Holidays: How to survive without my shrink
updated the 28 August 2015 à 07:01Oh the anguish of summer without your psychiatrist… Read on for our tips!
“Well, I’ll see you in September…” You know full well that this sentence indicates your therapist’s early summer break, which always puts your stomach in the roller coaster mode. “For the five years I’ve seen my therapist, I always have this little anxiety,” confirms Judith, 38. “This doesn’t last, fortunately, but I always wonder how I wouId do if I gave myself a small shot in his absence.” No, send him/her a postcard instead and don’t use caving in as an option!
The advice of François Perlmutter, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst: “The psychiatrist’s holiday break must not be experienced as a disaster, because therapy is not an “addiction“. The therapist can give the number of a colleague whom the patient may consult if necessary, based on the same rates and in the same time zone. But in forty years of exercising my profession, I had to respond to such emergencies maybe five times. Asking for your shrink’s direct number? That does not seem like a good idea, because you will feel compelled to call whenever you feel the need to. Especially since the therapeutic work is also done by the sessions, continuing to reflect on his side, which can make the absence of your shrink bearable. This will certainly require some isolation and quiet time, but it is doable. As for the patient’s holidays, they are also very important. It’s to test the absence of their therapist, listen to how one reacts to it (Do I miss it? Does this bother me?) are materials from which we can work in September.”
Josephine Lebard and Nur Syazana H.
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