Why Is the Christmas Therapy Break So Hard?
Christmas can be a difficult time not to have support from your therapist
Therapists typically take shorter breaks over Christmas than in the summer. However, this doesn’t mean that this winter break is easier on their clients. Many people find it harder to deal with the Christmas break than the summer one even though it is relatively short.
Why is this break so hard? What can you do to make it easier?
Why do people struggle more with a Christmas therapy break?
By the time I got to my first Christmas in therapy, I’d been through a four-week summer break. I found that hard — first breaks often are — but I assumed that the upcoming Christmas break would be a breeze. It was shorter, and I already had a break under my belt.
Things didn’t go the way I expected. The two-week break over Christmas was difficult.
During the summer break, I had my regular routine to fall back on. The only change was not having therapy sessions. Christmas was different. I didn’t have a normal routine, and I was exposed to a lot more stressors and triggers than usual.
Fact is, Christmas can be a minefield for many people in therapy. They have to deal with situations and people that make them feel uncomfortable and anxious at a time when they can’t talk to their therapists.
For example, you might worry about the following:
You have to spend Christmas with your family
Christmas puts some people in difficult positions. You might have to spend time with the very people in your family whose actions made you seek therapy in the first place.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve coped with this for years. Once you start to move through the therapeutic process, you understand more about how your family relationships work and how they affect you.
The behaviour and attitudes of others which you once took for granted might horrify you now you understand them a little better. It can feel hard to do what you’ve always done and spend Christmas around these people, but you might have to — or even want to — do this.
This naturally makes you feel more vulnerable and anxious. You might worry about falling back into familiar patterns and norms. You feel the need for extra support but you can’t talk to your therapist.
Christmas makes you feel lonely and isolated
Some people spend Christmas alone, either by choice or through circumstance. Others can spend the holidays surrounded by other people and still feel lonely and isolated.
The ho-ho-ho atmosphere around Christmas can make you feel worse. You might not feel very ho-ho-ho at all. You might feel that the whole world is having the best time. Apart from you. You can’t talk about your feelings because everyone else is caught up in holiday excitement.
If you have a good relationship with your therapist, then you will be anxious about not seeing them over Christmas. It feels like you are losing a vital connection that centres you and makes you feel less isolated.
You’ll be under extra stress
While Christmas is a fun holiday, it can add stress to your life. You have to buy presents, deal with different social situations, and plan and deliver the perfect day.
Life feels frenetic, pressured and rushed. You are taken out of your normal routine.
You might become more anxious because you feel under pressure to perform and deliver. You might not be able to tell people how you feel because you don’t think they’ll understand or take you seriously. You miss having someone to talk to who listens without judgement.
What can you do to make your Christmas therapy break easier?
It took me a while to realise that it’s perfectly normal to worry about therapy breaks. It’s normal to be anxious and to think that you won’t cope. It’s normal to be angry with your therapist because they are not there for you at a time when you think you’ll really need them.
If you are worried about the upcoming Christmas break, then the best thing to do is to talk to your therapist about it. Everyone has different potential problems, triggers, and needs — your therapist knows you and can help.
They can talk to you about why you are worried. They can give you some reassurance and help you process your feelings. They can give you coping strategies if you need them. You’ll be better prepared for the break.
I’ve also stopped assuming that every break will be a bad experience for me. To be honest, some haven’t been so great, but many have proved to be useful.
Therapy breaks can be helpful for you as well as your therapist. They give you extra time to process the recent work you’ve done in your sessions. You get time to catch your breath and reflect.
You also learn useful things about yourself. Breaks can show you that you have made progress and are stronger than you think. Every break you get through is a win.
Even if your break is wobbly, you know that your therapist will be there at the end of it. You can talk to them about what happened when your sessions restart.
These feelings and experiences are invaluable in therapeutic terms. They help you understand and process deep-seated problems. Your time away from your therapist — and the way this makes you feel — can also teach you a lot about feelings of loss, abandonment and rejection that you might not have been aware of before.
So, while your upcoming Christmas break might feel challenging, it might be a more positive experience than you think. Your sessions might be temporarily suspended now, but your relationship with your therapist is still there.