[SkyscraperMeow]

Just curious as to how people here feel about therapists taking vacations.

How many vacations can you comfortably tolerate your therapist taking in a year? (Let's say the vacations last 1-2 weeks at a time.)

At what point would you draw the line and say that your therapist is gone too often for it to work for you anymore?

Well I seen a t four times before and she fave me her holiday schedule and I had to say goodbye because she wouldn't have been available enough for me at that particular time! She took four weeks at Easter, Christmas and a another month in the summer and then wanted me to come every second week not every week, so I had to say adios amigo.
That might not be an issue for others but given my fear of abandonment it was enough for me to know this was never going to work!

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I think my T has standard 5 weeks a year, but she works overtime a lot, and I don't know if she has them pay her for it or if she compensates with an extra vacation.

I've seen my T for a little over a year now and if I remember correctly she took 4 weeks in the summer (not sure if that's what she usually does - this time her daughter had surgery) and 1 week around Christmas.

[BayBrony]

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

Just curious as to how people here feel about therapists taking vacations.

How many vacations can you comfortably tolerate your therapist taking in a year? (Let's say the vacations last 1-2 weeks at a time.)

At what point would you draw the line and say that your therapist is gone too often for it to work for you anymore?

Probably more than 4 weeks would be. Tough for me. But I'm in the US and most adults don't have long holiday breaks so more than 4 weeks would require a mental shift for me since that's a LOT of vacation time for anyone I know

[Myrto]

Americans take very little holiday, it's rather shocking for my European eyes to read that.
My therapist takes two months in summer (July and August), 1 week in November, 2 weeks at Christmas, 1 week in February, 2 weeks at Easter. So all in all 3 months.
That's a lot but not much different that what a lot of people consider normal vacation in my country. Do I wish she'd take less? Of course. But there's not much I can do.

[BonnieJean]

Originally Posted by Myrto

Americans take very little holiday, it's rather shocking for my European eyes to read that.
My therapist takes two months in summer (July and August), 1 week in November, 2 weeks at Christmas, 1 week in February, 2 weeks at Easter. So all in all 3 months.
That's a lot but not much different that what a lot of people consider normal vacation in my country. Do I wish she'd take less? Of course. But there's not much I can do.

Wow! 3 months of vacation seems like so much. Mine takes 1 week a year that I'm aware of . If she took time off like long weekends, etc. when I don't have a session I wouldn't likely know about it.

Well most Europeans myself included only get 21 days a year vacation but of you are self employed like most therapists I know you can take as many holidays as you wish.

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My therapist typically takes 2-3 weeks during the summer (split in half) and a week around Christmas. She has told me it can vary from year to year, so it may not be predictable. I didn't miss any sessions for Christmas or New Years' this time around. But I was told she is taking a week off in February.

I think you've raised a good question, it seems to me that some T's take so much vacation time that it is detrimental to the therapy. I think if I was ever looking for a new T I'd ask the question as to how much they usually take. I think I'd consider more than 8 weeks to be excessive, and less than that would be helpful for me.

[atisketatasket]

Assuming you mean out of the office or unavailable due to things besides vacations...

Let's see - I saw No. 1 for 9 months last year. During that time, there were three individual weeks we didn't have an appointment, because she was booked; she took a one-month vacation overseas; she took another three weeks off for some family matters (not a vacation); oh, and I was travelling for work for a while and that was an 8-week gap.

So I actually only saw her 4 1/2 months. It didn't bother me.

No. 2 I saw for five months, and she only took two weeks off - one to keynote a conference and one for Thanksgiving. So I only saw her 4 1/2 months too.

This is the sort of question whose answer each client has to figure out for themselves. I like breaks from therapy provided there is no crisis going on. But I bet most people would prefer No. 2 above to No. 1.

Eta: although I should say No. 1 was available by email during our two longest breaks - I didn't use it but she made it clear. She was also willing to do a Skype session during my travels for work if need be.

[NowhereUSA]

My T doesn't get vacation time. If he didn't work, he's not paid which makes me sad. I actually wish he'd take more vacation time. As it is he might take one week a year.

[AllHeart]

Normally my T doesn't take a lot of vacations. This fall she did take a few extras for family stuff (weddings, anniversary). When she goes, it's usually a 3 week break between sessions. It has been tolerable for me because my t and I keep in good contact while she is away. She will call or email me just to keep connected and usually offers to do full phone sessions also, which, I won't do unless she insists it's a working vacation.

I am extremely fortunate to have this t as she goes above and beyond the call of duty for me not just while she is away, but in many other aspects too. I wouldn't be making the progress I am if she took off a lot and didn't communicate with me like she does. In other words, if I had a t that vacationed beyond the norm of holidays and a week off here and there, I think I'd be such a wreck that therapy would cause me more grief than good because going through this healing process has made me pretty needy.

[ilikecats]

My T is on a vacation for just a little over a week this winter. I asked her if she had any other vacations coming up, and she said she didn't have any planned. I don't know if she takes vacation time over the summer or not. I feel like it would be really hard for me to have a vacation that was longer than one week. I see some people post about their T's being gone for like a month or longer, and that would be way too hard for me. I don't think I would mind if she had a month of vacation per year, just as long as it was broken up into four one week long times. Not that she doesn't deserve a longer vacation, it would just be too hard for me. Right now anyways. Maybe later on I'd feel more comfortable with it.

[unaluna]

My t almost never goes on vacation, and almost never gets sick. Knock on wood.

[divine1966]

Mine travels more than anyone I ever knew. She even laughs how much she travels. It's all right with me as I only see her once a month the most or even less. It wouldn't be ok if I needed weekly sessions

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[magno11789]

I've only seen this T since September. She took Thanksgiving off. I took 10 days vacation during Christmas so I don't know what her schedule is like then. My last T would take several weeks off, during the year but usually not consecutive weeks.

[Cinnamon_Stick]

My T took a few days off for Christmas and New years so she was only in the office twice both of those weeks. In the summer time she takes some long weekends, Thursday through Sunday. It is still pretty rare so it does not bother me. If she took more than a couple weeks in a row off then it would bother me.

[feralkittymom]

Except for a very short time, I could have tolerated it, but he rarely took vacations. He would have semester breaks, acc to the univ schedule, but still kept up his private practice. He would occasionally be gone for a few days for a conference, but would generally shift schedules to accommodate appts. I do think that for long term work, consistency is important, both in terms of amount of contact and scheduling of contact. Based on reports on this board, it seems like there are an awful lot of "hobbyist" therapists who don't consider the impact of inconsistency.

He took two weeks off for Easter and said because of that he was unlikely to take two consecutive weeks in the summer, so he only had one week off in the summer. He's taken a week off for Christmas and that's been it.
Much better than T1 who took several holidays in the 8 months I saw him and didn't seem to understand that I found that hard.

[SkyscraperMeow]

Thanks for the responses, everyone. To be honest, it didn't occur to me that some therapists would be available for email etc while they were away. I feel that my therapist's vacation schedule, while probably not at all excessive, especially by European standards is disruptive on a number of levels.

His vacations have worked out to essentially be, on average, him being gone for 1-2 weeks every other month. At first I was berating myself for being too upset by that, but when I realized just how frequent the breaks really are I started to feel like maybe there really is a problem with how the therapy is being conducted for a client like me, who wants to know that the therapist is actually going to, yannow, be there.

Vacations are inevitable, and I accept that. But frequent bouts of no contact non availability are not working terribly well for me. Part of the reason I even want a therapist is so I have support. The therapist choosing to disappear and render himself uncontactable at what amount to random times isn't really conducive to that. I feel like maybe he'll be there, maybe he won't, and I won't have any say in it either way. (I'm not asking to control his life, it's just when I pay for a service in which some kind of continuity is implied, it annoys me when it drops out at random.)

[luvnola]

In total, my t takes about 8 weeks off a year, either 1 week at a time or 2. It doesn't bother me.

There was a time, at least in the USA, therapist took the whole month of August off, and a week or two during religious holidays. And, some had ski week in February, half days on Wednesday (for golfing), and no weekends. Maybe, we have so many bad therapist, because they are not taking time to care for themselves. Just a thought.

[Pennster]

My therapist takes continuity very seriously, which I am grateful for - we nearly always do Skype sessions if one of us is out of town. The few times he's not been able to skype he's been available by phone for a quick check-in. My first therapist wasn't consistent with the schedule and I found that quite traumatizing, so it's a big issue for me.

[ilikecats]

Originally Posted by SkyscraperMeow

His vacations have worked out to essentially be, on average, him being gone for 1-2 weeks every other month. At first I was berating myself for being too upset by that, but when I realized just how frequent the breaks really are I started to feel like maybe there really is a problem with how the therapy is being conducted for a client like me, who wants to know that the therapist is actually going to, yannow, be there.

That's a lot of vacation time! Definitely don't berate yourself for being upset. I would be too. I think consistency in therapy is very important, and if a T is gone that often, it could be hard to rely on them being there when you need them to be. That would create some trust issues for me, and I wouldn't be very happy.

[feralkittymom]

The August month off was a tradition among psychoanalysts; I don't know if it still is because they're now a minority of practitioners. In those days, there wasn't the competition of multiple other degree holders offerring therapy under different formats. There also wasn't research indicating that 5x a week didn't correlate with healthier outcomes. And insurance coverage wasn't so involved in paying. I don't really buy that analysts keeping such practice patterns meant that they were practicing better self-care and so better therapists. I think they were just the only game in town and had the luxury of working as they chose. I do think that current therapists who remain "in contact" via text, etc, 24/7 set themselves up for the risk of inadequate self-care. But it seems to me that therapists should be just as able to work a 35-40 hr week as do teachers, accountants, lawyers, etc. and find time for sufficient self-care to not disadvantage their clients. If they can't, maybe they're not balancing their caseloads, or they're ill-suited for the profession.