TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: We turned on the tape but I wanted to check with you if there is any change in your feelings about being taped?

CLIENT: No. That’s fine.

THERAPIST: Before we get started with anything, whatever you have on your mind, just before we met today I was approached by Dr. Timber, who sees your mother, and she saw your mother and father together. They signed a release for Dr. Timber to talk to me, not for me to talk to her, because they wanted to share some historical information with me.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: What I told Dr. Timber is that I wanted to talk to you first. Did you know about that? [00:00:58]

CLIENT: No. I know that my mom sees Dr. Timber, but I’m fine with sharing. We’re open with each other so it doesn’t surprise me.

THERAPIST: So you’re okay with my getting information?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: It’s your decision. Do you have any concerns about it at all?

CLIENT: No, we’re quite open with each other. I’m not hiding anything from them and they’re not hiding anything from me, so I’m comfortable with it.

THERAPIST: Both parents?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: All right. I’ll talk to Dr. Timber and hear whatever information she has to share with me. Again I want to be clear; I have no permission from you to say anything to Dr. Timber.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: That’s the news I have. Start wherever you like. [00:02:00]

CLIENT: I guess starting with a small bit of good news. I have a part-time job tutoring after school at the Jewish Community Center in Silver Spring.

THERAPIST: Congratulations.

CLIENT: It’s just a part-time thing, but it’s something and I guess it’s been the right feel for when I start the program in September. It’s just more practice and experience in that field, so that’s good. That’s the bit of good news that I have and that’s what’s happened with me in the last week.

THERAPIST: Is the Center school an accredited school?

CLIENT: No, it’s the Community Center up on Mill.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I know which one you’re referring to.

CLIENT: It’s an afterschool – it’s not actually a school. [00:02:59] They have a preschool there, but kids up to age 13 come after school to do homework and be entertained until their parents can pick them up.

THERAPIST: What ages are you going to be tutoring?

CLIENT: I don’t know. Whoever needs help up until age 13. I started yesterday and spent some of the time playing with shaving cream with one of the first-graders who is learning to spell.

THERAPIST: Starting young.

CLIENT: Yeah. But then one of the older kids was working on a project on Albert Einstein, which I was helping her with.

THERAPIST: So you have quite a range of experiences the first day. Are you going to be working every day?

CLIENT: I think every day except when there’s a Jewish holiday, which this week there is, so I’m not going today or tomorrow.

THERAPIST: There’s one about every week. [00:04:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. They have today and tomorrow off. They gave me a full calendar, but like you said, it’s quite generous with the holidays. It’s something to do and it’s a bit of money until something else comes along or something on top of it. Positive developments, I think.

THERAPIST: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it looks like you’re pleased about it. Any other feelings?

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s obviously a good step in the right direction, having something and being that it’s in the field with what I think I want to go into. I think it’s sort of a double benefit. So, yeah, I think overall I’m quite happy with it. [00:05:01] And like I said, it’s until I find something else or if I choose not to find something else and just do something else on top of that, so be it.

THERAPIST: Are you still going to be looking?

CLIENT: Yeah, I’ll still look. There’s less pressure to find something because I have something already. It’s something that will be beneficial, not just financially but also in terms of getting experience that will help me come next year when I start my course.

THERAPIST: Have you heard anything yet?

CLIENT: Oh, yes. I have two bits of good news. They did get my transcripts and so everything is fine.

THERAPIST: So you’re in? [00:06:01]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Double congratulations. It’s a good week.

CLIENT: Yeah, I guess I kind of forgot about that one because I always assumed that it would go through and everything would go swimmingly once all the paperwork came together.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounded that way. Have you celebrated?

CLIENT: I don’t know if I’ve celebrated too much, no. I’ve kind of sighed a bit of a sigh of relief in the fact that it’s settled and squared away. I think I’m just now learning what the next steps are because, as I mentioned to you, one of the major hold-ups was finding accommodation and now, of course, I have a year to find accommodation. [00:07:00] Just taking those next steps now, there is a limited amount of on-campus accommodation for students on this course and I feel that now, since I’m probably about the first person accepted for next year, I’ll be in a good position; especially since I’m coming from so far away to attend. Both of those factors may be in my favor.

THERAPIST: Do you know the procedure for getting housing?

CLIENT: That’s what I did when I got in last year. I said I need help finding accommodation, either on campus or off campus and they said, “We can’t help you on campus.” They had one room off campus available and, by the time I visited it, it was gone. [00:08:02] It was just because, like I said, it was so late in the process. Now, hopefully, when I send that e-mail off again the buck will stop with, “Okay, we’ll give you a room.” They have like an apartment block with apartments with suite in it. You have your own bathroom and you share a kitchen and common area with other people in your course, which is what I was hoping to find initially simply because people in your course are working similar hours to you. You’re a similar age. One of the apartments I had, I could have found rooms, perhaps, with young freshmen coming in, but I didn’t think me pursuing a post-graduate degree and really having to get serious would work with the typical freshman experience at college. [00:09:06] I think this will work out much better, being with other students on the same course, similar work ethics and hours during the day.

THERAPIST: It does sound a whole lot more encouraging this time in terms of getting a space. When do you apply for that?

CLIENT: Technically, the application cycle for next year doesn’t begin until mid-October, so new applicants can’t apply until the middle of October. Really they would only start normally accepting people from then until November, so I think it opens up late October/early November.

THERAPIST: So you’ll be right at the head of the line, won’t you? [00:09:59]

CLIENT: Yes, I should be just about front of the line, if not very close to it which means, hopefully, I’ll get into the dorm that I want to go to.

THERAPIST: All of a sudden things are real encouraging.

CLIENT: Yeah, things are starting to pan out a bit more. All along, me getting in was a step in the right direction. It was just a bit hectic and crammed at the time, but it was always a positive development, me being accepted at all.

THERAPIST: Getting accepted was your medium-term goal and you started right off today talking about getting a part-time job, where we left off last week, if you recall, which is what are you going to do this coming year? [00:11:07] Have you had any other thoughts about that?

CLIENT: My other thoughts had been that if I’m not finding anything trying to find a course to take somewhere, which now is – of course I still have time to do that, but it’s less of a pressing issue. Then the other thing was just look for either a full-time or additional part-time position to lie on top of this current position. (pause) The whole idea just being getting experience, building towards next year.

THERAPIST: Getting as much out of the teaching experience as you can. [00:11:59] It does sound like a reasonable plan. Did it ever or has it ever crossed your mind at all the thought of moving out of your parents’ place into something of your own or sharing a space?

CLIENT: I think it has, but I think because I’m trying to think realistically about when I will be on the course and won’t be able to be making any money. I think that probably added a bit to the stress level I had, thinking I didn’t think I had enough of a savings pot set aside for that year. I think that’s somewhat another goal of mine to ferret away more money for that year where it won’t be possible to make any money, where everything will all be outgoing expenses and nothing incoming. [00:13:06]

THERAPIST: I don’t think we ever talked, at least I don’t recall talking about how you would finance your education over there.

CLIENT: There is government assistance for teachers with a certain level of qualifications and in the U.K. it doesn’t work in the same way as it works here. You have to start paying back I think 90 days after you graduate. You start paying back I think a few months after you start earning a certain amount of money each month. [00:13:59] It’s not liable for interest until you start earning a certain amount of money, so I think I would certainly choose to do that, if for no other reason than to start building up a bit of credit for myself over there, since all my credit history is in the U.S.

THERAPIST: Do you have any idea how much it’s going to cost you overall to finish the degree?

CLIENT: The degree is 7,500£. Their own campus housing is about 3,000£ for the duration of the course. That’s just the course plus that, not accounting for food. [00:15:02] It’s about 10,000£ total.

THERAPIST: 10,000£?

CLIENT: 10,000£ and then food and travel or whatever as additional expense.

THERAPIST: I’m sure you’re better with numbers than I am. What is the equivalent in dollars?

CLIENT: Not good right now. I think it’s about $15,000 plus.

THERAPIST: And that would be the entire amount to get the degree?

CLIENT: Degree and housing. It’s a lot of money, but it’s cheaper than it would be to do it here still. I think certainly putting a big aside, the amount I would be able to take out in a loan would be to cover the tuition, not to cover the housing I don’t think. I would just be responsible for the housing and living expenses up until the time I am employed. [00:16:01]

THERAPIST: It sounds like, if I’m hearing you right, you’re going to contribute some towards that 10,000£.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Are you going to borrow the rest? Are your parents going to . . ?

CLIENT: They have offered some assistance. They’ve said, “We’re not going to let you starve” or “We’re not going to let you have anything like that” so they have offered their own assistance. I think that the other goal for this year was to try and obviously not establish complete financial independence because I don’t think that will really be possible until I have a full-time job, but to gain more financial independence so that I can fund more of it personally as opposed to feel that I’m relying too much on mom and dad. [00:17:09]

THERAPIST: You said that the thought had crossed your mind about getting a place of your own during this year. If I heard you right, you decided you would be better to stay at home and save as much as you can because you’ll need it next year, which sounds reasonable. That’s obviously the pros of the pros and cons. Do you see any cons about staying home?

CLIENT: I think, certainly, falling back into old habits of being too comfortable at home, like last year it ended up being that at home was safe and easy, so I didn’t bother to venture out too much which I think is another good step about getting this part-time job and perhaps another full-time job. Another benefit of this job is putting me surrounded by other people my age, tutors and in other positions, at the venue I’m working at. It’s kind of putting me back into a situation where I’m more attuned to making those connections and interacting with other younger people my age and putting myself in social situations outside the house. [00:19:06]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it does sound like it’s a situation that’s beneficial in a lot of ways. You’ve been home a while now. Have you felt that you were again settling into too comfortable? How has it been?

CLIENT: I think that I have been more motivated this time around to not let that happen. I think probably because each time I’ve done it before, there wasn’t another opportunity elsewhere so I came back home; but this time I didn’t pursue the one opportunity at that time. [00:20:01]Because I felt I wasn’t able to take that opportunity at the time. I wasn’t able to do that, so now I really need to focus and hone in on why it is that I didn’t think I could do it at that time and then make sure I do something about it to ensure that this time I make sure I’m ready to go and there are no issues. So far, this is a small step in that direction. Hopefully there will be other steps along the way that take me there.

THERAPIST: So you want to focus on why you were so apprehensive, so reluctant to go last year? [00:21:05]

CLIENT: Yes. I think, along with speaking with you, doing things like tutoring and taking other opportunities and steps while I am here can help prepare me better and put me in a much better position to go and start the program next year.

THERAPIST: Any specific ideas you have in mind?

CLIENT: The idea was to get some work, put myself in more situations where I was engaging with other people, simply getting out of the house more. [00:22:01] At that time I was thinking even if it’s volunteering at the local humane society or doing something like that, at least it’s getting out of the house seeing people other than my parents.

THERAPIST: Sounds like a real good start.

CLIENT: Yes. Obviously, the idea would have been full time. Number two would have been part time, and volunteering would have been the fallback option. Luckily with this part-time job I can still do volunteering if I choose, but there is the added benefit of getting out of the house and getting paid while I do it. (pause) Slowly I’m working towards taking good steps to achieving what I kind of had set out to be my goal when I first came home. [00:23:08]

THERAPIST: In terms of the goals that you’ve articulated, you definitely seem like you’re going in the right direction.

CLIENT: I’m pleased with the way things have gone so far and, again, I don’t want to get too comfortable on this and keep pushing to continue taking steps. This is just one step and I don’t want to get comfortable here. Keep pushing myself to do more and more. [00:23:58]

THERAPIST: Again in terms of your goals, you’re in a real good place now. You’ve got plans, specific plans for next year. You’ve got clear objectives for this coming year to help you move towards what you’re ultimately going to be doing next year. At this point, where do you see our work fitting in? What do you feel would be most beneficial for us to work on to help you achieve those goals?

CLIENT: I think one of the things that I have done in the past is when I have had these periods of anxiety, but then when I’ve not felt them I’ve felt like I’m not feeling those now, so I don’t need to address and examine why and try and understand and manage why I get those feelings of anxiety. [00:25:16] I just get the feeling that if I’m not feeling that way now, I don’t need to worry about it.

THERAPIST: I think that’s very perceptive. Between times when you feel anxious it’s easy to say you don’t have to worry about that. You refer to the feelings of anxiety. When do you have those feelings most strongly?

CLIENT: It really just has been the past couple of times, like when I was in the Europe the last time facing the decision of do I accept or what happens when I’m up for the place? [00:26:10] How do I accept it? How do I find accommodation/housing? That’s why I think the pattern has been when I’ve been facing decisions – longer-term, bigger decisions as to what do I do next in terms of career or job or where do I live? [00:26:43]

THERAPIST: As I recall, we talked last week I think about how when you got downsized in DC it really shook your self-confidence and subsequent to that, when you were faced with the decision of whether to go to school or not, you got more anxious than you’ve ever been before. [00:27:07]

CLIENT: I would say that it’s probably fair to say the overwhelming feeling, the thought that dominated, was “I can’t do this right now.”

THERAPIST: I can’t do this right now. So the question is why can’t you? Why did you think that you were not up to the task, the challenge? By the way, there’s not a one-sentence answer to that question, but it is, if I’m hearing you right, the path you want to really focus on. [00:27:59]

CLIENT: Certainly it’s something that I haven’t really addressed properly before so I think it’s important that I do focus on that. I know there will be times in my life that I will – everyone gets nervous or a bit apprehensive and I’m learning to have that conversation in my head before the one that has been the negative “you shouldn’t do it” and kind of pulling back. Up until now, at certain junctures in my life it certainly has had a negative impact and result, managing it to the point where I allow that anxiety to kind of rule my decision making. [00:29:15]

THERAPIST: To put the question another way, and let’s see if this resonates for you, why do you get so anxious faced with opportunities to be more independent and have more control of your life? (pause)

CLIENT: I guess it probably has a lot to do with thinking the negative, that if something goes wrong, probably self-doubts about my own abilities to deal with things that inevitably will go wrong. [00:30:12]

THERAPIST: Things inevitably will go wrong.

CLIENT: The realistic thing is that in everyone’s life, they’re dealt difficult situations; and just my own self-doubt about how I independently deal with the difficult situations or things that don’t go how I want them to go.

THERAPIST: What examples of that come to mind where you were faced with dealing with a situation on your own and things went wrong? [00:30:55]

CLIENT: I guess just (pause) the incident in DC where I know it was kind of the first time I was in the real world dealing with things more independently than I ever had before. Whether or not it was in my control, things still did break down and did not go the way I had hoped they would go at the time. I guess a lot of it stems from that – the first major step I take into the real world didn’t pan out properly or the way I had hoped or wanted it to pan out. [00:32:01]

THERAPIST: Which sounds like regardless of what you thought intellectually, rationally, there was part of you that felt that it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that there was a recession, it had to do with your personal failings.

CLIENT: Yeah, a part of me, like you said, the rational part of me understands it, but the other part of me says that maybe there was something I could have done to influence a different outcome.

THERAPIST: Can you hear yourself saying that to yourself?

CLIENT: It’s the conversation I have, over-analyzing the situation to the point where I’ll just nitpick at different situations thinking, “Oh, I could have done that,” or looking back and thinking that I could have changed a decision I made or spent more time doing this or less time doing that. [00:33:17] (pause)

THERAPIST: Can you hear yourself saying that right now to yourself?

CLIENT: I can’t right now because I think right now I’m in a better place and I am more able to look back and think that, for the most part, things were out of my control. Even if I had done – like you said, it wouldn’t have changed the fact that there was a recession or that they still needed to cut back. It was just a matter of who they were cutting back. [00:34:13]

THERAPIST: That’s the rational you saying that?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: See if you can imagine having that kind of conversation with yourself, where you’re running yourself down, second-guessing yourself. You can imagine that right now. Any images coming to your mind’s eye? Any images of anybody or anything? (pause) [00:34:57]

CLIENT: Nobody in particular. I think the way my mind goes first is towards a negative side of things as opposed to looking on the brighter side, so I think just generally whenever something doesn’t go ideally, I just think it’s me. [00:35:59] Yeah, I think generally that’s just the way my mind goes, as opposed to thinking that if something goes wrong, looking at ways to spin it into a positive, which I think is the goal. Instead of doing that, I look over what went wrong. Did I do wrong or what could I have changed?

THERAPIST: When we talked about that last week you associated it with your mother being such a worrywart when you were growing up and you were experiencing that. Any more thoughts about that?

CLIENT: No. I think the way she tends to be and I think I’m much more like her. [00:37:07] I tend to be more like her side of things and the fact that I think she and I will try to plan, plan, plan, to try and plan out, so much that we try and plan for every possible difficulty or negative thing that could happen. And then if one of those does happen, the automatic assumption is “why didn’t I plan better to think to make sure that this didn’t happen?”

THERAPIST: So you do that typically when you’re planning something? [00:37:59]

CLIENT: Yes. I would just plan, plan, plan, to try and weed out everything that could go wrong.

THERAPIST: Give me a concrete example because I want to try to get as clear a picture as I can in my mind of you and your mother sitting and doing that planning, what that’s like. (pause)

CLIENT: I’m trying to think. (pause) I’m not really sure if I can think of a . . . (pause) I guess the thinking, when I first went off to university and I have had eye issues before, myself and in conjunction with my parents, I had organized my eye doctor. [00:39:07] I had kind of organized what would happen if I needed to go to the eye doctor. I know it doesn’t really make any sense, but even though I had planned for if something went wrong, still something went wrong. It was as if because I had planned so much – I knew where I was going, I knew how to get there, I knew the number to call on the way there – even though I had planned for that eventuality if that would happen, somehow when it did happen it just felt like somehow maybe there was a different step I could have taken. [00:40:16] I know I can’t control what happened with my eye, I think something in me still said I could have found my way into achieving a better result with the vision if I had done something differently, like going to see the doctor earlier could have prevented it. Something like that.

THERAPIST: You mean going to see him before you even had a problem?

CLIENT: Yes. Somehow if I had gone to see him earlier, I could have prevented it, even though I know there’s nothing that could have been done now. [00:41:04]

THERAPIST: Correct me if this is not how it was, but it sounds like your thoughts were essentially “I don’t know what I could have done, but I could have done something better than I did.”

CLIENT: Yes. When I came home I kind of expressed this to my mom. That was a lot of my mother’s feelings as well. She told me that her first instinct was to blame herself for something that happened to me when I was 1,000 miles away that she didn’t have control over.

THERAPIST: Do you feel you’ve acquired that reflex to blame yourself?

CLIENT: I think definitely, to a degree, I’ve seen her do it and so I’ve definitely taken some of that on board. [00:42:00]

THERAPIST: Are there any memories of particular instances where you experienced your mother blaming herself that really stand out for you?

CLIENT: Again, that’s really the main one I always think about.

THERAPIST: Going to college.

CLIENT: Going to college. Her thoughts when I was with her, she felt that she was always able to manage and plan any negative outcome or any harm that might come to me; and so her first thought when this happened, her mind went to “he’s gone off to university and within a couple of months something happened.” [00:43:04] She kind of felt that the moment she relinquished a bit of control or the ability to plan, something went wrong. I think she did for a long time to a degree place a lot of blame on herself.

THERAPIST: It sounds like the implication is also that something was going to go wrong and she should have planned better for it.

CLIENT: I don’t know what her thoughts on that were, but she definitely felt like the minute I went away and some of her ability to plan things on my behalf was gone . . .

THERAPIST: So when she didn’t have enough control over the situation, the something goes wrong. She should have had more control. [00:44:01] If I recall what you said earlier, when you anticipate doing something, when you start getting anxious, that one of the assumptions that you have is that something is bound to go wrong. “I’ve got to plan for it because it’s inevitable.”

CLIENT: Yes. I do try and think about what could go wrong and how I can plan around those things that could go wrong or how can I prevent those things that could go wrong from happening.

THERAPIST: If you’re about to embark on some new activity or go to a new place or something, take on a new challenge, and you assume that something is going to go wrong, no wonder you get anxious. [00:44:59]

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) I think that it’s kind of ironic that I think like that because the field of education is all about you plan, but then from experience and from talking with teachers and from my own experience, things never go according to plan. Somehow that I’m all right with. I think it’s just when managing my own life where I view it that way.

THERAPIST: It’s interesting. It occurs to me that there is the assumption that the way experts, expert teachers, would work or experts in any performance, the way they work is they have a plan, a theory, or it’s planned out and they follow the plan and then they function at high level. [00:46:13] But in fact, that’s not the way experts work. Experts improvise because you have to constantly be adjusting to the feedback you’re getting for the situation. In other words, you can never plan for everything. The secret of being good at something is being able to adjust to the unexpected things that come up. That hasn’t been your assumption.

CLIENT: No, certainly not with my own life, no. (pause)

THERAPIST: You’ve decided to start questioning those assumptions. [00:47:03]

CLIENT: Like I said earlier, when I’m sitting here now it’s a heck of a lot easier to do that to acknowledge that here than when I sat back in Scotland thinking, “Am I going to take this or not?” Putting myself back in sitting here feeling good – I want to develop the ability to internally rationalize out those feelings that something will go wrong because that’s what been the hold-up for me.

THERAPIST: Maybe it’s kind of an oversimplified way of saying it, but to say what you’re saying another way is that one of our main objectives then should be to help you get to a point where when you are faced with going over there, being there, you have a much more positive attitude about it. [00:48:18]

CLIENT: Because, like I said, I sat here now and I realized back then I think about how I was thinking and even though it was a difficult situation and it might not have been the right time for me to take it, there were so many more positives than there were negatives at that time, which I wasn’t able to see.

THERAPIST: But having a positive attitude and having more positive expectations about what’s going to happen is based on having more self-confidence, having more confidence in your abilities to deal with whatever challenges arise. So we know where we want to get to. [00:49:02] I think we’re going to have to stop for now. With your new job, does the 10:00 time still work?

CLIENT: I head over there at about 2:00. I’m a member of the Center so I can use any of the facilities.

THERAPIST: Oh, nice perk.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’ll probably just head over there early and figure out what I’ll do because for me now it’s much easier for me to come here and then head straight over there as opposed to heading back.

THERAPIST: Yeah, this is on the way. Okay. See you next week.

END TRANSCRIPT