As August Approaches: An Elegiac yet Reassuring Essay on why and how the Prospect of the August Summer Vacation can Stress Even the Experienced Analyst, as Well as the Patient.

As an aging analyst, I can sense, as August approaches, some increase in anxiety, sadness, and weariness—some grieving—at the prospect of separation from my patients (alongside a bit of what Wordsworth calls “the philosophic mind,” which can put loss and change in perspective and so permit a concomitant happy anticipation of a long and active vacation). Wordsworth, [1807], expressing resolution in relation to the loss of childhood and youth, has some relevant words about the adult's loss of and separation from the wonderful “intimations of immortality” so natural to a child:

For the analyst, the prospect of a long August separation can feature looking forward to a relief from (analytic) year-end weariness. Yet the happy anticipation is frequently accompanied by an enhancement of weariness that comes partly from the sometimes prolonged onslaught of patients' hostility—and varied reactions