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That the analyst not only takes vacations, but ought to do so is a reasonable expectation. Freud took regular summer vacations, as did most of the early analysts. Some ventured from home to vacation spots, followed by a few of their foreign analysands whom they continued to analyze on a part-time basis. An American who was analyzed in the 1920s told one of us that his analyst vacationed at the Lido, but would see several American patients for their session. (They would take a morning launch out from Venice.) Vacations are beneficial to the analyst by affording him the opportunity to refresh and renew his libidinal energies. His unconscious may exist without the daily assaults of transference, the threats of countertransference, and the need to maintain analytic neutrality. Lessened fatigue affords the busy practitioner a greater opportunity for reading and reflection, and may thereby provide for personal growth and the opportunity to recapture a perspective on other aspects of life as well as his cases.
Most comments about interruptions in analysis, of which vacations are only one, take a negative view. Only occasionally does one come across comments relative to the positive aspects an interruption can have. Second analyses afford an insight into this topic. Authors approach the subject either from the standpoint of the new analyst or a different theoretical viewpoint bringing success, but they tend to disregard what took place during the interval between analyses. All too often the first analysis is looked at with disdain, when what the patient may have needed was time away from therapy to integrate the new insights before continuing the marathon.