TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi, come on in.

CLIENT: Hello.

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: So we left off, I was talking about (inaudible) some frustration last Thursday, was more in the sense that I am deeply afraid of disappointment and loss, which perhaps you had recognized before but that formulation was important to me. From that and from our discussion a couple weeks before I was able to talk to some of my closest friends about my feelings about Reika (?) which was really good, a very positive experience. It started off with my friend Cody who I think of as one of my most loyal friends and so in a sense he was the person that I was most afraid of expressing these views to. Also similar people in our internal structure if not anything else he’s a poet and I’m a chemist so the similarities are internal.

(Pause)

CLIENT: So I wanted to say Thank you, I appreciate it. It was very helpful.

THERAPIST: Good.

(Pause)

THERAPIST: What did he have to say?

CLIENT: Sorry, I forgot. You were correct. It was not disappointment. He said something close enough to what you suggested he might say. Um . . . sort of, I guess I felt like you already knew. (Pause) It was good. He talked some about his own. So he has an eight month old son. His wife is a scientist. She’s in the lab doing research on rats and he’s at home taking care of their child and also writing. So he talked some about his own (pause) fears and concerns and thoughts and problems. It was good. So, I felt closer to him and supported in my . . . um . . . difficulties and struggles and doubts.

(Pause)

CLIENT: You look tired today.

THERAPIST: Do I?

CLIENT: Do you feel tired?

THERAPIST: Not particularly.

CLIENT: Okay.

(Pause)

0:04:32

(Pause)

CLIENT: Later I had a similar conversation with my friend, Franco, who lives here, who I see regularly. So I guess both of them I have leaned on in one way or another during Tanya’s illness. They are the people who know what has gone on in the past and also they are the people who know me the best.

(Pause)

CLIENT: That was also good. That was also supportive. It was interesting. I felt like the conversation was harder from Franco than it was for Cody. I think that Franco had less a sense of like what he ought to say, or something, that seemed to cause him some mild distress.

0:05:49

(Long pause)

0:06:46

(Pause)

CLIENT: We talked some yesterday about why I’m curious about you and your pregnancy and I think that everything that we said yesterday was true. But I think there’s also this . . . um . . . I want to know who you are and I want to know what your struggles and dreams are and, for me, in some sense your pregnancy is an embodiment of those things or must be. How could it not be? It’s sort of a sense that I have and as you suggested it’s present. So it’s sort of an accessible embodiment in some way. So I think that is an important piece of it also.

(Pause)

0:08:01

CLIENT: But I do also have a sense that the important question, I think that’s an important question but I think that the other important question is why now rather than why at all. Because the why has always been true. I have always been curious about these things about you. And particularly more curious now. I am just more willing to tell you. That is a scary process mostly because . . . um . . .

(Pause)

CLIENT: I think both because I am asking for intimacy and because I’m telling you about who I am. I am the person who wonders these things and I am afraid that I will be known and not loved. So, it’s just another form of loss.

THERAPIST: Not loved because you want to know what it reveals about you?

0:09:10

CLIENT: I’m sorry I couldn’t hear.

THERAPIST: When you say that you are not going to be loved because if you share these things that it sort of speaks to something, that it reveals something about you that would be unlovable?

CLIENT: Right, or repulsive to someone or something like that.

(Pause)

0:09:39

CLIENT: Another part of the fear of disappointment or loss is that I keep the things that are important to me close to me and hidden. The more important they are the closer that I keep them usually. Because if I don’t they could be taken away. I don’t have any particular theories as to why that exists. I imagine you’re interested in why that is the case, but I don’t know.

(Long pause)

0:12:07

(Pause)

CLIENT: So the deal I made with myself in asking you about the sex of your spouse was that I would tell you the following two facts with regards to the answer. It just hasn’t gotten around to the natural break here so. . . These are things that I keep close for reasons that are not necessarily clear but I feel that I am protecting somewhat. The first is that my mother hates people who are gay. I don’t but my mother does. And the second is that I am attracted to petite women.

(Pause)

0:13:24

(Pause)

THERAPIST: And it seems like both of those are linked in some way. I kind of connect the dots, but not directly related.

CLIENT: They are linked in the sense that I am reticent to say either of them. I am not sure they are linked, either of them, to each other or specifically to the questions that I have about you, although the first one is definitely related to talking about your sexual orientation, kind of protecting you from my mother is one of the things that I am doing in that. Not that you necessarily need that but I am doing it anyway. And maybe I am protecting her from you also but my feeling is more of the former in this specific case.

(Pause)

0:14:44

THERAPIST: Why doesn’t she like (inaudible)

CLIENT: Um, she believes that it is a horrible sin that requires being possessed literally possessed by evil spirits. She hates evil spirits so naturally it follows that one should hate the people who are possessed by them. I don’t that naturally follows at all. I don’t actually think that’s the correct description of sexual orientation but . . .

THERAPIST: Well, even if one were possessed by evil spirits, shouldn’t you feel bad for them?

0:15:21

CLIENT: But this plays into a world view where a lot of . . . the things that happen to you are a result of your believing in choices. If bad things happen to you then it must be that because you opened yourself to them in some way.

0:15:45

CLIENT: It’s a pretty horrible world view, I think.

THERAPIST: Well there are no accidents or coincidences, I guess.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Right. You know bad things happening to you are not always your fault. They are some nebulous adversary trying to attack you, but opening yourself to being allowed to being attacked is . . . uh . . . a failure in some way that brings upon you consequences. Maybe this is more related to what we were talking about than I thought.

(Pause)

THERAPIST: I was thinking. You know that book Why Bad Things Happen to Good People? I think it’s a Jewish book, or like coming out of Judaism. But I guess your mother (inaudible) would be well they were probably not that good.

CLIENT: You know, she’s not quite that cold blooded so I think she might say something more like they made a mistake, not that they were really good people. But yea, there’s definitely, there’s always sort of that undercurrent that they must not have been that good, or something.

THERAPIST: The book title itself is a logical inconsistency.

CLIENT: Yea, again it feels a little bit like I’m presenting it unfairly or uncharitably. Because there is also this deep sense in her and in my community that like there is something out there trying to do bad things to good people all the time. And, so . . .

0:18:04

CLIENT: So I don’t know. There is more nuance than I was giving you.

(Pause)

CLIENT: So if you had been married to a woman we probably would have had this conversation when I found that out. It seemed less important to have immediately.

THERAPIST: Why would it then be more likely?

CLIENT: (Laughs) I don’t know. I just had this sense that’s how I would have felt more urgent in following through with my deal with myself to tell you that I had been containing. But it seems like it affects you less directly in this context, so . . .

(Pause)

0:19:19

CLIENT: I’m not sure. I’ve also been trying to let the conversations that we have go where they go. . .

THERAPIST: But you would have felt more conflicted if that were the case?

(Pause)

CLIENT: That’s tough . . . um . . . yea, I think so. I would have felt like it would have had a larger potential capacity to hurt you than otherwise. But by the time that I was willing to ask you the question, I was willing trust you to be okay with the conversation.

THERAPIST: How would it hurt me?

CLIENT: That’s an interesting question. My initial response was like . . . knowing that someone hates you for a thing about you, hurt you? But I actually don’t know that I believe that. Because this is the thing with loss and disappointment. I didn’t say this but like, small disappointments are not a big deal. People that I don’t know not liking me are not a big deal; it matters more and more that the thing matters to me. So if I flip some coins and they all come out to the opposite that I wanted them to be. You know, where a commitment to them coming up heads or tails, so it’s a matter of . . . it really matters to me whether you like me or not. It matters to me whether my friend, Cody, is disappointed in me for my fears or doubts.

THERAPIST: And somehow you’re wondering whether it would matter to me how your mother might think of me.

CLIENT: Well, so when we draw it out that way, no I don’t really . . . no I think it seems like it’s rather conflating it matters to me what my mother thinks and it matters to me what you think. So I think sort of, wires get crossed, or something.

(Pause)

0:23:11

CLIENT: It was very comforting to me a few weeks ago when you asked if I wanted to meet with you more often again. I was sort of anxious about then I had these discussions in which I said that I loved you, I was anxious about the idea that might have been off-putting for you too much. I understand that you don’t want to ask every session if I want to meet with you more than that session. It makes sense. But it was nice that that was a thing that you suggested again.

0:24:00

(Pause)

THERAPIST: Because it showed that what you said was not off-putting?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. Or negligibly so insufficiently to change your overall view, or willingness to help or concern for me.

(Pause)

THERAPIST: What are you thinking about?

CLIENT: This has been a very difficult session for me. So I’m very anxious, afraid right now and have been for most of the session.

THERAPIST: Do you know of what?

CLIENT: Yea, it’s all about, like, I’m telling you things that are deeply personal and I’m afraid of your response, afraid of opening myself to you in that way. You know, sitting in this chair in the same way, telling you anyway but the feelings are still there.

THERAPIST: Are there particular fears you have about how I’ll respond to the things that you’re saying or is it just more general than that?

0:26:01

CLIENT: It feels more general. Like I don’t have any I’m not afraid of any particular words you might say in response if that’s the question you’re asking. (Pause) It’s quite a lot of fear though, surprisingly so. Well, it’s some sort of reflecting on how much there is and that takes up most of the space left I guess, the reflecting on it.

(Pause)

CLIENT: So I have sort of internal ways of reassuring myself I think, facing fears, or whatever our word is. So I can sort of tell how much it is by how effective or ineffective some of those are, particularly like a fear about a particular thing. Eventually I find a thing that is effective against it and then can, you know, if I’m afraid of a thing that is unlikely to happen, knowledge of how likely it is to happen and the conditions under which it would happen is a way of dismissing or alleviating the fear. So in this particular context, I read your dissertation this weekend which was very interesting. It was also scary to read that at the beginning particularly. I almost didn’t get through the title page. It was a tough need for love and in this context I think I was afraid what I would find contempt for my need for love in your writing which . . . and I was sure enough that that was not the case that I kept reading so if I did sit there and pause for a little while. And so that same certainty is not enough to put aside my fear here and having read your dissertation and knowing what that there is no contempt in there, there is only love in some sense. I’m still afraid. That must mean it’s quite a lot of it.

0:29:09

THERAPIST: What was it like reading it?

CLIENT: It was very interesting. I’ve never read Freud. The passages you quote, some of them are rather unintelligible so I appreciated you recapping most of them. That was helpful. Teasing in and out of them was how it was for me. Obviously I’m not at all read in your field. (Pause) It was interesting. It was nice to know what you think. It was nice to have a different window into what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.

THERAPIST: Was there a different ‘why’ perspective that you read?

CLIENT: The biggest difference was in the context of talking about my feelings for you that were never talked about in the sense of not only is this common, it’s expected or even necessary. It’s the sense at least that I get of how you read Freud. Obviously it gives me another direct access to what you thought then or what you think now about the treatment context. But that was reassuring in some sense.

0:31:05

(Pause)

THERAPIST: I don’t think ultimately this is off-topic that it’s not following exactly what you just said but I imagine your mother espouses a lot of views that you don’t or at least you don’t anymore. And I don’t know what that’s like for you.

CLIENT: It’s hard. It means that her opinion matters less to me, counts less, but all of her opinions countless to me in some sense. Like I have come to have enough skep—, she’s equally certain about almost everything and I know that some of the things that she believes are just wrong so that covers my belief in her other beliefs or views or feelings, so she’s proud of me for finishing my degree but her pride in me matters less than it would have when I was younger. That’s hard.

THERAPIST: Did you once, or were you once more on the same page with her beliefs than you are now?

CLIENT: Yea, when I was young and didn’t know any better. Yea, absolutely.

THERAPIST: Was it at a gradual process of coming to think differently?

0:32:52

CLIENT: Well there’s the sharp shift when the sort of world view collapsed in some sense, but that’s a particular moment in time. It’s not like my beliefs changed radically overnight but my certainty in whether I could believe the things changed radically. Are you familiar with Kim (?) (inaudible) It’s more like that than any revolution in science has ever been. His theory is kind of crap for science but it’s great for how things went. There were things that didn’t fit in and then there was sort of this paradigm shift and then things that more and more fit in to living in a different world.

THERAPIST: Do you think your siblings went through similar processes or different?

CLIENT: So, my youngest brother was in some sense too young. He was like two or three when that happened, so he’s only lived in the world after we were always a part of this thing. And now no longer were. Vivienne, my older sister I think has been undergoing, in some sense, a more natural shift like I feel like as people grow up they come to differ from their parents more and so I think that’s definitely been the case for her. Both she and Jessica, my younger sister, had very fraught relationships with my mother when we were teenagers and those have sort of, those relationships have sort of healed through their college years and then now through the post-college years. But definitely talking with both of my sisters I can sense that they don’t necessarily agree with everything that my mother believes. But they, I think they are different from me in that they, . . . I feel like I have this thing where I tend to value strength and . . . (pause) . . . I don’t have the right word or set of words. It’s not that I don’t value people who are weak, it’s that I don’t rely on them, and so I feel like I have less clarity as to where my mother sits on the spectrum.

0:36:14

CLIENT: And consequently I sort of rely on her less than I might otherwise.

(Pause)

THERAPIST: And you certainly feel that need, just not clear where to place it.

CLIENT: I’m sorry which need?

THERAPIST: That need to have someone that you can rely on and look up to.

CLIENT: Yes, absolutely. I’m, you know, not that confused about replacing it. I place it in you but yea, I definitely feel that need. I also have this sense of that this relationship that we have is a particular kind and is by design in some sense bounded temporarily but that the purpose isn’t to develop a situation in which I am reliant on you and that the purpose is to develop a healthier existence for me. So, yea.

0:37:55

(Pause)

CLIENT: And that’s one of the things that has been difficult in trying to figure out what I do next in my career. In some fields one doesn’t do a post-doc (?), one just goes directly to being a factor. I feel more or less prepared to do that just fine, but that’s not the way chemistry works when it’s to a post-doc (?). Which means that I have to enter into a relationship with someone that is essentially an adviser, an advisee relationship again, or enter a relationship without any sense of like whether I can actually trust them to carry out their end of that relationship. And actually with some certainty that I can’t because that’s the nature of the field, is that one funnels towards people who have less and less time and so . . .

(Pause)

THERAPIST: Has that made it difficult to apply?

CLIENT: Mm-hmm. So my present response is to say well that’s not a thing that I can determine by knowing any particular thing about them but it is something that I can closely determine by interacting with them directly, so I need to send out the applications and interview with the people who are interested in interviewing with me and make the best decision I can from that context because that’s the closest to the information I need can gather.

THERAPIST: Is that the only path that you are going to be taking right now? Is that what you are going to be doing?

0:40:04

CLIENT: If I can find another path that leads me where I want to go, then I will take that. But that’s sort of prompts the question where do you want to go and I don’t have a clear answer to that. Independence? I want to do work that I value and work with people that I value. But that’s a really broad answer.

THERAPIST: Like something like industry is not something that interests you?

CLIENT: No, well there’s just not a lot of independence. I don’t really value making more money for more corporations.

THERAPIST: I imagine that you feel that way.

(Pause)

0:42:22

CLIENT: Well I have left questions so we had yesterday so I’m going to ask a couple of more. In some sense deeply free of the answers so that’s the theme of the session. So the first is have you ever been suicidal? And the second is would you lie to me?

THERAPIST: Are those two related? (Laughs)

CLIENT: (Laughs) Not directly, they’re related into particular fears or concerns or something. They’re related in the sense that they’re not related . . . they’re not a sequential one, in some sense. I think in the context of talking about strength. One of the things about strength is that my ideal vision of strength is not like a god of some kind, like a person who has no weaknesses or flaws or troubles or struggles. It’s a person who’s human. Humans have problems and struggle with things, that’s the whole point. So these are, I think those are particular things about which I don’t know how to resolve my feelings about those.

(Pause)

0:44:15

(Pause)

CLIENT: I have one more that I actually feel like I need you to answer which is are you done answering questions with me, or are we . . .

THERAPIST: No, not necessarily. I don’t have any predetermined idea of what I will or won’t answer or what might or might not be helpful. Sometimes your questions give me more pause and I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m more reluctant to answer them or maybe for something else. I don’t think those last two questions give me pause because I’m reluctant to answer them per say . . . they caught me as so interesting I’m just thinking about it. And then to be honest, because I really don’t like to lie at the very least, you have like a half a minute left so I really want to delve into both of those and realizing I don’t exactly know how I’m going to do that in basically zero time but I’m very interested. And my question that followed was you know, I was thinking in my mind perhaps jokingly but you know so is the question would I lie about answering the question about being suicidal right. That’s how I thought about them. As have I ever been suicidal as they’re related but yea. No I’m not honestly done answering your questions. I want to harvest all of your questions but those are really gambling, I’ve got a lot to harvest there if that makes sense.

CLIENT: That’s an interesting word. Okay.

THERAPIST: Yea, we do need to stop for today. So I will see you on Wednesday. Okay, take care . . .

END TRANSCRIPT