Therapist Vacation

Do you talk about your feelings/thoughts about therapist’s vacation maybe 1 or 2 sessions before and after? Do you ever go silent? Or is it a non issue for you?

A little while ago, right before one of her vacations she said she didn’t wantto spend 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after talking about her vacation. She said it wasn’t therapy.

She goes away starting tomorrow and won’t be back for 10 days and I’m hesitant to bring up the subject again.

With my former T, we used to talk about her going on vacation as much as a month before hand, so I could get used to the idea, but maybe only one session after she got back. It wouldn't be all session in either case, but there were definitely feelings about her being gone and unavailable that were good to be discussed.

What seems telling to me is that you T said she didn't want to spend the time talking about her vacation. Isn't therapy supposed to be about what you need to talk about and what issues you are having, and not what the T is needing or not needing?

I've always avoided it.

I don't like her response. It is therapy if you're talking about something that's affecting you. It sounds like she's uncomfortable with it.

Personally, I don't like to talk about it because I don't want to admit that I have feelings about him going away. He usually tries to get me to talk about it though. At one point, we had a small rupture because he had told me that he was going to be there for me for a trauma anniversary, but then I found out that we were going to have to miss some sessions that week and I felt kind of abandoned. After that he gave me a calendar marked with all of the days he would be gone for the next 3 months. Before this though, he would usually let me know well ahead of time for his major vacations and it was made known that we could talk about how it would affect me at any time. I'm sorry your therapist isn't so open.

Mine usually tells me near the end of session, the session before. I don’t really like missing sessions, but i am mostly ok w her going on vacations. She doesn’t go that often.

I'm the type of client that needs two months prep before hand. I think my T's August holiday is still likely to come up even now. I cycle through a complete range of emotions and R knows this.

Personally I don't like her response either. It's your therapy and you should be free to bring up whatever you want to.

My T's vacations bring up all sorts of things for me, about self-reliance vs. depending on others, asking for things I need, the place of therapy in my weekly schedule, feeling abandoned, tolerating distress. If that's not therapy, then I don't know what is.

My T usually lets me know about her vacations maybe 6-8 weeks in advance, and we talk about them (usually on and off) as often as I want to.

I find it helpful that I can have strong reactions to her absences without her seeming to feel guilty or weird about leaving. Maybe your T hasn't mastered that yet, so she would rather not talk about it?

I'm so sorry wheeler. How did this response make you feel? I might have felt like my feelings were being minimized based on the flippant tone.

Therapist vacations are emotional for many clients. When I was in therapy I had a hard time feeling unsupported when she would go away. I never talked much about it much but maybe should have. I think our responses are very much in line with our vulnerabilities and defenses (and how we express them).

My T told me that he was going on a cruise over six months before he did. He's gone now and won't get back until October 31/Halloween. I didn't really talk that much about it beforehand, although we did a little bit. (actually we talk/deal with abandonment fears frequently, though). T lets me email him while on vacation, which helps, although his connection is intermittent. Also, I know that I can talk with him about anything when he gets back, including him being gone.

I find it confusing that your T tells you not to talk about how you feel about her vacation/being gone. It sounds like your T has issues surrounding this which could potentially negatively affect you.