Flight to Health

What is a “flight into health” and why is it the opposite of what it sounds like and a dynamic to avoid? It is: “In dynamic psychotherapy, the early but often only temporary disappearance of the symptoms that ostensibly brought the patient into therapy; a defense against the anxiety engendered by the prospect of further psychoanalytic exploration of the patient's conflicts.

I see “flights into health” often in my practice. All psychotherapists do. So that you can recognize them in yourself and people you know, here are some examples.

A client prone to depression who has no meaningful work and hasn’t found the right

man comes back from a vacation abroad and is jazzed and hopeful about her future because of her experience. After a while, her depression returns. She’s been in therapy for years and this vacation → happiness → depression pattern happens frequently. She’s made excellent progress in therapy in many ways but hasn’t dealt with some seminal issues which would truly turn her life around.

A client with a drug and alcohol problem refuses to attend substance abuse

meetings to help him recover and believes he can kick his habits through outpatient therapy alone. He abstains for a short time, then relapses until he finds a fringe church and becomes highly involved in it. He stops using drugs, reduces his alcohol use and comes into every session talking about how wonderful he feels and describing all the time he’s spending with his church friends—and avoiding discussion of anything else.