Do people get upset when their therapist goes on vacation?

Mine is going out of state for about 3 weeks and the first thing I said was is she going to visit a particular tourist destination. I have a dentist appointment next month and I could really use the money for our sessions for my dentist appointment.

Idk. Do people normally freak out when there therapist leaves for a bit?

I don’t think there such thing as “normally”.

When I saw a a therapist, I wasn’t freaking out and mine was gone s lot. She only works part time. My husband’s therapist is constantly gone for weeks. She’s also part time at this point.

But i believe many people do freak out if they rely on a therapist for getting through a week/or a day or if they are extremely attached to their therapist. I know it’s unpopular opinion, but it seems to me that some therapists encourage unhealthy attachment/obsession, so clients would freak out all the time unable to function even one week without a therapist.

I think planning to spend that money on dentist appointment is wise.

Talking about freaking out, I once freaked out my dentist was going on a long vacation. I broke a tooth right in the front, smack in the middle. It was awful. Stupid me was crunching on a lolly pop.

I was calling her all upset at 9pm. Turned out she was leaving one day later than I thought and she was able to see me for emergency visit and fix it.

That was a close call.

Hi MD,

When people seek support with their mental health, a therapist is often a significant element of their support system.

However temporary they may be, changes to this support network can be very destabilising.

I am still learning to accept the intensity of my emotions (in the midst of a deep grieving process) and my relationship with my therapist is a key aspect of this work.

When she announced a significant change in our routine this summer, I found myself in the position of having to widen my support network in order to feel the same level of support.

The response definitely depends on where the client is in their process, but it's more unusual to be blasé about whether the therapist is there or not.

Thanks for the opportunity to reflect,

Lost

My therapist has never been on a planned ahead of time vacation where we miss more than one session (and as long as I know ahead of time and it's not for a month or so I'm fine. I'll probably backslide if I'm already not doing well which is 80% of the time, but whatever), but I get PISSED every time she calls an hour before our appointment saying "something came up, I gotta cancel" especially when it's the 2nd or 3rd time she's done it in a month.

I normally see her Wednesdays, right? I saw her Dec. 11th. I drove into the city and was walking around because it was a nice day and get a call she has to cancel. The night prior I was crying in somebody else's apartment at 3am because I'm suicidal but immortal, and then they hit me, and then we had sex, and then I had cried because he's on antidepressants and can't get off and I felt like a failure. I wanted to sneak into the bathroom and leave a message to my pdoc telling her to call me when she can for the safest way to taper off my anticonvulsants. I kinda needed that appointment. And of course Christmas and New Year's are Wednesdays so not like those appointments happened/will happen.

"freak out" or fear they're losing who they are when in Ts company but dont have the insight or words - yet - to understand that's what the "missing is about"..

Oh yes, I freak out big time when my T is away. I usually relapse into SH and struggle to function. I have improved only because she lets me contact her if I need to and that helps me feel less panicked and more stable.
Now if it was my old T, I would probably react like you and think about how else to spend the money. But I did not feel very connected to that T

I miss my T when she's away but I don't freak out, in the past I would have. I am also on vacation so I always find myself caught between wanting to enjoy my time off and counting down the days until I see T again. I often wonder what she's doing and if she is having a nice time. I also have this fear that during the time off she will come to the realisation she doesn't want to work with me anymore. I know it's irrational and we have talked about it.

I did not find the therapist being absent to be a problem but some people do miss them. I was not all that taken with the ones I hired.

As much as I liked my therapists, I was never particularly bothered by vacations. They had them. I had them. It just seemed pretty typical to me. I think they thought I would be bothered by it more than I was. They were good about being sure I had other supports, etc. But it wasn’t ever an issue. I tended to take their vacation time as my time off from the stress of sessions and a bit of extra money to use for something fun instead.

I used to literally cheer when my ts announced a vacation. This disturbed THEM because they interpreted it as a lack of transference / attachment. Its true. I still saw them as representative of the mother, and was glad for them to be gone, for the pressure to be off me. I had not yet attached to their "good-enough-ness."

I used to panic in my early days but as I got better-piece of cake.Mind you,this was after 4 weekly sessions of 50 mins on the couch for six years.

Mine doesn't go on vacation much but does take a couple weeks a year with days here and there. I always get excited that I don't have to see him and the time goes by so fast. A vacation for him is kind of a vacation for me too. He still always asks if I want to make up any days here and there but I always say no. You would think he would learn not to ask anymore.

I have asked him if some people get upset and he says most don't but he is also the type of therapist that wants his clients to build a support system outside of the the office. If I did get upset I'm sure he would work with me on ways to develop a wider support system.