therapist on vacation next week

Our therapist is on vacation next week. This is very, very distressing for Little (3 years old )...the youngest in our system and the most attached to our therapist. Our therapist has done a great job reassuring us that she is not abandoning Little and even wrote Little and other parts a letter saying that she will be back and she isn't mad at us or abandoning us and she cares about us, etc.

But Little is still having such a hard time with this. We see our T again on Friday and we just know it will be lots and lots of tears. Little is so, so scared and sad for our T to be away.

Does anyone have any helpful advice/ideas for this?

If you are able to, perhaps you can try to reassure Little. It often helps when older parts do that in our system.

Furthermore, you can also plan fun, distracting activities. Such as going on an outing (to the park, forest, zoo... something that is available and you (and Little) would enjoy).

I would also recommend making a calendar. It really helped one of my littles to understand what the amount of time T would be away actually meant. I made one when T went away for five weeks, and in the calendar I drew appointments and activities that we would be doing per week. So my little understood that all of those things had to happen first before T would be back. She could cross the weeks off on the calendar, which she also really liked. She got extra nervous at the end because she didn't trust that T WOULD be back, so that's when we had to do a lot of distracting and rewarding for sticking it out.

Maybe you can also think of things that could make Little feel a bit more safe? Like keeping a small item with you, or a plushie?

yes, def distractions. you need to plan them. In the middle of it all it is hard to come up with anything.
def calendar. we once used the candy jar calendar where there was a candy for every day of absence and so we could watch the jar get empty but there was also candy and that was special too and it helped.

something that has helped us. take a piece of paper, ask the T to put their hand on it and circle it so you can take the shape of the hand back home. when feeling bad it helped to imagine having their hand and putting our hand on top, creating a sense of inner connection and not being alone. it worked surprisingly well.

we are currently experimenting with allowing the little to share what they miss about the T and get into a relational exchange. its difficult with littles that young though... somehow telling stories about the T and what they have done helps us to get out of the deep despair of not having them there.

our T is on vacation too. we will see how thta goes.

Hi,

Our T goes on vacation and sometimes we go out of town. Either way we miss sessions. It's hard on Littles. We have a photo of T on our phone (taken with permission) and a photo of the stuffie in her office so we can look at those. We also use a calendar for longer times. The biggest thing that helped was having older parts take care of younger parts. That's really healing but it's hard to do at first.

Good luck.

Iain

birdsong87 wrote:...take a piece of paper, ask the T to put their hand on it and circle it so you can take the shape of the hand back home. when feeling bad it helped to imagine having their hand and putting our hand on top, creating a sense of inner connection and not being alone. it worked surprisingly well.

We absolutely love this idea of planned connectivity. Wow. We had to miss a scheduled appointment and it caused inner turmoil which was a challenge to overcome.

Hi Oceanwaves,

Can you find out more about specifically what Little is scared and sad about? Because that might help you know what to do for her. You may need to read the letter out loud to her, over and over again--I know for my littles, seeing the words is not as helpful as hearing them. Maybe you could record the T reading the letter in her own voice?

We've been so scared of letting the littles attach to this T because of a very traumatic experience with a T in the past who had really poor emotional boundaries and led them to believe that he could really reparent them. So the idea of poor boundaries is terrifying, but so is the idea of bumping into boundaries--because then we would feel rejected, or like we did something wrong (or that we just are bad and wrong).

So far, our T has let us take home a stuffie from his office--it stays at our house, but I bring it back for sessions and it sits on the couch near me. So when a little misses the T at home, we can hug the stuffie, and they like that it is always smiling and looking friendly.

Also, my Little (who is 1 1/2 or 2) wanted to be able to "wave and say hi" when we weren't in the office, so the T and I talked about it, and he suggested once a week (or 4 times in a month) that she could text him and he would "wave" back. We saved it up for this recent absence, and so far she has texted him twice and is very happy when he responds.

Another thing we did (and we were sure this was too much to expect) was to ask if the T would take a special little object on the trip with him. That was fine with him (and he said it wasn't the first time someone had asked him to do that). So he has had something we gave him in his pocket for the past two weeks. That helped one of the littles feel very connected with him. And we agreed that she could text him twice to ask if he still had it with him (to make sure it got there and back with him on the plane). Another older part was kind of uncomfortable with the pocket idea--like that seemed a little too close, but we figured out that it didn't have to do with the T in the present--it just reminded her of something else from the past that she was trying to protect herself against.

Anyway, I'm sure every T is different in terms of what their boundaries are and what they are comfortable with, but this is what we've figured out so far. And like people mentioned, older parts taking care of the younger ones is definitely very important.

the Gang

Thank you everyone for the feedback!

I loved the idea of having my therapist trace her hand, so I asked her to do that for me today and she did and she loved the idea too! It calmed down Little SO much and my T said she didn't think she'd ever seen Little that calm. So thank you thank you for that idea!

My T reminded us that in the past...we would attach to someone but then they would leave and wouldn't come back. But this time....we are attached, she is going away, BUT SHE IS COMING BACK! So this was helpful and reassuring to hear. Because that is what Little fears the most...that she will be abandoned and forgotten.

My T says we can email her while she is away, we can email her anything we want to. So that feels good too.

RIght now...parts feel settled. I hope it can stay this way most of the week.

It feels nice to feel settled.

OceanWaves wrote:RIght now...parts feel settled. I hope it can stay this way most of the week.

It feels nice to feel settled.

I agree! That's how I felt after I saw my T two weeks ago, even knowing I wouldn't see him for two weeks. I think that's what happens when all the parts feel seen and heard, especially the littles and the protector.

I usually have to be very organized for that to happen, with a plan of the most important things to talk about that day, based on what I've written in the journal to him and in the separate journal I have just for me. Today I also had notes in my phone because I was feeling kind of scattered.

And I have to make sure to be paying attention near the end of the session to see if anyone is upset that we just "talked about stuff" instead of really connecting with the T. I managed to do that today, and we spent a little time for the parts to absorb just being with him and looking at him while he looks at us. So I have that settled feeling again today, which will make my week go so much better than it would otherwise!

I'm glad that your Little felt reassured and calm. Sounds like everything went really well today.