This holiday season is generally seen as a time of joy and celebration. However, for some people, it can be a time of difficult reflection, sadness, loneliness, anxiety and depression. Psychoanalyst James P. Cattell coined the term holiday syndrome, defining it as a reaction that manifests itself at the end of the year. He describes this syndrome as: "A presence of diffuse anxiety, numerous regressive phenomena, including marked feelings of helplessness, increased irritability, nostalgic rumination, depressive affect, and a desire for magical problem-solving." This period does not precipitate but can expose emotional suffering. Loneliness for some, the stress associated with travel and family gatherings, for others, confronting losses, and financial insecurity, among many other factors, are routinely cited as contributing to an increase in episodes of depression. There are no ready-made formulas to resolve this confrontation with existence. But as Dunker says: There is a mistake in looking at our lives as if we were just productive machines, limiting ourselves to what we earn or produce, as if our application to studies were an investment, as if our dreams were goals. And he wisely points out: "To weave the thread of desire that connects who we are to what we were, inventing what we will be, it is necessary to examine the intensity and quality of what is linked to certain things we call desire. And may we gently mirror and magnify the light of others, welcoming their shadows. Dulce Tereza By Giorgio Rigotto. Clinical psychologist. CRP 07/03860. (Schedule your appointment via Direct). @dulceterezadegiorgiorigotto