TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: So how are you since I talked to you last?

CLIENT: I’m doing okay. I did end up going and applying at the store, though I didn’t have my resume printed out. So I just did the application, and, like, it wasn’t as ready as if I had a few process and stuff (ph). I didn’t want to undersell myself, and they said they have competitive pay. But I’m not sure what competitive pay for retail is. So, I think I requested an amount I should have just written negotiable, but obviously I wasn’t thinking straight when I filled it. I mean, if I don’t get it, I don’t get it. But at least I did it. And then I applied for the job that I was telling you about. There was also this part time job in a local middle school. It was posted on the listserv. So, it has both current grad students and people who stayed on the list afterwards. I did the application anyways, but made it be just the same e-mail. It was Friday after business hours, so I didn’t know when she’d get back to me. So I was just like, you know, I don’t know if this is open to non-students. If it is, here’s my application stuff. She wrote me back this morning thanking me, so I guess if it wasn’t open to non-students, she would have said something. [00:01:39]

THERAPIST: Well, good for you. You took three really solid steps. How did it feel to ?

CLIENT: It felt, well, I guess, applying to the retail place I have all the second guessing myself afterwards. But the other stuff felt really good to get out. Tara has a friend who works there, who I actually met a couple of years ago, and she showed me around the zoo. I sent her an e-mail letting her know I applied, but she never wrote me back. So I’m hoping I didn’t write anything offensive or anything. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I basically told her that, you know, I wasn’t sure if she remembered me, but I really enjoyed when she had given me the tour, and I thought it was a really nice place to work. This position opened, and I thought it would be good. I applied through the normal channels, but here’s my resume. Let me know if you think it would be a good fit. And she never wrote me back, so I don’t know if she just I hope it doesn’t mean I’m a terrible fit for the position. [00:02:52]

THERAPIST: It certainly doesn’t sound offensive.

CLIENT: Oh, good. I guess not offensive so much as I was asking too much, and being too pushy. But that’s the problem with networking. It always feels that way.

THERAPIST: It is, networking. Not pushy, but it’s okay to ask for what you want. Pushy is demanding what you want, but -

CLIENT: I guess I feels like I’m asking for a lot for someone who’s never worked for me. You know, if it was like Tara working there, I’d be like, hey, Tara, I’m going to apply here, you know?

THERAPIST: That’s a closer connection.

CLIENT: Yeah, whereas it’s, like, a friend of Tara’s. I think Tara has only told her good things about me because she really liked me, but still. This person has never worked with me, so all they have to go on is their friend’s words and my resume.

THERAPIST: It’s not as strong of a connection. [00:03:45]

CLIENT: (pause) I haven’t actually searched the sites recently, so there might be more things to apply to. The stuff I found on our cascade (ph) was -

THERAPIST: When was the last time you looked?

CLIENT: This morning. They had posted something, which is all the way at the other end of Vermont. And I’m like, hell no, that’s a two hour drive each way. Hell no. I wasn’t sure how far away Stockbridge was until I looked it up. Because I had been there before, but only coming from Connecticut. But, yeah, the other stuff. There was the one I had applied for, and the other stuff looked like it was from too long ago, that I should probably look at more current things and apply for those instead. I feel like if a job was posted April 1st, it’s probably too late at this point to apply. [00:04:50]

THERAPIST: Do they take stuff down after it’s been filled?

CLIENT: I don’t know if they do. Like, they’re not really a natural job site. They’re a blog that posts. I guess I could click on the links, which I didn’t bother doing, and I could see. I guess the link would show whether or not the position is still open. Though I feel like -

THERAPIST: If there’s something that’s a really good fit, maybe it’s worth -

CLIENT: It’s worth it, it’s worth it. Yeah. Oh yeah, there was one at the R.I. Public Zoo and I (shudders), I hate the R.I. Public Zoo so much. It’s, like, the worst policy. I guess I could see how it could be an economic opportunity thing, like if you have people who are less affluent who live in actual R.I., and if you assume that the people who are more affluent or living in New Haven, then I could see it being an equalizer, and that’s why it would only be open to R.I. residents.

THERAPIST: There’s also lots of sections, right. I think people living in nearby, are (chuckling) [00:06:02]

CLIENT: Yeah. They’re probably a lot better off than I am. It actually makes no sense.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it’s been limiting for you.

CLIENT: I don’t even look at the postings anymore. Because if I look, I see how I might be a really good fit, and it’ll just make me sad.

(pause) I’m definitely not going to make the June deadline of getting a job in time for me to renew the lease. But I’m hoping that -

THERAPIST: Have you talked to your parents? If you had an offer in hand but hadn’t started?

CLIENT: I think if I had an offer in hand, they’d be fine with it. I haven’t talked to them, but, like, I’m not going to get an offer in hand in the next month (pause). Like, the one at the middle school is only 15 hours a week, so I don’t know how much it pays. It still might be worth it for me to take it, but it might not be enough to pay for my own place. I guess I could supplement it with the NOKIA (ph) job if I get that, too, and then maybe it would be enough. But, like, I don’t know if I get an interview, if that interview would be before the end of May. [00:07:26]

THERAPIST: Yeah, they would have to move on a fast timeline to get a response.

CLIENT: And I feel like a lot of things don’t move on a fast timeline. (pause) Yeah, I’ll probably have to do the whole apartment search again thing, and I’m really hoping I don’t have to move back with my parents. Because I’d really like something full time. The one at the Schlesinger is actually full-time, and permanent. I don’t know if I should start looking for part-time stuff in Connecticut instead. But then that would just make me more stuck there, I think. It would be nice to be making money while I’m there. If I’m there. Which I’m really hoping that I won’t be there. [00:08:22]

(pause) Yeah, I need to look at more things. I’m just afraid that maybe I’ve already missed the season of all the stuff being posted, and all the academic positions, and I just screwed myself.

THERAPIST: You can’t go back, you can’t go back in time. You can’t let your fear of that stop you from looking at what’s available now, and following through on things. Even if that means clicking on older links and seeing if they’re still open. If you’re afraid that you’ve missed things, then you need to be more diligent about catching, rather than avoiding. [00:09:05]

CLIENT: I feel like the later, unless it’s a really good fit, the later you go, they’ve seen a lot of candidates. If they’re going to consider you later, the bar is set much higher for later candidates. Because you have to be better than all the candidates they’ve already seen.

THERAPIST: So are you telling me why you can’t look at things?

CLIENT: I can look at them. I’m telling you why it might be a waste of time to apply to them. I mean, I guess I can start with the ones that are newer.

THERAPIST: You have plenty of time. When you were working and trying to look for a job, then your time was limited.

CLIENT: A waste of my emotional energy. Which is more limited than my time is. I guess I do have all the time now, especially now that the Takeo concert is over now, so I don’t have anything going on on Sundays or Tuesdays. [00:10:00]

THERAPIST: So if it’s the emotional energy that feels limiting, how can we make it so that it requires less energy to pursue these? Because the only way to get a job is to apply to jobs, and sometimes lots of them. And so, I think we need to find ways to make it a little bit less taxing. To make it less anxiety-producing. So that you can really apply to everything that would be an option. It doesn’t make sense to expend energy applying to things that are not really options. But if something is interesting, and in your field, and open, then it’s an option. [00:10:45]

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know, I mean, maybe if I reward myself enough, that would be better.

THERAPIST: How did you get yourself to do the applications that you ticked off when you came in?

CLIENT: So the alumni, this was mid-March, they started an e-mail being like, hey, are people interested in fitness? And I’m like, oh, I totally need to lose all the weight, and stuff. Then there was like, oh, there’s this thing online okay, are you familiar with RPGs?

THERAPIST: Nope.

CLIENT: Okay, RPGs are role playing games.

THERAPIST: Okay, yeah, I know what that is. I just didn’t know the abbreviation.

CLIENT: Okay, so you know how you have a character and it levels up, and you have a party and stuff? So there’s this thing called Have It RPG, where you can create a party with your real-life friends, and the way you level up is by doing tasks. And those tasks are things you enter yourself. You can mark them as easy, medium, hard. You can have daily things that you need to do, and will hurt the party if you don’t do them. And so, I have things like [00:12:00]

THERAPIST: You feel really accountable to the group.

CLIENT: Yeah, and then I can get things like, go to grocery store, or send this application.

THERAPIST: So you used that?

CLIENT: So I used that, which got me those two. Of course, I’m still afraid to set, even as a daily or weekly exercise, because -

THERAPIST: What do you count? Do you count going dancing?

CLIENT: Yeah, I do. I didn’t want to do it this week because I didn’t go to swing dancing because of my rehearsals. I guess I could start doing that, and then maybe that’ll force me. It’s pretty easy for me to get to swing dancing, but it’s a lot harder for me to get to country dancing.

THERAPIST: But you could just have it be dancing, and then if you get to one or the other, you get to check it off?

CLIENT: Yeah, I could do that, but then I’m only dancing once a week. It’s not really helping. [00:13:00]

THERAPIST: Except that is the bare minimum. Because you’re always allowed to do extra.

CLIENT: Yeah, but what I’m setting, the bare minimum is what I’m already doing. And that’s already what I’m doing anyways, so it’s already there. It’s more whether or not I should start stretching my goals. You know, do I want to make myself go on a 20-minute walk every day.

THERAPIST: So, when you’re setting a goal, you want it to be a little higher than what you’re doing, but totally reachable. Because you can always increase your goal, right? So, what would be that? What would be one little increment more than what you’re already doing?

CLIENT: Maybe if I, like (pause)...because the way it’s set up, you have things that are dailies, and you can mark them as certain days of the week. But that sort of commits you to doing certain days of the week, so it’s a little bit harder.

THERAPIST: So you can’t set something up as a once a week?

CLIENT: Well, you can set something up as a once a week, but it’s a once a week on a specific day. So I can’t be like, okay, I want to walk 20 minutes a day, at least three days a week. I guess I can set them up as specific days, and if I’ve done them high that day [00:14:16]

THERAPIST: So if you set it on Tuesday/Thursday, maybe if you walk on Monday/Tuesday, you could give yourself a click on a Tuesday.

CLIENT: Exactly. I guess I could do that. (pause) Yeah, I feel like adding 20 minute walks would probably be helpful. I did a lot of walking yesterday, but, yeah, it’s still not something I’m doing regular, it’s still like -

THERAPIST: Is there a place you typically walk to? Like is there an errand you can do by foot? Or is there a place you can go for coffee? Can you build it into something that would be sort of in the schedule already? [00:15:02]

CLIENT: If I’m more on time, I mean it wouldn’t be a 20 minute walk, it would be a 10 minute walk. But I could walk to the subway to get to therapy. Today I actually took the bus, which is like a block from the house. Whereas the T is more like a 10 minute walk from my house.

THERAPIST: Yeah, so, that would be something. You come to therapy every week, so that’s already built into the schedule. If you just push when you leave your house by, or even walking home. Then you’re not rushing.

CLIENT: Yeah, the thing is, Sydney, his therapy is after mine, so he’ll come in the car and we’ll both drive back. I guess I could just walk back without him, but...

THERAPIST: You’re probably less likely. If you know he’s here with the car, you’re less likely to do that, right? You want to make it something that it’s easy to say yes to.

CLIENT: Yeah, maybe like in the middle of the week, getting bubble tea. That would probably be worth it. Then I only get the bubble tea if I walk to the tea, and back from the tea. [00:16:10]

THERAPIST: Yeah, so if you made that the scheduled, and then you’re maybe ready for therapy, or for tonight’s day, it’s an extra bonus walk to the tea.

CLIENT: It feels like it’s not enough since it’s only like a 10 minute walk.

THERAPIST: It’s not enough to lose the weight quickly, but it’s more than what you’re doing now. And what we want to avoid is for that all or nothing category. You sometimes set yourself up, because if it’s not enough to reach the final goal, it feels like it’s not worth doing at all. And you really want to build in, it’s more than you’re doing now, so it’s a step in that direction. Once you get used to doing that level, it’s easier to add more. It’s very unlikely that you’re going to maintain a drastic change. So, if you want to maintain these changes, which is what you really need to do, right? Because it really needs to be a lifestyle change. But people don’t really dramatically change their lifestyles, and keep it by doing it all at once. The way you can make it a consistent change is by doing little things that you get used to, and then that just feels like that’s the status quo. I always get out my door and walk to tea, rather than jump on the bus. When it feels like the status quo, it’s really easy to do. So making these smaller changes that you can practice until they feel normal. And then, you can make another little change that you practice until it feels normal. And that way it doesn’t feel taxing, it doesn’t feel like you’re depriving yourself of things. It just feels normal, and then you really see the difference. [00:18:02]

CLIENT: I guess (pause), I guess one of the barriers to me walking a lot is often what I’m carrying. Because I’m like, oh, if I want out of the house more, I could combine it with applying for jobs. Then I’d be carrying my laptop, which would make me less likely to walk.

THERAPIST: That’s not a comfortable walk, I understand that.

CLIENT: Yeah, but I should be able to combine these somehow, but I can’t.

THERAPIST: Would it be more comfortable with a backpack?

CLIENT: I mean, if I had my laptop, it would be a backpack. Because it has the pocket in it. I’ve tried maybe once, having my laptop in my knitting bag. And that’s really uncomfortable.

THERAPIST: It feels easier if it’s balanced.

CLIENT: Maybe in the backpack. It’s just also, I have one backpack, this backpack has all my meds in them. When I was going back and forth between staying at my place and staying at Sydney’ place, the easiest way to make sure that I had all my meds was just to permanently keep them in my backpack. I guess this could be like, if I got a new backpack, one that’s just used for carrying a laptop, then it wouldn’t have all that other stuff weighing it down. Because my laptop’s not that heavy. [00:19:30]

THERAPIST: Well, the idea you had. Sort of making it the middle of the week. Walking to go get tea. That way you don’t have to be carrying your laptop. You can enjoy the walk more if you’re not carrying things, and get used to that.

CLIENT: Yeah, that seems doable. (pause)

THERAPIST: How are things going with Sydney?

CLIENT: They’ve been better for the past few days. We got in a fight on, like, Thursday. But we’ve been good since then. I guess we also got in a fight Wednesday night, too, which sort of led to Thursday. [00:20:28]

THERAPIST: The same issue?

CLIENT: Well, whatever it was Wednesday night, what happened then was Thursday, he was going to go to therapy. But then he was upset. For him, if we fight, he will be sad about it the next day. Which is something so incomprehensible to me. I just don’t understand it. Because even if we make up or whatever and stop fighting, I’ll be like, okay, that fight is over. But he really can’t deal with fighting. So he was going to not go to therapy, but in the end I drove him over there. He got there 20 minutes late but was able to stay after with his therapist. He wants me to believe in him, and sometimes I have trouble doing that. [00:21:28]

THERAPIST: Believe in him, what do you mean? What does he need?

CLIENT: Well, I guess believe in that he’s capable of doing things, and getting over his depression. Stuff like that. I’ve seen so much evidence of him making really bad decisions, it just makes it that much harder. Once he does start making what I believe to be a bad decision, what’s the point of trying to argue him out of it? Because, like, at this point, when I was like, I guess you’re not going to therapy. What he wanted me to do was to try and tell him it would be okay and that he could do it, and stuff. But it just feels like so many times, it ends up him not doing something. It’s like, why do I even bother? How am I supposed to know what it will work and when it won’t work?

THERAPIST: You can’t predict. [00:22:19]

CLIENT: No. But then I think -

THERAPIST: Is it something you’ve asked out loud? How do I know when it will work and when it won’t? Or is that a question in your head?

CLIENT: I did, and he was like, it doesn’t hurt until you try. You never know until you try (pause). But, it’s just so angering me with so many things that he’s missed and stuff. If he’s not doing it, he’s not doing it.

(pause) It’s worse when my schedule also gets held up by his -

THERAPIST: Sure. Yeah, because you feel frustrated.

CLIENT: Yeah, like in the end. It wasn’t this time, but I think Wednesday, I thought I had something on Thursday morning, which I didn’t end up having. But I wanted to go to sleep at a decent hour. He was taking forever and doing something, and it just turned into -

THERAPIST: And you don’t feel like you can go to sleep without him? [00:23:24]

CLIENT: Well, here’s the thing. So, Wednesday night. Sydney’s car has a Wallingford permit. My house is in New Haven. Across the street and down a block is Wallingford. So I have a guest pass for New Haven, which can work three days in a row, and then. So it resets on Sunday, because they don’t have the rules on Sunday. So what I do, so Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday in New Haven, Thursday over in Wallingford. And then Friday, Saturday, back in New Haven. But that day we had gotten a call from the city of Wallingford that had said that two people had recently been assaulted walking back from Belmont. I had rehearsal on Wednesday night, not swing dancing. I had drove there, drove back. The original plan was I was going to pick him up at my place, and we were going to park in Wallingford together and walk back. But he ended up not being able to do that. He was going to, eventually before we went to sleep, park the car. But I needed to keep on the lights for him, so I really couldn’t go to sleep before he did. [00:24:50]

And then it turned into a fight about other things, too. He being frustrated with his lack of libido, and everything just came out there. I probably shouldn’t have let it, but it did. (pause)

THERAPIST: It’s hard to keep it about one thing when you’re angry, and feeling resentful about those other things, too. Those sort of ongoing issues. How much of the time does that happen? Where a fight about one thing becomes a fight about all of those issues? Or issues in addition to the particular incident?

CLIENT: I’d say between 50 and 75 percent of the time.

THERAPIST: So lots. [00:25:45]

CLIENT: Not all the time. There’s like at least a 25% of the time where it doesn’t.

THERAPIST: What does it mean to you that most of the time it becomes about that other stuff?

CLIENT: I mean, I’ve always had a habit of grouping similar events together, and noticing patterns, and stuff. Something became that, plus all the times before it.

THERAPIST: Well, when it’s the same thing, it’s a pattern. But when it goes from you said you would help me pack the car to I’m frustrated about your lack of libido, that’s not a pattern. They’re legitimate things. They’re both things you’re concerned about. One, his ability to follow through on plans, and the issue of feeling sexually attracted to you, and being interested in sex in general, is certainly another issue about which you can have concerns. But those are not related. [00:26:49]

CLIENT: I mean, logically, you’re correct. It’s just...

THERAPIST: How are they related for you emotionally?

CLIENT: They’re both ways in which Sydney disappoints me. (pause) I guess it’s also frustrating because I’ve been doing all the Music over (ph), and I kind of wanted some alone time. And if I pushed out, he could just go to his place for the night, or something. But he didn’t want to go out.

THERAPIST: Yeah, why can’t he do that? Why can’t he spend nights apart?

CLIENT: I mean, I guess if we had planned on doing it earlier, it would have been fine. But you don’t ask someone to do that at, like, midnight. That’s really not fair to them.

THERAPIST: How often do you spend nights apart? Do you get alone time? [00:27:49]

CLIENT: I don’t. He gets alone time because, I’m the one who is, you know, going out to all the music rehearsals, going out dancing. Trying to have a social life again.

THERAPIST: He’s not doing that stuff on his own.

CLIENT: He’s not. Sometimes every few weeks he might get brunch with his friend Elliott. It’s not that often, and usually it’s in the morning, and I end up just going back to sleep anyways. I guess that’s kind of alone time, but it doesn’t feel like alone time, because it’s asleep. [00:28:33]

THERAPIST: Right. No, it’s a difference. And they’re both necessary. Sleeping and having time to yourself. Relaxation is really important. I wonder if that’s one of the reasons you’re feeling frustrated, is that you don’t have that time to yourself. And why it feels like you don’t really have free time, even though you’re not working, and there’s hours available in the days to do things. You’re not really on your own.

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) A lot of the times we’ll both want to listen to something, or whatever, and that’ll cut into if I was feeling motivated to write a cover letter, or something like that. And we at least worked around it the last time, by being like, okay, can we wait until I write this cover letter. Sometimes he’s just playing a computer game or something, in which case I have no excuse for not writing cover letters then. But none of it is alone time. [00:29:49]

I think if I he had one activity, maybe in the daytime when I don’t have an activity. Maybe one or two days a week. Then I’d probably be good.

THERAPIST: Yeah, it sounds like you’re craving some independence. In a healthy relationship, there’s room for that. For both people to have independence, and to choose time together. It doesn’t sound like you’re -

CLIENT: I guess it’s just the whole problem with the apartment setup, you know? There’s the living room, which doesn’t have a door or anything like that. There’s the bedroom, and there’s the bathroom. There’s the kitchen, which I sort of count as part of the living room, so there’s not like another room for me to go off to. [00:30:42]

THERAPIST: Right. So part of it is a space issue. The apartment isn’t really set up for you both to be there and feel like there’s a lot of separateness. However, you could have two people living in an apartment, and you could both have some independence, if both people were willing to give each other space. He could go out, do some more of his own stuff. You could go to sleep independently. Except it seems like he’s very dependent on you. The relationship has become such in that you guys rely on each other for most everything. You’ve talked in the past about feeling kind of reliant on him to do something with you. Whether it be to bring the boxes down with you for recycling, or unpack stuff, or move the car. There’s a lot of reliance upon each other to get tasks done or go out. [00:31:37]

CLIENT: Well, this time moving the car actually was a legitimate concern. Because it was really late at night. If I had parked it during the day, I would have been fine with that. Because I had just been parking the car in Wallingford myself and walking back after Wednesday nights, usually swing dancing. I don’t know how long I should keep up being afraid to walk back by myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, safety’s really important. I’m kind of talking about the broader scheme of things. Types of things that are hard to talk about. [00:32:16]

CLIENT: Yeah, even last night I wanted to go to the after party for the concert, and he wanted to go home. So what he ended up doing was drop me off yesterday morning we had my grandmother’s 89th birthday party. There was about a third of the cake leftover, maybe even half a cake. So I took it, so we could have it for the music after party. It was in the car, so he dropped me off with the cake at the place the party was going to be, and he actually gave me money to take a cab home. Then as I was leaving, there were two other people leaving. They were going to take the subway. And I was like, well, if Sydney is willing to meet me at the subway and walk me back, then I’ll take the train with you guys and save the cab fare. And I had called up Sydney, and he was okay with that. Except by the time I got there, he wasn’t, and he was like, why don’t you take a cab? And I’m like, I feel really silly. There’s a cab stand at the Belmont grocery store, but getting a cab from Belmont to Belmont seems like the silliest thing ever. I guess I’ll just walk by myself. It ended up being the other music people were willing to get a little out of their way to walk me back, because it was only like a 10 minute walk. But it was kind of frustrating. [00:33:49]

THERAPIST: Yeah, because he sort of changed his mind so rapidly.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I guess it was 20 or 30 minutes later, but still.

THERAPIST: But it feels really unreliable. And that’s what you were feeling angry about in the argument.

CLIENT: No, because the argument well, I guess, yes, but not from that time.

THERAPIST: Not from that time, but that same thing. Right, when you talk about patterns, that’s the pattern that you’re unhappy with.

CLIENT: I don’t really know what I can do about it right now.

THERAPIST: You can’t control it. But you can decide whether or not you’re willing to live with it. [00:34:25]

CLIENT: I guess the only real way around it would just be to never do anything that relies on him again. Like, you know, instead of calling, I should have just taken the car back instead. But I wanted to get that walk in there, from Stanford Central.

(pause) At the time, it felt like it was a good decision because I’m like, oh, I’m saving up the money for the cab.

THERAPIST: Mhm. It was a good decision for you.

CLIENT: Except for the part at the end, where he could meet me at Belmont. (pause) Yeah, we actually have our first couples’ session on Wednesday. Though I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know if it’s just sort of normal therapy. Can you tell me what couples counseling is like? [00:35:30]

THERAPIST: I can tell you what couples counseling is like with me (chuckling). It probably bears some resemblance. In the first session, it would be a lot like the first session of an individual therapy session. Where I would ask both people to talk a little bit about why they chose to come, what was going on, what prompted them to seek therapy together. I usually let them pick who wants to talk first. So, the similarity would certainly be in that, your first session you usually talk about what your issue is. Why are you coming to therapy, what you want to get out of it. What are your goals? It feels a little bit different sometimes, because you’ll be talking in front of each other. When I do couples therapy, I never have people in the room separately. Some therapists do. So that’s one difference, and I don’t know. Who did you end up going with? [00:36:26]

THERAPIST: Okay, so some therapists will do part of the time with each person separately, and then part of the time with each of them together. So I don’t know about her method. After the first session, usually you kind of let people talk about a little bit about what happened each week, to sort of get the ball rolling. What I like to do is really observe patterns of communication. Because I think one of the things that really affects relationships is how people talk to each other. It’s a lot of what you talk about being a problem between you and Sydney, is how can you guys really express what you’re feeling? His intolerance, or inability to tolerate when you’re angry with him, that’s something that I would really work on. Kind of figuring out what makes it feel so intolerable to him, how are ways that you can express what you’re feeling to him that don’t feel so toxic. And are there ways that he can also work on maybe being more open to hearing what you’re saying, and finding some techniques for that to work in both directions. Sometimes that involves practicing having arguments in the session, with the therapist helping to maintain a level of intensity that feels safe for everybody. Does that answer some of your question? [00:38:07]

CLIENT: I guess it’s not like individual therapy, where you might have individual therapy for the rest of your life.

THERAPIST: Yeah, usually not. Usually it’s shorter term.

CLIENT: Like, is it usually a couple months? It’s a year?

THERAPIST: It can really vary. So it could be a few months. It could be a year. It’s usually not forever, because usually people are coming because they have a specific goal of trying to figure out whether or not the relationship’s going to work, or figure out some techniques that they can then evolve in their lives themselves. So you can kind of work on those, get them comfortable, and move on without the therapist. Sometimes people use it as sort of checking back in. You’re going with a very specific question of: are there things we can change in the relationship to make it work? Or are these things not changeable? And therefore you don’t want to continue. Is that correct? [00:39:13]

CLIENT: Mhm.

THERAPIST: One thing you might set with the therapist is how long do you want to give it? And what are the markers that you would use to see if you’re being able to make progress toward making it feel sustainable. Then you can kind of set those time limits. Is that a year? Is that three months? is that two years? It’s not forever. I know you know that. You’ve said to me it’s not forever. You don’t want it to be like this, you don’t want the relationship to continue this way forever.

CLIENT: Yeah, I’m just wondering. I assume it’s going to be like way harder than a normal, like, if you had a couple where neither party was depressed. I’m sure his depression is not going to help things, or my depression is not going to help things.

THERAPIST: That’s part of the reason why you guys are having trouble. [00:40:13]

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if we would have just not had any trouble in the first place if he hadn’t gotten depressed in the first place. I assume we would have eventually butted heads on something, but I don’t think it would be nearly this bad.

THERAPIST: Things felt very different at the beginning.

CLIENT: Yeah. It was just such a short period of time before he got depressed, and (pause) is there anything I should do to, like, prepare for couples counseling?

THERAPIST: Have you two talked together about what your goals are? Are there things that you’d be afraid to say? That might be something you want to do. If you want to be able to be honest in front of him, and not feel like you’re not saying things because he’s there. You said you have a session on Wednesday. So sometime today or tomorrow, you might want to sit down and talk about, hey, what are your ideas about why you want to go. What do you want to get out of it? And then you can share with him what you want to get out of it. [00:41:23]

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean, I’m hoping he’s not just going to say, oh, I’m going because you wanted to go. I don’t think that’s the case. He knows we’ve been fighting, and he does think it would be helpful, too. But I’m not sure he has any clearly articulated goals. I guess I’m just also afraid of him being, yeah, I just can’t have this conversation right now, and that into Wednesday.

THERAPIST: Hm. And if he does, then you’ve opened up the opportunity to talk about it before you get there. Another purpose of having the couples counseling is if the conversations are too difficult to have on your own, the therapist’s office provides a place where you are going to address this stuff. And the therapist can help support him in having the conversation so this stuff doesn’t just get pushed off and never discussed. So, if he says no I can’t have this conversation right now, you can honor that and say, okay, we’re going to have the conversation on Wednesday during our time. [00:42:30]

CLIENT: Yeah. He sometimes ends up canceling therapy when he feels too bad. Usually it’s more of a physical than emotional thing, but I’ve seen him, like, panic himself out of therapy before. And it’s like, isn’t that the reason why you need to go therapy?

THERAPIST: I hope he’ll really be able to commit and go with you. Because you can’t do couples therapy by yourself.

CLIENT: I don’t really know if there’s anything I can do to make it easier on him ahead of time.

THERAPIST: Well, you can ask him that. That’s a very supportive thing to ask.

CLIENT: I’ll ask him that when I see him. For some reason, I’m very nervous about this and I don’t know why. [00:43:25]

THERAPIST: I think it’s normal to be nervous. You’re meeting a new person. You haven’t done this mode of therapy before. It’s a scary thing to go and do because the decision of whether or not you want to stay in a relationship is a big one. You know that part of the reason you’re going to therapy is to try and answer that question for yourself. Really confronting that can be anxiety producing. Avoiding the question really hasn’t been good for you either. I think it’s a healthy step to try and address it with him, and make the relationship better for both of you.

CLIENT: I guess it will be like a mutual thing. Me and him will both have to assess after the fact whether or not we clicked with the therapist, or if we have to...yeah. She had given me six, and since you had given me two therapists, and both of them had been busy, I ended up calling up the four out of the six in New Haven. One was full and the other three got back to me. So this is one of the three, but then there are like those other two.

THERAPIST: Might still be contenders if this one doesn’t feel like a good match. [00:44:46]

CLIENT: Two of them called me back the day that I called them, but it was while I was busy doing other things. The third one, the one I ended up going with called me when I was free. I hadn’t gotten around to calling the other ones back (chuckling). I’m like, is this really a good way to but it’s not like I want to compare people ahead of time.

THERAPIST: You don’t get that much information talking with someone on the phone. Sometimes you can get a little bit of a vibe, but you really have to sit with someone and see if it’s a good match. Sometimes you get lucky, and the first person that you sit with feels like a good match. And if not, it’s okay to shop around. [00:45:30]

CLIENT: Whether or not a good match for me and a good match for Sydney are the same thing.

THERAPIST: Sometimes, not always.

CLIENT: I mean, at least we’re both coming from places of, like (pause), not hating each other. Wanting things to work. I want the therapist to be someone who works both for him and for me.

THERAPIST: Yeah, there should be no side. There’s no sides (pause). Anything else we should catch up on before next week?

CLIENT: We talked about jobs, we talked about healthiness, we talked about Sydney. (pause) Dad (ph) told me to bring up one of the times that I got panicked, and like (pause), even thought I’d brought it up before. Like, how to calm down when I’m panicked. And I told him that you told me how I need to think about how something is temporary. But it really seems that the only way my panic goes away is for me to get distracted, or something. He’s not really happy with that. [00:46:59]

THERAPIST: He’s not. Do you feel content with that?

CLIENT: Not really either, but I feel like there’s not much I can do about it. I think he feels like there probably is something more I could do about it.

THERAPIST: Are there distractions that you could seek out to help move that process along?

CLIENT: (pause) It depends what I’m doing. Because sometimes if I seek out a distraction, it will take away the panic for as long as the distraction is there. And then when the distraction is over, the panic comes back.

THERAPIST: But other times it’s gone. So it feels kind of out of your control still.

CLIENT: Yeah, because I think when I try to make it go away, it won’t go away. It will only go away on its own eventually sometime. I can’t just go on the Internet or something. Because it’s not enough of a distraction.

THERAPIST: What does he do when he panics, to help it go away? Or help it get under control. [00:48:02]

CLIENT: I don’t think he does a good job of getting it under control either (chuckling), to tell you the truth. Usually, because for me, it’s out of nowhere. For him, it’s because he has to do something. He really doesn’t like deadlines, and there are lots of things that have deadlines on them, you know? You have to be at the review by X time. We have to make the seder for Passover, etcetera. So for him, it’s like either he eventually calms down and does the thing, telling him it’s going to be okay, or he misses the event and isn’t panicking anymore because he doesn’t have to do it.

THERAPIST: Right, because he successfully avoided it.

CLIENT: Yeah, so he’s also not the greatest at getting rid of panic, either (pause). I guess he’s sort of really confused by that, that my panic doesn’t usually have a visible trigger.

THERAPIST: But the panic feels the same, whether there’s an identifiable trigger, or whether it feels like it’s just out of the blue. And a lot of times, panic attacks are very much out of the blue, you know? Some people experience them in the middle of the night, when it’s unlikely there’s going to be an identifiable trigger. But people wake up feeling that panic. So if a mental distraction is not enough, combining some of the physical techniques that we’ve talked about. To actually work on the physical symptoms of panic. So things that help you to slow down your breathing, or sometimes warmth can be very soothing. As your mind is going in those worries, your body is also responding. So if you can combine the mental distraction with something like deep breathing. Singing can help you to do that, right, without even thinking about it. Because sometimes you’re focusing on your breath. I know we’ve done that in here and sometimes that makes you feel more anxious because you become very aware of the bodily signs. But singing makes you control your breath. And so singing a song as you do something might help. [00:50:22]

CLIENT: I could do that when I’m by myself. I feel really self-conscious doing that if there’s anyone else around. Sydney included.

THERAPIST: Okay. Can you go into a room by yourself? Or go take a shower and sing?

CLIENT: I guess I could go to the bathroom or something. If the shower were on, you wouldn’t be able to hear me singing. If it isn’t on, we don’t have a bathroom fan or anything to hide the noise. It’s a very small apartment.

THERAPIST: In an extreme circumstance, like if you’re feeling really panicked, it might be worth it to go hop in the shower and sing, and see if that is enough to distract you.

CLIENT: I guess I always forget that there are physical things to do. [00:51:05]

THERAPIST: Yeah, and they’re big. Because that popping back up is often because your body is still sort of ramped up. Doing some of the breath work, or seeking out some sort of physical sensation that’s different. Whether that be warmth, or seeking out a fabric or a texture, or a soft yarn, because it can be soothing. And then can help to calm your body down. So you might want to give those a try if it pops up this week.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: Why don’t we stop there, and I will see you next Monday? I think -

CLIENT: I know I still have to give you a check, and I didn’t bring my checkbook with me. I need to write it down somewhere so I remember to bring it with me one day.

THERAPIST: That’s okay. Not a problem. I can do all of our regular sets -

CLIENT: Except Memorial Day?

THERAPIST: Except Memorial Day, that’s right.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: See you next week.

END TRANSCRIPT