations is a very different story.

Each clinician has their personal boundaries around how they want to use email, but it’s important it’s clear to your patients from the beginning of your work together. If a patient brings up a complex, emotive experience via email, it may be necessary to thank them for bringing it up, validate the main feeling they are experiencing and to add a sentence like “This is important, and I’d like to make space to explore this in our next session” or “Let’s give this our full attention in our next session”.

2.        Use concise, simple language.

Sometimes, in early email communication, it can be tempting to use advanced vocabulary, and complex sentence structures to prove to a potential client that your language skills are high enough to provide psychotherapy. Ironically, if you really want to transmit professionalism and skill, it’s best to write a shorter, simple email. It demonstrates to the reader that you know exactly what you want to say and how. More importantly, it often avoids confusion and misunderstandings. Remember to also use a clear subject line like “Meeting confirmation” or “Appointment reminder”.

3.        Make sure to use a polite, empathetic tone.

Email communication is an extension of how you communicate in sessions. Each email, no matter how short, is an opportunity to show your patient they are valued and important to you. Using proper greetings, Ps and Qs (please and thank you), and expressions like “Could you” when making requests go a long way in conveying respect. This is especially important if you come from a country with a more direct communication style and you’re communicating with someone from another culture.

This doesn’t mean you need to use formal language-quite the opposite! My own email style is more informal and personal. But I do use polite language. It’s just that I’ll write “Hi” instead of “Dear _______”, and “Take care” or “Have a lovely afternoon” instead of “Kind regards”.

4.        Prioritize patient privacy and confidentiality.

Data protection is not my expertise, so it’s important you check and apply the laws enforced in your country. However, some good practices include using an encrypted email service (like a paid Google Workspace account- the free ones aren’t actually encrypted!), not sending emails to patients using free Wi-Fi services, and double-checking the recipient before sending.

You may also want to include a privacy disclaimer at the bottom of your email, in case you send it to the wrong person. This also reminds patients that the contents of their emails are sensitive, and they should think twice about what they send you.

Short version:

This message is confidential. If you believe you received this message in error, please inform the sender and delete this message and all attachments.

Long version:

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This e-mail, including any attachments, may contain confidential information which is intended only for the use of the individual(s) or entitled named. If you receive this e-mail message in error, please immediately notify the sender by e-mail and delete it. Dissemination, forwarding, printing or copying of this e-mail without prior consent of the sender is strictly prohibited.

Thank you for your compliance.

5.        Use a spell checker to proofread your emails

I’m an English teacher, and I make mistakes all the time. Adding a Grammarly extension to your browser has saved me over and over again from sending emails with typos, errors or sentences that are too long and complicated.

As you’re reading this, you may be nodding to yourself, as this is likely what you already know about emailing clients. But what about when you have to do this in English?

My personal recommendation?

Use specialized email templates as a basic structure.

An email template is a basic “skeleton” of an email.

Before you say, “But Sophie, won’t I sound like a robot?” let me clarify something.

I’m not saying you should copy-paste email templates directly and click “send”. But I do think they’re a great place to start.

Using email templates frees up valuable space in your working memory. Because you’re following a general outline, you don’t need to think about how to plan and structure your email. This means you can focus on what really matters (and yes, you should do this each time): modifying the details of the template to personalize your message.

You should do this in two different ways:

Personalize the email to your recipient.

When I write an email, I see it as an extension of the last verbal interaction I had with the person. If the last time we met, they mentioned they were sick, I write “I hope you’re feeling a little better today” or “I hope you get better soon”. If they said they were going on holiday, I write “Have a wonderful trip to Prague”. Whatever it may be, I want my readers to know that what they share with me matters. The only exception? I wouldn’t write anything very sensitive in an email, for privacy reasons.

Adapt the email to your tone.

Whether we’re speaking or writing, we all have our own communicative “personality”. What’s yours? Are you more or less concise? Direct? Formal? Personal? Adapting the emails to how you speak in therapy is crucial, as it is more authentic, and builds trust. This is especially apparent in greetings (ex. Hey versus Hello), signoffs (ex. Sincerely versus warm regards), contractions (ex. I am versus I’m) and formal/ informal language (ex. Contact versus get in touch).

So, where can you find email templates to modify?

Zencare has some great examples for therapists here: https://blog.zencare.co/private-practice-email-templates/

I also provide my students with many more templates covering a much wider range of situations (ex. Following up after a late cancellation or no-show, increasing rates, cancelling a session, etc.). If this is the kind of support you feel you need, I’d be happy to help. Just schedule a free consultation.

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