The Summertime slump

Every few years I have to re-address with our patients how important it is to continue treatment over breaks (summer, winter, spring). If someone has a diabetes or cancer diagnosis, they do not stop taking their medications during these breaks, so why with mental health do we deem it ok?

Available studies have shown that you can actually backslide significantly during the beginning and active phases of treatment if you do not attend consistently (i.e., every week). Towards the end of treatment, one can typically space out sessions over several weeks so taking a break would not have too much of a significant impact in terms of treatment success and outcomes.

Make sure to keep your weekly appointments and follow the recommendations of your provider. Day and sleep away camps actually have medical personnel on staff and can accommodate virtual appointments in privacy; all you have to do is ask!

Remember, keep your treatment going!

Hope you all are having a happy summer!

Dr. Kaplan

Advertisement

Author:

I am a clinical psychologist with approximately 15 years of experience assessing and treating anxiety and depressive disorders in young children, adolescents, young adults, adults and geriatric populations. I completed a 6-year predoctoral training award at the National Institute of Mental Health, and postdoctoral training at the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living/Hartford Hospital. From my clinical and research experiences, I have come to see the struggles of many families deciding when to pursue professional help and feeling very lost in the process. I will address several mental health issues that will help educate and empower my readers to make better mental health decisions for themselves. Welcome to my blog! Johanna Kaplan, Ph.D. Disclaimer-This blog is not and cannot be used in replace of formal therapy. This blog is used to inform and educate and is not a form of informal or formal advice.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s