When the Break Comes: Why Summer and Spring Can Stir Up the Desire to Quit Therapy

As spring turns into summer, a familiar pattern often emerges in psychoanalytic practice. Many patients—sometimes quite suddenly—begin to question whether they should continue therapy. Some cancel sessions “just for a few weeks.” Others express a desire to stop altogether. And some disappear without much notice or goodbye.

This seasonal shift may appear circumstantial on the surface—vacations, changes in routine, or a busy calendar. But beneath it often lies something deeper and more emotional. This article explores why spring and summer breaks frequently stir the wish to quit therapy, and what it means to stop, to end, or to choose to continue.

The Break as a Psychological Event
In psychoanalysis, time is not neutral. The rhythm of the therapeutic frame—the regularity of sessions, the reliability of the setting—is itself part of the work. When this rhythm is interrupted by a break, especially a holiday or vacation, it can evoke old experiences of absence, loss, and separation.

As D.W. Winnicott noted, even brief interruptions in care can revive early anxieties:

“It is not the absence that matters, but what the absence revives.”
— D.W. Winnicott, “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship” (1960)
For many patients, the therapist’s announced break may unconsciously echo earlier emotional disruptions—times when an attachment figure became unavailable, whether physically or emotionally. This can stir feelings of abandonment, anger, or sadness, often without the patient being fully aware of it.

Rather than speak these feelings, some patients “act them out”—a psychoanalytic term for expressing unconscious conflict through action rather than words. Canceling sessions, quitting therapy, or emotionally withdrawing can all be forms of such enactments.

“Better to Leave Than Be Left”
The idea of an upcoming break can unconsciously feel like a rejection. Rather than endure the anticipated loss, some patients may try to regain control by leaving first. As Otto Kernberg described, certain internalized object relations can cause patients to defensively anticipate abandonment:

“The patient tends to repeat within the transference the very conflicts that were at the core of earlier object relations, especially the trauma of separation or loss.”
— Otto Kernberg, “Object Relations Theory and Clinical Psychoanalysis” (1976)
In this sense, the wish to quit therapy around a break can be a way of managing internalized fears: If I leave now, I won’t have to feel left behind.

Stopping vs. Ending
There is an essential difference between stopping therapy and ending therapy.

Stopping is often sudden, impulsive, and emotionally unresolved. It may reflect an acting out of anger, fear, or anxiety.
Ending, by contrast, is a process. It is thought about, spoken about, and marked. It acknowledges the significance of the therapeutic relationship, and allows space for mourning and reflection.
As Nancy McWilliams writes:

“When termination is done well, it represents a developmental step: the individual has been able to take in enough of the therapeutic experience to carry it forward, while also tolerating the sadness of letting go.”
— Nancy McWilliams, “Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy” (2004)
Even if a patient ultimately chooses to end, the act of talking about the wish to leave rather than acting on it can become a meaningful part of the therapeutic process itself.

The Temptation to Escape and the Opportunity to Reflect
Seasons like spring and summer bring a cultural promise of renewal, lightness, and escape. Therapy, with its depth and intensity, may feel burdensome or even contradictory in this mood. Patients may imagine: I’ve made progress, I don’t need this anymore. I’ll pick it up later. I want to be free.

But what feels like liberation may also be resistance. As Freud warned:

“Resistance arises when the progress of analysis touches on something in the patient’s mental life that he does not want to know.”
— Sigmund Freud, “The Dynamics of Transference” (1912)
When a patient notices a sudden desire to quit therapy as the summer or spring break approaches, it can be an important signal. Rather than suppress or act on it, it can be brought into the session and explored. The desire to flee often conceals an emotional knot worth untangling.

Staying, Leaving, or Saying Goodbye
Every patient has the right to leave therapy. But how that leaving takes place matters. A thoughtful ending—or even a conscious pause—honors the therapeutic relationship and allows its meanings to unfold. It helps prevent therapy from becoming just another relationship that ends without understanding.

Some patients, upon reflection, choose to stay. Others decide to take a break but return with renewed clarity. Still others end therapy with a shared recognition of what has been done and what remains unfinished.

All of these are valid paths. But what distinguishes them from an unconscious enactment is the presence of reflection.

If you find yourself wanting to leave therapy around the time of a spring or summer break, you are not alone. And your wish is not simply logistical—it may be meaningful.

Rather than leave without a word, consider bringing your thoughts and feelings into the room. The conversation itself may open doors you didn’t expect.

In psychoanalytic therapy, even the wish to leave becomes material for understanding. And sometimes, what feels like an ending is actually the beginning of deeper work.