Counseling by email

This week I tested out counseling sessions via email.  In one case I was the counselor, and in the other I was the client.  As the counselor, I felt that I was doing much more work than the client, which is the opposite of what it feels like in face to face counseling sessions.  As the client, I felt that I wouldn't really be getting the help I needed, because the emails from the counselor usually had questions about my situation and not much else.  If I had been a long term client who had already gone through a lot of counseling with the therapist, I think email would be better.  I would worry that my client wouldn't say very much and would only respond to the questions I ask and not say more.  In a face to face session it is much easier to get the client to say more by using silence and non-verbals, but these methods do not work for email.  Email counseling is something I would consider as a career counselor, most likely only for clients who I had been seeing for a while or who needed minimal counseling and more advising, resume critiquing, etc.