TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi, (inaudible at 00:00:07).

(pause)

[00:01:00]

(pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:01:33)

(pause)

CLIENT: I have a check for you.

THERAPIST: Oh, thank you!

CLIENT: But I don't get paid until tomorrow, so if you could wait until Friday to cash it, (crosstalk at 00:01:54).

THERAPIST: No problem, no problem.

CLIENT: Normally, I would just bring it next week but Genevieve's (sp?) e-mail suggested it you wanted it in two weeks, which would be Tuesday. [00:02:04]

THERAPIST: Is that what she said? Okay. [laughs]

CLIENT: [laughs]

THERAPIST: A few weeks, it doesn't matter as much, but thank you.

CLIENT: You're welcome.

We were talking about trust last time, a lot, and that was good and interesting, so I resolved to...to tell you things that I don't tell anyone. There are just a few things, thinking over, that I don't tell anyone, but now that I'm here, that's a more-challenging thing.

THERAPIST: Thinking about it, and then being in my presence, that difference... [00:03:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: ...that (inaudible at 00:03:01).

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. You know, I think if I had seen you Thursday, also, it would have been easier for this. We talked some about that time period seemed to matter for reasons which are not exactly clear to me.

(pause)

[00:04:00]

(pause)

THERAPIST: What do you think it would have been like to come in Thursday?

CLIENT: Oh, I don't know, but my guess is that it would have been much like this, but a little bit less so. That's a guess, not really a-I don't know.

THERAPIST: But that somehow, that easier part would be that it would have been easier for you to tell me what was-the things that came up for you about what we would talk about in here.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's the theory. Whether it's true or not, I don't... [00:05:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, and it's not particularly clear that that would have made very much difference.

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[00:06:00]

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CLIENT: I guess I wanted to start with a couple of things from my childhood or adolescence that I find embarrassing or shameful but are not particular terrible, I don't think. [00:07:00]

Two things came to mind, (inaudible at 00:07:08) why I started the project of, "What are the things that I don't tell anyone? Why don't I tell those to you?" I'm not exactly sure, but it seemed natural, after our conversation.

(inaudible at 00:07:23) reviewing that set of things, these were a couple of the earliest.

My first sexual experience was with my older sister, it was some...mild dry-humping, essentially. I was 12 at the time, so she was 14. It has struck me, in retrospect, a lot like...I have no idea whether it's an urban legend or it's a real thing, but like intimate female friends practicing kissing. [00:08:06] It's sort of a classic movie scene, (inaudible at 00:08:10), if that makes sense. It was not really like a thing that happened once. It was like, "Let's do this," she suggested, and then it happened and then it...we've never talked about it since. It was a strange (ph) thing (inaudible at 00:08:37), so that's one.

At a similar age, I think I probably was younger but I can't quite recall...I suggested to my younger sister that we have sex, which we then did, but my understanding of sex was that the genitals come in contact with each other. [00:09:03] Then my older sister explained that's not how it works. We rapidly lost interest.

Those are the two stories that I wanted to start with.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:09:15), you don't know how old you were then, just somewhat younger.

CLIENT: I think I was younger, so I would say I was between 10 and 13, and she's a couple of years younger than I am.

THERAPIST: And the embarrassing part?

(pause)

CLIENT: Well, any sort of sexual contact with siblings is fairly taboo, so I think that's the embarrassing part. [00:10:03]

You look a little big legitimately confused or thoughtful, I'm not quite sure.

THERAPIST: I don't think confused. I'm trying to understand, you know, what-you prefaced it by saying various things, so I wasn't sure what, you know...

CLIENT: Like I said, I'm interested that I told you the stories and then you said, "Okay. Are we going to get to the embarrassing part?"

THERAPIST: Well, right, and that's, in a sense, what I was suggesting as suggesting as there's not an inherently embarrassing part. You're bringing the experience of having it be embarrassing, and my curiosity about that experience.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Not that there's the unembarrassing [sic] part and then the embarrassing part.

CLIENT: [laughs]

THERAPIST: I was taking away the objectivity in that proclamation, and the (inaudible at 00:10:53), you know, with the experience of the embarrassment was (inaudible at 00:10:59).

CLIENT: Yeah. I think I understand better. In thinking about it myself, I...it's not that hard to come terms with. It's just a thing that...

(pause)

CLIENT: ... [no one's harmed] (ph), it's not particularly unusual, I don't think, in any real regard. It's a little weird, but most things that happen in the world are a little bit weird. [00:12:00]

Yeah, I think I-my first response was the genuine one (ph), "This is a thing that falls at least loosely under a taboo category, so I have a...reluctance to share it in view of being judged," presumably?

THERAPIST: Judged for being what?

CLIENT: I think bad, in some way.

(pause)

[00:13:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, I think that's the way to interpret taboos as, "You should not do this thing." That's sounds...yeah...bad in that sense of violating some ethical proclamation that any particular observer may or may not actually have. [00:14:08]

THERAPIST: And the bad is attached to the sisters more than attached to the sexual?

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah, I think.

THERAPIST: Right, because that could also be that...

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: ...it's more about being sexual than who was involved.

CLIENT: Right...

THERAPIST: (crosstalk at 00:14:24)

CLIENT: ...no, I think it's the sisters, yeah.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:14:27)

CLIENT: Yeah, because certainly, there was probably a taboo on sex, in general, in the organization that I grew up in. My mother has very strong norms against a wide variety of things, but among them being premarital sex. [00:15:00] That doesn't seem to be the relevant thing, here. Yeah. At least not to me maybe it is, but it doesn't ring true.

(pause)

THERAPIST: What did it feel like to tell me that?

CLIENT: I'm still trying to figure that out. Once I got over the anxiety of sitting down and looking at you, it was relatively simple to, you know-it's just words. [00:16:00]

Those two, I picked in part because I've never told them to anyone, so there was a sort of curiosity as to what would happen along with some trust that it wouldn't be a bad thing that would happen. Nothing bad seems to have happened yet.

(pause)

THERAPIST: Such a funny kind of statement, but I was thinking, being a scientist in one's personal life is not a bad thing.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Being a sort of empiricist, you know. [00:17:02] You check something out. You see if it's, you know, you have a hypothesis but you test it, versus just verifying your hypothesis because you want to. It's not a bad thing to live your personal life that way.

CLIENT: Okay. Thanks! I was certainly thinking that was sort of what I've done, it's sort of...thanks.

You know, that does get me into some real trouble in my marriage, in the context of I don't know how to rebuild trust there. The loss of trust is just so acute, in some way. I mean, now it's been a long time, so it's not-but... [00:18:00]

(pause)

THERAPIST: When you think about (inaudible at 00:18:13) that how to build it or rebuild it, if you think about what you would like to be there, what needs to be there, what kind of trust what is that?

(pause)

CLIENT: I think there are two separate pieces. One, I think, is I need to be able to trust her to take care of herself, which, that one...it's sort of going okay, my confidence in her ability to handle herself and her emotions is increasing.

Another one is... [00:19:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: ...I don't exactly know how to phrase it, but a trust in...

(pause)

CLIENT: ...a guess a trust in her ability and interest in taking care of me? [00:20:03]

(pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess I feel like she expresses an interest in taking care of me, but either it's not that strong an interest or she doesn't really have the ability.

Last week, she started working again, as a nanny. One of the (inaudible at 00:20:41) stomach flu, which is, you know, pretty horrible. (inaudible at 00:20:49) I don't know exactly how the conversation went, but I essentially said that I would prefer not to get sick, myself. Since I don't have any direct contact with children, that seemed like it might be possible. [00:21:01]

Like that to happen, so I asked her to figure out what needed to happen, and I suggested maybe she didn't want to get sick, either. That might be preventable for her, too.

Eventually, she did end up getting sick, on Saturday. She'd gone as far as to consult the lawyer that she works with but not the gastroenterologist, who probably knew a little more about the stomach flu.

When she got sick, I took care of her. I looked up and it's very likely that it was just a norovirus; it's the category of illness, just like the third link down on Google or something. From health department websites, you're contagious once you start being ill, and then for about three days to two weeks after you get better. [00:22:06]

I still don't want to get ill. Just because she's sick does not require me to be. I have not actually been sick, because that was Friday, so we're probably close to in-the-clear now, but it's been a...strain, because I've been less-interested in any sort of physical contact since she's still contagious with the thing that made her debilitatingly [sic] ill for 12 hours.

She understands that, but also it looks like it hurts her feelings when I don't want to kiss her. We talked about it; she agreed that it made sense and that she didn't want me to get sick. [00:23:00] Then, when it came to doing the thing that would avoid it...wasn't really near the top of her priority list. She could remember it, but...

(pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:23:47)

CLIENT: I was just going to say I felt like it's a fairly petty example, but in some sense, but it feels like it has more significance, in some way, like it's a...a token of a particular type or something. [00:24:04]

THERAPIST: My mind went in this direction, a different direction; I picked up on the, just contagious piece. Thinking about certainly not overtly, like you were suggesting this, but how contagious is her despair and her depression? How contagious is it to your, you know, possible future children? That's where my mind went; it's that issue of contagiousness and her illness.

CLIENT: Hmm.

(pause)

[00:25:00]

CLIENT: Have we talked much about this before?

THERAPIST: Not really.

CLIENT: Okay, okay, because I've thought about it some (ph), but I couldn't-it's been long enough since I've thought about it that I couldn't remember whether we talked about it at all.

THERAPIST: I guess it depends on what you're defining as "this."

CLIENT: [laughs] That's fine. The sort of contagion idea. I definitely thought about my experience in Illinois as being colored by her depression, to a large extent. Certainly, it is, in the sense that I left there, physically, but also...even before I left there, you know, we talked every day and she had a lot of bad days, and so it's...it's hard to cope with a heavy workload in a relationship with is more one-directional, in terms of support. [00:26:05] Then go back and work hard the next day, and do it again. I think it's...yeah, certainly I think some of that...despair has been contagious.

I guess either you talked before you made the interesting analogy to a shared not particularly bad habit but something like that.

THERAPIST: Drug use, recreational versus hardcore drug use.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. I think that analogy holds, in that circumstance, also, right? Before you recognize, "Oh, that's gone too far," it's easy to elevate along with the person, I think. [00:27:02]

You've suggested I have a tendency to despair, also, and I think that's certainly true. I don't think that's related to Tanya, but I think that's a thing that can be activated or amplified by surrounding myself with despair. Yeah, it's interesting that you should pick up on that, I think.

(inaudible at 00:27:34) my worry about essentially everyone in her family, on both her father and her mother's sides, all of the parents are either alcoholics or depressed. Yeah, I worry about contagion to children. I didn't worry about this much when we got married, because she was doing better or she was doing well, she was...seems to be a relatively normal, functioning adult. [00:28:04]

Hear her tell it now, that was never true; and I don't really think that's true, I don't think. I don't think it's possible to trick everyone around you for years on end. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but...

I think she was depressed when she was younger and became depressed again, which is actually more concerning for me, because...(inaudible at 00:28:36) she gets completely better again, and then we have children. What's going to be the trigger and what's going to happen if...yeah, what would happen?

THERAPIST: What would happen?

CLIENT: I don't know. [00:29:00] It seems fairly clear to me that the part of her...part of her work in therapy has been (inaudible at 00:29:09) her childhood experiences of trauma and their relation to her more-recent traumas, and her childhood experiences all related to her father and mother both being depressed and angry. That seems like not a good circumstance to recreate on a new set of children.

(pause)

THERAPIST: Do you think about that? [I mean] (ph), is it something on your mind sometimes, or (ph)...?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mostly, these thoughts weren't off-the-cuff, they were sort of there, I just don't...I don't have much...I don't have the answers for them. [00:30:06]

THERAPIST: Do you still see Dr. Jannis (sp?)?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

(pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, I would have told you if we had stopped.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess the way I worded it was...I guess I worded it that way because it's not something...in talking about your relationship with Tanya, it's not something that you've mentioned where you were mentioning it before, so maybe that's why I worded it [like that] (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah. We've sort of have been dealing with it, like a different project you and I have that's now converged back, so we're back to talking about it. [00:31:03]

My expectation is that it will diverge again, because I don't feel like all of my trust issues relate to Tanya and I don't feel like we're done with them, in a, "Hooray, they're all solved, because we've talked for a couple of weeks." Think that was really your goal, either. It just...

THERAPIST: I certainly agree with that, that all of your trust issues don't just relate to Tanya.

(pause)

[00:32:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Yes, we talked this week in that (ph) session about actually trust, in some ways, but...I guess Dr. Jannis summarized it in a-we have very different approaches to the world, and we have different styles of approaching the world, Tanya and I do, and that's true. [00:33:00]

(pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, so I guess he went on to suggest that the collision of those is a difficult thing in any relationship, particularly in any new marriage.

I said, "That's fine and I agree, but I think that there's more going on here than just that. I think that if we were just here because we have a little bit of trouble at the beginning of our marriage, that would be one thing, but a fundamental (ph) part of this is I don't trust Tanya's method anymore. It almost got her killed."

Then, the session was over shortly after that, so we didn't really get far into that. I guess we're talking about that, also.

THERAPIST: It's a pretty heavy topic. [00:34:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

(pause)

CLIENT: Were you saying that in a sort of supportive way, as an invitation to talk about it more if I wanted to?

THERAPIST: Not explicitly.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: It was more of a comment.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: It wasn't explicit. I wasn't not inviting you, but...

CLIENT: That's fine (ph).

THERAPIST: Did it feel like I was saying, "Say more about that?"

CLIENT: It wasn't particularly (ph) clear to me what you were saying, other than, "That's a heavy topic," so I was, I guess, inquiring.

THERAPIST: Well, the way you phrased it, that it-what you're saying is it's not-I mean, sort of to put it bluntly, one version of what you were saying or one interpretation is, "Dr. Jannis was minimizing this, that it's not simply like I like chocolate and she likes vanilla, it's that her approach was actually destructive." [00:35:14] I guess I was commenting on that heaviness.

CLIENT: Yeah, so I think it's probably a little uncharitable to describe his view that way, particularly-not that you were doing it, but I was.

Yeah, that was certainly my experience of his attempt to summarize or give us some positive outlook on the whole situation. I guess it felt like part of his project is to find common ground for us, and find the place where our experience matches that of others, where it's not so bad or something like that. [00:36:03]

I think that's mostly a good thing, but sometimes I think that that's not particularly helpful. The analogy to a normal marriage and the difficulties there is not a particularly helpful one, here, for me. I felt like it was important to say that. Maybe I felt like I needed to say that bluntly or something, [I don't know] (ph).

Because of course, we were talking about this, also, in the context of this norovirus, so that was-talked about that [in sum] (ph), also. Yeah, it's not a very deep example, but I...

(pause)

[00:37:00]

(pause)

[00:38:00]

THERAPIST: What made you think about the time? Is there something you want to bring up, or you're just curious?

CLIENT: I felt this-there's always more to talk about that I don't want to get into. I don't want to go down a path that was going to take forever or something, take longer than we have. I was trying to use how much time we have left as a way of sorting out what...

THERAPIST: I know I've been the one to bring this up several times. Concerned about feeling kind of heavy-handed, and you need to know if that's true. I was wondering if you wanted to try to meet twice a week for a few weeks, and see if it makes a difference or if it's fine just going back to once a week.

I don't know. I mean, it was interesting when you said, "I wondered what would happen if I had come in last week, again." [00:39:01]

CLIENT: Yeah.

(pause)

CLIENT: I appreciate you offering again, and it's not heavy-handed. [00:40:02] It's okay. I guess I'm reluctant for three reasons, all of which are sort of interesting for one reason or another, so I'll try to get through all of them.

One of them is, is it's a sort of loose fear about time commitment, that...particularly, that if we-let's just say we met twice a week and it was good. I don't know that that's going to be sustainable when I start a new job. That's a thing.

Another one related to the time commitment is I...we've talked some about Tanya having an emotional affair before. [00:41:00] It's difficult for me, in some ways, and complicated, that I would rather talk with you than talk with Tanya. I'm mostly okay with it, but it's-that's a complicated thing, so I guess I'm...that is related to the time piece.

THERAPIST: Well, that's something we should talk about, regardless of whether you come once or twice a week. That's an important thing (inaudible at 00:41:30), but yeah.

CLIENT: Like I said, I thought most of them were interesting in one way or another. Now I've lost count, whether that was three or...

THERAPIST: That was two.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, I'm not sure if that was two or if it was still part of one.

THERAPIST: Oh, I see.

CLIENT: Yeah, I can't-I think that was related to (inaudible at 00:42:01).

The other one is so, we talked some last year about insurance and all of that. I just pay you directly, the insurance doesn't cover anything so it's...

THERAPIST: That's a lot.

CLIENT: Yeah, it is. I feel like it's been worth it, and...switching to any other insurance system because Tanya has a different insurance that does cover most of or some percent of the sessions...and once a week, the two are about cost-equivalent, so all that I'm doing is not paying the insurance and paying you directly; but because of that, seeing your more often increases the cost directly, so I guess I'm reluctant there, also, because don't have a lot of money. [00:43:00]

THERAPIST: Well, the latter part-I mean, it's still an issue, but I don't know, maybe, the latter part is certainly if you came an extra time a week, I could offer you a reduce fee or more of a reduced fee for that extra time. It's still more than zero, so it doesn't completely [laughs] address it, but just to-and maybe that whatever we work out still feels like a little too much, so, you know, I appreciate that piece but just to let you know that that's an option. But that's the only one of the few concerns that you raised.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: With all things being equal, when someone wants to see more frequently and the only obstacle is finances, I really do my best to do something with that.

CLIENT: Thanks.

I can't remember if there was another one or not, but that's enough things that are all-have their own pieces to them.

THERAPIST: Well, the first two are related because they're-the first two, in terms of what if you can't come twice a week once you start working, you know, done with your degree, and the sort of sharing-wanting to talk more with me than with Tanya is sort of like, "Well, what if I like it too much?" [00:44:09] I mean, they're both versions of that.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: They're different facets of it, but that's sort of what...

CLIENT: [laughs] Yeah, that's a...yeah.

THERAPIST: It's not like, "Oh, I'm going to dread coming here. What if I have to come here when (ph) I hate it?"

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: [Or anything like that] (ph).

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: As you point out, in terms of interesting, they're important to talk about, regardless of what we decide to do. Because they're true, regardless.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: The feeling is true, regardless.

CLIENT: That's right.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:44:46), out of time.

CLIENT: It's okay, I knew that was going to happen.

THERAPIST: But we have next week!

CLIENT: [laughs]

THERAPIST: I may have mentioned this already, I'm away the first week in February...

CLIENT: Okay. [00:45:00]

THERAPIST: ...it's still a few weeks away, but just I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but...

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: ...yeah, okay.

CLIENT: You did it mention it...

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: ...and I wasn't sure if I remembered you mentioning it or not (crosstalk at 00:45:07).

THERAPIST: Okay, okay, very good. I will see you next week.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Okay, bye-bye.

END TRANSCRIPT