TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: (inaudible)

THERAPIST: Those things are hard to have a hard stop on.

CLIENT: Well, it was me though. And I was like, ‘blah, blah, blah, blah.’

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: I hadn’t (unclear) in years but –

THERAPIST: Is that something you’re really interested in and invested in?

CLIENT: Which?

THERAPIST: So you were meeting with him to just chat or trying to work there again or have some involvement?

CLIENT: No. He wants to work there.

THERAPIST: Oh, he wants to work there.

CLIENT: Yeah, he –

THERAPIST: So he wanted an informational interview through you –

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly.

THERAPIST: In retrospect.

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I haven’t listened to the program in four years but this is how it was when I was there. I’m still friends with some of the team but it’s a small world because this is a kid – he’s Swedish but he was born somewhere in France and he went to school, a boarding school in the town that I lived in for the year that I was over there and he’s been at HDS now for a year and –

THERAPIST: One of these interesting overlaps.

CLIENT: Yeah, he wants to work on this program and needs to talk to somebody in career counseling. You know I think somebody who used to work in that program is a recent alum, so –

THERAPIST: Amherst networking at its finest.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs) Yeah, I just need to figure out how to make it work for me. (Both laugh) But, yeah, so.

THERAPIST: Well, you have to decide what you want to do.

CLIENT: That’s right, that’s right. I want to be dean of the law school. Who can put me in touch –?

THERAPIST: (Laughs)

CLIENT: Yeah, no – exactly.

THERAPIST: Who can probably put you in touch with the law school and get you an application for a start.

CLIENT: Talk about things to do. But, yeah, I’m here now.

(Pause): [00:00:15 – 00:02:39]

CLIENT: I’m not really sure what we talked about last week.

(Pause): [00:02:40 – 00:02:53]

CLIENT: (inaudible)

THERAPIST: I’m torn between refreshing your memory and deciding that if you can’t remember what we talked about that maybe it wasn’t the right thing to be talking about.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: What feels important today?

CLIENT: Good question. Well, I worked two days this week on a video shoot at the business school and I haven’t worked like that in a long time. A long time. That was two 12-hour days and I have to say it was rather satisfying, partly because I was learning new things, partly because I was meeting new people and also because at the end of the 12 hours I felt like I (unclear) myself – I don’t want to say I felt like I did something, but I felt like I spent a good amount of time doing something constructive that allowed me to feel like I didn’t have to continue working into the night, there was an end to it. And I had two 12-hour days and then yesterday, Wednesday, I had dinner with a professor of law from the Europe that advises the government there on anti-terrorist legislation. I interviewed him last summer and he said he was going to be in Providence and I said, “Well, I’m in Providence, we should have dinner.” And that was great but also kind of work-ish. [00:05:04]

THERAPIST: You were kind of on.

CLIENT: Yeah. So yesterday I felt like I could kind of take the time and take (unclear) of it because I was also doing things on Tuesday and Wednesday that were out of my skill-set, actually, operating a camera. I mean, out of my professional skill-set. So yeah, I guess the reason I mention it is just because I feel like that was part of the reason the week went by so fast and it made me wonder if just if working everyday – I first wondered if I could even do it. Like do I have the endurance to work? But it was, I felt like an old hand doing it and it just made we wonder – is that enough? Is it enough for me to do that kind of work, you know, at the end of the week feel like fulfilled? And I’m still stuck on the whole – it’s almost like those shows – “where are they now?” And they’re kind of – they can be kind of a train wreck to watch because they’re somewhere waiting tables and they used to be touring the world and whatever, playing arenas and they blew all their money so now they whatever. But it’s almost like is this enough for me to be doing something like this? Is this enough for me to be doing something like this? Is this enough for me to feel like I’m doing something I want to do? No. It’s not. But it is part of this larger them about continuing to learn, doing evening classes and so, whatever. [00:07:32]

THERAPIST: What would feel like a full, satisfying life?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That’s a way to go question.

CLIENT: (Laughs)

THERAPIST: As it came out of my mouth I thought, ‘that’s not –’ What components do you need?

CLIENT: For whatever reason I hated school but learning was always important and I get excited about learning new things that I can easily jump into – why is that? What is it about me that’s deficient that I don’t feel good about that in essence is the whole nest that I don’t really want to try to keep leaping to whenever I ask why do I do a certain thing because it’s what I always do.

THERAPIST: And I think feeling motivated by learning something new is not necessarily indicative of being deficient in an area.

CLIENT: No, but I guess what I’m wondering is, like everything else that I’m questioning, is my motive pure? Is my reason for doing it because I really want to learn this or am I trying to impress someone or what is it exactly?

THERAPIST: What if it’s just to feel good?

CLIENT: Well – why? Why do I want to feel good? Why am I feeling badly?

THERAPIST: Why do you want to feel good? (Laughs)

CLIENT: Yeah. Well.

THERAPIST: Because pursuit of happiness (laughs) is like a natural right, right?

CLIENT: This just happens anywhere. Yeah, no I guess I’m always cautious of the reason behind wanting to feel happy because what is it that’s making me unhappy, you know? And that might not be a worthy pursuit – to go down that road. It might be futile and frivolous, I don’t know, but (Pause) the fact remains that I do enjoy learning new things and so without my even noticing it for the past several years, I’ve kind of seen a theme, a pattern of community ed courses or adult education courses or a degree here or lining up a job of something that I haven’t done before but would like to try to learn more about – things like that. Picking up different instruments. So there’s a theme there and it seems to me that – and the more I think about it, the more I can go on and on and on. But it seems that I have this idea that I believe firmly in the idea that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want. And for someone who doesn’t have kids, that’s more true than for other people. And for wherever you want, too. Again, am I learning because I like to learn or am I learning because I think when I’ve discovered that one thing that I really want to do. And you know, again, I don’t like questioning motives of things. [00:12:01]

THERAPIST: Yeah. I think maybe a healthier question is, ‘are you enjoying as you are learning?’

CLIENT: Yeah, when I’m not scared. (Laughs) On the job. At this gig, is frightening. That’s part of learning.

THERAPIST: Frightening – exhilarating frightening, or paralyzing frightening?

CLIENT: Frightening is alright. Paralyzing – I just don’t think it could happen. The idea that I’d be exhilarated by fear is something that seems really foreign to me like why would I want to do that? That would scare the hell out of me. Why would I want to –?

THERAPIST: Yeah, but isn’t that somewhat of the thrill of elicit fantasies?

CLIENT: That’s what I mean. There’s a connection there that the idea is exhilarating and fearful or fear inducing is something that I pursue – like wow, when did I ever do that? And yet, here I am. But yet, I think it’s just the idea of learning, experiencing new things in the context of this video shoot I’m not, I don’t anticipate some of these other things that we’ve been working on. That said, I don’t feel horrible when I’m left doing it. (Unclear) [00:14:11]

So I guess that’s not mine to think about – what is it about learning that is exciting, is exhilarating in ways that elicit fantasies provide some sort of kicks?

THERAPIST: You could actually not think about it and accept it.

CLIENT: (Laughs) I’ll have to accept that then.

THERAPIST: And I think – partly why I’m pushing you on this is that some of the questioning and introspection that you do – there’s a point at which, as you’ve noticed, it becomes hurtful to you rather than actually helpful. The information that you might figure out doesn’t actually help you move forward. If you’re questioning whether it’s okay to feel that way or what the true motive is – but if what you’re feeling is what feels good in some way, scary but maybe exhilarating, satisfying at the end of it and it’s not hurting anyone else, then that can be the end of it and that’s adaptive. Learning stuff is generally not harmful. It’s pushing you into new areas. You feel good about it. You provided – in this case you provided a service to people. It doesn’t have to be deeper than that.

CLIENT: Yeah, I get that and I guess when I say I have to think about it, what I mean is, ‘how do I cultivate that?’ And not lead myself into areas that are not making me happy.

THERAPIST: One way of doing that is noticing what you are feeling and letting the feeling guide you rather than thinking. Your natural place to go is to think about things and to really spend a lot of time evaluating, understanding. Thinking is a very useful pursuit, but when it eclipses letting yourself notice your intuition. We all have intuition but sometimes we can think it out of existence. But noticing at the end of the day, there wasn’t regret, there wasn’t shame, there wasn’t guilt. That can guide you. When you find that, that feeling is the place to go again. And being open to things that feel like – that’s a lot of potential, having me feel satisfied and excited and useful and productive at the end of the day.

CLIENT: And successful.

THERAPIST: Yes. Yeah, feeling successful is a big confidence booster which is often what you feel you are lacking. Feeling like you’re good enough at stuff.

(Pause): [00:17:26 – 00:17:55]

CLIENT: Yeah, the thing I often come back to, this is often not as thinking, but of comparing, perhaps, which is probably the same thing, but yeah, maybe this answers your question, kind of piecing together what I need to feel – whatever you asked.

THERAPIST: What components do you need to feel satisfied with?

CLIENT: Stupid.

THERAPIST: I try to pay attention.

CLIENT: Present. The distinction or comparison between working for someone else’s project at various times of my life and working on my own thing – and as I say that it’s something I’ve been trying to cultivate in the past months, year, is that when I’m playing guitar, when I’m not writing something, I’m working on technique which is just something that I needed to do. It satisfies the need to have played guitar every day. Sometimes I just play scales for 20 minutes and just be gone. I’m not checking to see who just texted me. I’m not doing those things. I’m totally into what I’m doing. And it’s a technique and I’m just trying to go up and down the fret board.

THERAPIST: It feels good.

CLIENT: It does feel good. It is enough to feel I am not languishing as a musician, as in I didn’t touch the guitar today. And then when there is not the inspiration to actually write a song or to continue working on a song – that’s half of it. It’s helpful. Now going back to when I first met you I was working on someone else’s project, someone else’s (unclear) – that’s technique. That takes care of the interim of staying sharp, staying productive, staying successful, healthy, happy –

THERAPIST: But not having the pull for a need to be creative.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yes. And so I think that in some ways answers the question of what components I may need. There’s the technical – when I say technical that involves all sorts of imaginative construction. And there’s the personally invested construction created drive that is sharpened by technical every day. So I think for me what’s lacking in this week so far is not at least touching that personal initiative project. Now when it comes to playing guitar, music – that involves the song with effort and that’s just something that I need to cultivate. I need to build into the day like I have on playing guitar, I have this reminder that comes up and says, ‘read for 30 minutes. Play guitar for 30 minutes.’ It’s a daily reminder that shows up from my phone and from my computer. So whenever I’m on, it shows up. Now, what’s not there is work on lyrics. Whatever. Ten minutes. Ten minutes would be more than enough (unclear). [00:22:24]

THERAPIST: And you feel like it needs to be a daily piece in order to feel –

CLIENT: Well, not necessarily but I do think it needs to be daily in that it’s not going to fix itself in one day.

THERAPIST Right.

CLIENT: I’m not going to get to where I want to be with it by saying, ‘once a week I’m going to do this.’ It will, ultimately, but it will take a lot longer. And I feel like I’m talking stuff that’s not very professional right now but it has meaning to me in that as I think about this it’s kind of developing and I think for so long I have worked on other people’s dreams and projects without any regard for my own and in that sense that component has been missing. So, as I said, in music, that’s going to be 10 minutes a day writing words, editing, writing, editing. When it comes to professional that has a few different aspects. One is the professional project that I want to work on which is the Schedule Seven website. That’s more mundane than anything else. Am I putting you to sleep?

THERAPIST: No. Do I appear to be sleeping? [00:24:00]

CLIENT: No. No, you just look very comfortable. And then there’s the radio documentary that I want to do on this noise pollution matter what I’ve told you, but you’ve probably heard about that.

THERAPIST: You haven’t told me anything about your (unclear). I’ve heard about the Schedule Seven thing but not the noise pollution thing.

CLIENT: It’s a serious issue. But nobody knows it’s a serious issue. It’s a stressor. I’ll tell you more about it later. But that’s the professional like – I need to write a grant application. I need to get thousands of dollars to do this. There’s a lot of things that need to happen. Part of the reason I’m taking this grant writing course is to learn how, continue to learn how to write grant applications (unclear) out there. That’s one part of it. Why am I working on this video shoot? Because I want to do a film documentary on ballroom dancing and the craziness around it. But I think it’s a matter of balancing my own expectations because I can’t say – well I can – but I don’t think it’s going to be successful for me to say I’m going to think about this ballroom dancing documentary which is to me at least a year or two out every day. But the technique, working on the technique is there so that, when I get around to it, I know I can call up Todd House in DC and say, ‘hey, I want to hire you to do this thing.’ I want to call up Ruben Years, director of photography, and say ‘hey, I need you to shoot this thing, are you available?’ And then call up these people that I met Tuesday and Wednesday and that quote/unquote “technique”, for lack of a better word, is in place for when I want to (unclear). [00:25:59]

So, in a way my week was spent laying the groundwork for the future and developing those things that are present.

THERAPIST: Because you know that these things are going to be put to use maybe someday.

CLIENT: Someday.

THERAPIST: Right, and like you say, it doesn’t make sense to say, ‘well, I’m going to spend an hour of my day every day developing the ballroom dancing project. So it’s not at that place where it’s really about the ballroom dance piece yet. It’s about keeping contacts and keeping skills in the loop for when it does actually become about that. [00:26:32]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And you know there’s the connection to sort of your bigger dreams.

CLIENT: And you know, part of the technique of the projects I’m working on now is about telling a story.

THERAPIST: All of this stuff is about storytelling.

CLIENT: I’m telling a story now and will be telling a story then. And you know –

THERAPIST: It’s interesting. You actually have a lot more direction and focus than you give yourself credit for.

CLIENT: This is all just over the past hour. I swear to you

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean –

THERAPIST: Yeah, but these ideas are not all just from the past hour.

CLIENT: No, they are.

THERAPIST: Really.

CLIENT: The whole guitar thing – technique versus composition – that is something that I’m trying to apply. But actually, applying this to everything else just kind of came together as –

THERAPIST: But like the ballroom dancing idea, the noise pollution idea, this website idea – those things have all been there.

CLIENT: They’ve all been there, yeah. But –

THERAPIST: You just didn’t know you had direction to them.

CLIENT: I didn’t believe I had direction to them.

THERAPIST: Ah. Now you know how it kind of fits together.

CLIENT: Yeah, and that doesn’t need to be black or white. I do this or I do that.

THERAPIST: They’re not all separate.

CLIENT: They’re not all separate and I think that’s been, you know, I think one of the things you’ve taught me is that things are not one or zero.

THERAPIST: Except when you’re coding.

CLIENT: True.

THERAPIST: (Laughs).

CLIENT: But even then, differentiate. But there is – does it have to be? I think for me for so long they have to be. Like the only way to learn an instrument is to do such and such and such and such. Well, that’s one way to do it. But isn’t there also the way where you don’t learn to read music, you don’t learn all those scales? You just pick it up and you play it. Yeah. And people do it every day.

THERAPIST: In figuring out which method actually works best for you rather than deciding a hierarchy and what is the right method to learn.

CLIENT: If I don’t follow that hierarchy I might as well just give it up now.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Because that for me has been the rule for so many things in my life.

THERAPIST: So that you sort of have, I guess two different things are jumping out at me. One is the difference between process versus content and I think that’s kind of a switch you’ve made as you’ve started to look this week at what’s the process that binds all these things together so that it doesn’t feel like, ‘I’m a chaotic mess and I don’t know where I’m going or what I want to do.’

CLIENT: Or, ‘if I do this, I can’t do that.’

THERAPIST: Right. So when you think about it in terms of content it might seem all over the place, like ballroom dance, noise pollution, terrorism.

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly.

THERAPIST: But in terms of process it’s all storytelling. And it’s figuring out how you tell the story and what are the modes you can use to tell the story and what are the skills that you’re developing that you can probably use regardless of the story that you’re telling, figuring out how to engage your audience and weave an interesting tale, is the same.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So I think paying attention for you, always thinking about what’s the process that I’m developing? Because the process is the same regardless of where you’re going. And then the other piece is sort of then not having to – it’s a thing of figuring out that it’s okay to have student-specific learning rather than saying, ‘this is how we teach a class and everybody has to learn this way and if you can’t then there’s something wrong with you.’ Instead, figuring out what’s the style that this student of life learns in and I’m going to teach it to you in that way. Or, as an adult, seek out experiences in a way that matches my learning style.

CLIENT: Or adapt things to (unclear). Which I don’t really know yet, but I will. [00:30:41]

THERAPIST: Well, I think part of what you do know is you tend to work best with some consistency, right? Like paying attention to this every day for a half an hour.

CLIENT: Well, that’s – see that is – there’s tension there because to me that is how you learn. That is how you do it. There is only one way to do it. But, so far it’s been effective. And so –

THERAPIST: Maybe that is the way you do it.

CLIENT: And that’s the way I’ve thought and if I’m not doing it every day I’m failing it.

THERAPIST: So maybe we need to change every day to regularly and regularly might mean daily or weekly or –

CLIENT: Whatever the frequency is I know that if I fail at whatever, the plan I put forward is not a failure. It doesn’t mean I might as well give up that instrument, you know. So there is that tension and I think it’s a matter of figuring out, allowing for the discovery of how I learn as a continuing process – what works, what doesn’t work. Judging doesn’t work because it just makes me feel bad. Now you’re absolutely right that the process is evolving. Now, I’m not sure how else to go through life. I’m not sure how people approach the idea of process in life without it being a continual process or if they figured it out at 18 and now they’re supreme court justices, I don’t know, whatever, that’s fine for them. To have a process that doesn’t evolve to me seems for me not sustainable. And the rigidity that I’ve applied to how a process has to be has not been successful because it’s made me feel like shit. Every day, to some degree.

THERAPIST: So in figuring out your learning style, rigidity is not useful for you.

CLIENT: No. No. And failing and consistency leads to feeling bad which leads to not wanting to be consistent. I don’t know why that is. It’s like, ‘well, I didn’t do it yesterday, I might as well not do it tomorrow.’ So tripping once means I’ll never get up. And I don’t know why that is. But it’s been pervasive throughout my – every aspect of my life.

THERAPIST: I think because it connects to your either learned or innate sense that one or zero – all or nothing – so if you fell then you’re done, versus the feeling that it’s not all or nothing and it really is a repeated process. If you fall, so you get up and you do some more. But I think if you connect falling to failure, well then failure says it’s over.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Rather than, well you fell and it was a part of the process.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Continuing to really challenge yourself to not see that one or zero, but to see all of the infinite numbers in between. [00:34:50]

CLIENT: The fractions, the decimals.

THERAPIST: Those things, yes. Broken down into as many pieces as you could possibly need.

CLIENT: At least 10 decimal places. But I think what’s difficult for me is to make it a priority to understand that when I don’t do something it has negative impacts.

THERAPIST: That’s actually a choice and it’s not nothing on the other side, right? That it’s negative impact.

CLIENT: Yeah, I know that if I don’t do certain things, if I don’t go to the gym I’m going to feel like crap which is going to have a snowball effect on the rest of my day on all the parts of it. I know if I play guitar this morning like I did I feel like any time I pick up the guitar for the rest of the day is just bonus, like I don’t have to do it. And yet I’ve got this reminder that says, ‘do this.’ And the reminder serves the purpose for me to feel good. Do you see where I’m going with this? It’s like I’ve got these rigid things in place to keep me on track (Pause) –

THERAPIST: Would it feel different if the reminder said, ‘you’ll feel good if you play guitar’?

CLIENT: Yes. Maybe.

THERAPIST: Maybe you’ll feel better if you go to the gym.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: A much more encouraging voice than, ‘do this. Do that.’

CLIENT: Yeah, true.

THERAPIST: Or else.

CLIENT: But I guess what I’m struggling with is if I for whatever reason don’t do that I know I’ll feel good. What – maybe this is becoming a philosophical conundrum. It’s not worth talking about but – yeah, maybe that’s just it – it’s how I learn. That what happens, that makes me feel bad. That is what the process comes down to. It’s not about playing guitar. It’s about feeling good. [00:37:31]

THERAPIST: What’s interesting to me about this conversation is that you’re a human being and you’re affected by a lot of things at one time. We can’t isolate all the different variables the way we would in a good scientific experiment and so I think the variables that are sort of confounding each other here – is there’s a part of it that is how do you learn? And so yeah, the negative consequence that you get, feeling bad when you don’t work out. Yeah, that is part of the learning process and we would anticipate well – and I guess the question you’re answering yourself is, ‘if I know I’m going to feel bad and I don’t do it, and I know I’m going to feel good if I do,’ why is that not enough to solidify behavior? And I think that may be why it’s not enough – just that consequence of feeling bad or feeling good being enough to change behavior is that you’re also responding to how you’re being asked to do things.

CLIENT: Forced.

THERAPIST: Right. And you’re not being asked or encouraged. You’re being demanded.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And I think in the same way you set up your reminder in your phone, that’s the way you talk to yourself and I think you have a response to the way that you talk to yourself in addition to the response that you have to doing the thing or not doing the thing.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And so they’re kind of like competing with each other because the good feeling that you get from going to the gym is in competition with the part of you that doesn’t really want to follow orders.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And of course you don’t want to follow orders. You know, very few people really do. We want to feel like we’re in charge of ourselves.

CLIENT: That’s the way you learn is by following –

THERAPIST: Well, I don’t know.

CLIENT: That’s the cut and dry, black and white world we’re living in.

THERAPIST: I think if you went over to the school of ed they might say something different about how they’re teaching their teachers to teach.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:39:33]

THERAPIST: There was an article in the Globe this weekend about what really is the best way to get people to behave in certain ways. Is it by saying, ‘do this because we’ve said so?’

CLIENT: Who’s ever done that? Who’s ever done something because you told them to do this, or else? No one has ever – unless you’ve got a gun. But, yeah. No, it’s –

THERAPIST: But that gets at the idea of fear-driven learning. People don’t learn by fear. They can act – in a situation where someone is fearful they will comply, but it’s not true learning because as soon as the threat goes away so does the behavior.

CLIENT: No, I hear you. I think there’s been so much emphasis on – that’s I’ve put on being happy and doing the healthy things that are going to help me do it, that it’s almost seemed like this authoritarian process.

THERAPIST: Is that how your parents parented? Were they authoritarian like that?

CLIENT: My dad was.

THERAPIST: What was mom like?

(Pause): [00:40:51 – 00:40:59]

CLIENT: She was more lenient. (Pause) I think my dad was more of the drill sergeant. And I say that not like everyone else says “drill sergeant”. But he was the enforcer. He was the one who encouraged one to do something with “do it.” Encouragement. And there was a lot of chores every day and we had weekend and Saturday chores too which was, you know, I just hated doing, I absolutely hated doing them. And as more and more kids left the house more chores fell on the rest that remained. There’s something that Mom used to say – ‘if you get it done you can do the fun things.’ She always said, ‘when you do it, you do a good job but it’s just a matter of getting you to do it.’ And I often think about that. You know, those two things. Unpleasant things can just – a lot of time you dread doing them – the amount of time it takes to do them you could have done 10 times and the energy that’s required for me to do a good job on something is, it’s – I know it’s going to involve a certain amount of energy and focus and, I won’t say excellence – responsibility.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Something to think about over the coming week is to look at the ways in which you’re setting up your life to parallel the house you grew up in.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I don’t mean in terms of the physical space but in terms of what kind of chores have you set up for yourself? How are you enticing yourself to do them so that you feel better and then think about how might you set it up differently so that it doesn’t feel like going to the gym and playing the guitar and you know, being present, feel like the Saturday morning chores, because I think that what we want to stay away from is repeating the pieces that didn’t work. The “do it, because I said so.” And also the, “you can have fun after but not during.” Stay away from repeating that and finding maybe a better way of motivating you – of course, there are life chores that you’ve got to do but maybe there’s a better way to motivate that doesn’t reinforce that same feeling of dread and reticence that you felt as a kid. [00:44:21]

CLIENT: Yeah. And have the choice. The idea that there are other options is kind of new to me. You know.

(Pause): [00:44:30 – 00:45:07]

CLIENT: Is your health okay?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Okay. Good.

(Pause): [00:45:10 – 00:45:17]

THERAPIST: What are you worrying about, (Unclear)?

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: You’re worried about me today.

CLIENT: No, I noticed last week your face looked – you’re very slender as it is. You looked more slender and I thought well maybe she’s having some health problems I should not try to pry into but – if you’re fine, you’re fine.

THERAPIST: I appreciate your concern, but I am okay.

CLIENT: Good, good, good. (Heavy sigh)

(Pause): [00:45:58 – 00:47:00]

CLIENT: Last week when I left here I asked you if (unclear) you or (unclear).

THERAPIST: Neither.

CLIENT: No?

(Pause): [00:47:11 – 00:47:22]

CLIENT: I felt bad about it later.

THERAPIST: How come?

(Pause): [00:47:27 – 00:47:48]

CLIENT: Because I know I’m not supposed to touch you.

(Pause): [00:47:48 – 00:45:58]

CLIENT: (Unclear). And yet.

(Pause): [00:47:49 – 00:48:05]

CLIENT: I asked you anyway.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You asked me to break a rule.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: It’s my job to keep the rules.

CLIENT: (inaudible).

THERAPIST: Which is why I did not feel annoyed or upset in any way by the question because it is my job in here to make sure the rules are followed to keep you and me safe and as the client, you’re allowed to challenge the boundaries whether – and all clients challenge the boundaries in one form or another. You have to try to challenge it in a physical way. If I felt unsafe I would tell you. The question didn’t make me feel unsafe in any way and so –

CLIENT: Yeah. It isn’t that I think about –

THERAPIST: Getting a hug or challenging the boundaries?

CLIENT: Both.

(Pause): [00:49:05 – 00:49:16]

THERAPIST: Well, you can feel secure knowing it’s not going to be crossed.

(Pause): [00:49:16 – 00:49:27]

CLIENT: I’m not sure “secure” is the word I would use.

(Pause): [00:49:22 – 00:49:46]

THERAPIST: We can continue the conversation next week.

CLIENT: Sounds good.

THERAPIST: Okay. (Pause) (inaudible)?

CLIENT: Ah, no, it’s alright. I do.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Exciting weekend plans? It’s supposed to be warm.

THERAPIST: Yes, I’m looking forward to the warmth.

CLIENT: And tomorrow (unclear).

THERAPIST: I saw 50 at one point. Is that gone now?

CLIENT: No. I need it to be 50. You know the snow melts when the dog stops peeing in the snow. Today’s the seventh.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: (inaudible).

END TRANSCRIPT