G'day TheBigBlue,
Great avatar name! Ocean or sky, the big blue captures my imagination. I'm feeling blue about our mental health system too.
I would be frantic to contact an emergency contact of a person whose expressed thinking about suicide. If I couldn't contact the emergency person I might feel helpless about meeting my duty of care needs. Aside from being unable to help the suicidal person, not meeting duty of care of a patient is right up there with career ending events.
I recall panic when two emergency contact numbers of a child I was coaching proved un-reachable. Like honest to god heart gripping panic, despite that the kid was actually fine though injured. Maybe your psychologist felt something like that when she couldn't reach your provided contact and thus feels a genuine need to broaden her options to help you in crisis.
If you decide to continue with her, definitely do meet her need for solid emergency contact details, she's made it clear she needs them. Sound to me like you need her too, so that's cool, maybe - you help her and she'll help you. That'd be a healthy relationship, meeting needs first of all.
I totally relate to not wanting to retell traumatic stories to new health providers, we should only be sharing if we feel safe in a mutually trustworthy relationship. Perhaps state to her what you need to feel safe, make it clear that your parents are not safe people for you, but that xyz persons are.
Perhaps tell your psychologist that you'll call a helpline like Sophie_M has shared with you. Your psychologist is going to appreciate that, going to see you making plans for responding to a crisis.
Do I sound reasonable?
