TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Well I think you've shown me a lot of love and care and I really appreciate it.

THERAPIST: Well thank you and you're very welcome.

CLIENT: I had the feeling that maybe I had not actually acknowledged it before after yesterday and while I may be hurting because I'm attached to some ideal or some different kind of relationship, I feel very cared for by you.

THERAPIST: Well good.

CLIENT: And it occurs to me that you're trying. So that's a good feeling. Do you want to know some of the examples?

THERAPIST: Sure. Yes. [00:02:50]

CLIENT: But you weren't going to ask.

THERAPIST: No. But it's a good example that of how my not asking doesn't mean I don't have a desire to know.

CLIENT: I think you should have questioned me more when I tried to go back to once a week.

THERAPIST: Oh?

CLIENT: [You know] (ph) that's not what I mean. I probably would have I think there is a lot there and I don't think that I was willing to understand or know it on my own and I wonder why you didn't I don't think you ought to have done anything different but I wonder why you didn't. [00:04:15]

THERAPIST: I think I I can't remember sort of what exactly occurred in relation to that position. I know there were a number of points I never had a feeling that there was more going on or -

CLIENT: A number of points?

THERAPIST: Yes, including I do remember asking after you switched, like that was one point. I remember quite early on actually you were basically things got stuck in here until I found out that we were going to be talking about stuff going on between you and me and then -

CLIENT: Yes, that was horrible.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: That was when I decided that I didn't that something had to change or had I been pushed about it maybe I would've discovered what I discovered a lot later. But maybe I wasn't ready or maybe I whatever. [00:06:30]

THERAPIST: There were also a few points closer to stopping when I sort of made some noises about it and you said I'm stopping. I mean I'm being a little benign but something like that. And I scratched the back of my head like that doesn't feel quite right; it didn't -

CLIENT: It wasn't consistent.

THERAPIST: It wasn't consistent with things, not the right tenor of our interaction or my impressions of how you felt about them. And I mean clearly in retrospect I should've trusted those impressions more than I had, but I mean I think there were two things that probably contributed to my not doing that: one of which was just an inclination to think I had been wrong, in fact had the wrong idea or that I was kind of making too much of my method to think that way. And the other was you're consistently for the same [inaudible at 00:08:12]. Yes.

CLIENT: Thanks.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: Well I just wondered how many people get to this point.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: I didn't get to this point and then I stopped and -

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: that was that and I assume people just don't discover their intimate attachment or a love for you until they stop and then restart again but I assume that's not how it works for most people.

THERAPIST: That's right. Many who most of us are kind of defended against those feelings in one way or another or aspects of them but it emerges in different ways and not usually as it has with you. Sometimes it will show up in something like an earlier separation, my being away or a person being away or something positive that happened. And sometimes it is like a lot like a feeling in their room more so than something that's easier that's more concrete, if that makes sense. [00:10:23]

CLIENT: Yes. I'm just wondering I feel pretty courageous and I wonder how many people are courageous. It takes a whole lot to do it. I'm not really sure if I've even done all I mean, it might get worse.

THERAPIST: There's more to do and it might get worse and you are courageous.

CLIENT: Thanks. What percent of people for whom you think there is a feeling in the room are more into discussing things then not being discussed actually end up discussing it with you? Ninety percent, fifty percent?

THERAPIST: Gosh, it's tough to say partly because it's a hard question for me to answer because what people are feeling and the sort of dangers around it vary a lot.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Sometimes it's love, sometimes it's hatred, sometimes it imprisons them or inadequacy and sometimes it's love and it's not as dangerous for whatever reason. But then [inaudible at 00:12:37].

CLIENT: When it's love?

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Do you think this is dangerous?

THERAPIST: I think it feels dangerous to .

CLIENT: Dangerous to the patient? It does, it does feel dangerous to me

THERAPIST: Yes, I think it often feels vulnerable, scary, unpredictable, confusing as all hell, sometimes overwhelming.

CLIENT: Well you [inaudible at 00:13:24] to answer my questions on starting my life. You set my pillow out for me, which is really nice. You seem centered to the fact that stopping our sessions is painful and we will be trying to address that. You gave me reading and expression [inaudible at 00:14:17] about my impressions and my questions and discussing it and getting more reading. Sorry about that. My phone. [00:14:41].

THERAPIST: I didn't even hear it.

CLIENT: You type smiles [inaudible at 00:14:57] on some things.

THERAPIST: I do.

CLIENT: And I don't know you're just very willing to work with me. And I have a pillow in your office. I don't see a lot of other pillows.

THERAPIST: No, just that one there.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: From [inaudible].

CLIENT: They left them on your desk? You think they're [inaudible at 00:15:57]? Do you think a lot of people suffering really does trace back to things that happened when they were infants or children in your experience? [00:16:18]

THERAPIST: Yes and no. It often happens over the course of long term, intensive treatment that very nuanced and very sort of comprehensive and compelling stories about in a way yes, long-term, compelling stories wind up emerging about how somebody's present-day suffering relates to things that happened from childhood, usually their own or just with their parents or maybe some dramatic things have happened or, which can either be things like abuse or just things like difficulties [inaudible at 00:17:30].

Now that's not the same as saying those events caused the current day problems in that maybe the person had a pre-disposition or a vulnerability to a particular type of stress or trauma or a difficulty in a relationship. Or maybe their experience is quite an idiosyncratic one in a way so to say that this couldn't have happened and caused -

CLIENT: But is there any effect sorry.

THERAPIST: But in a similar way you can, often with similar degrees of nuance, comprehensiveness and compellingness, there's a favored relationship with a therapist or an analyst in a way that develops ways of providing a similar kind of explanation or reflection of the person's suffering in their current life, like those three things tend to fit together very closely. [00:18:50]

CLIENT: I guess one way to figure out if things cause other things is that if you remove them or change them then the effect changes from inactive to [inaudible at 00:19:01],

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I don't have any negative, outstanding negative memories. I have extremely overwhelming positive memories. Well the first thing that comes to mind is that maybe there should be somebody instead of me and my [inaudible at 00:19:57] who has really been in a traumatic family memory. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting the system's time. I've never felt like I'm wasting my own time. [00:20:16]

THERAPIST: I have never worked with anyone who and this is not something that's related to me in particular, this has been my experience who over the course of long-term intensive treatment did not develop a quite different point of view on their childhood and the important people in it. Which isn't to say everybody started out thinking things were okay and then hating them, but inevitably and that's even true of people who come in with terrible and sort of clear trauma histories. What it all means some things about why I was like, what I like, [inaudible at 00:21:41], those things tend to change.

CLIENT: That's good to know.

THERAPIST: You may be the first prime example but -

CLIENT: Time will tell.

THERAPIST: Time will tell?

CLIENT: Well it just seems like you can't really be a parent who doesn't contribute to their child's eventual suffering.

THERAPIST: True, yes.

CLIENT: True? [00:22:22]

THERAPIST: Yes, it's true.

CLIENT: That's unequivocally true too.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: It's not clear to me yet, and yet I guess that's part of being a professional in the field and knowing a lot about people, which I don't. It seems like that has been selected again but then again, we don't live until we're 30 only.

THERAPIST: I'm not sure [inaudible at 00:23:19] pretty much for happiness. I mean, that's a rather, that sounded like a naïve, anecdotal statement but -

Client. Yes

THERAPIST: You didn't like what I said about parents contributing in some fashion to their inevitably contributing to their kid's suffering. [00:24:13]

CLIENT: Well, it just doesn't really fly with me. It doesn't seem it seems simplistic. It seems like the world contributes to a person's suffering. And I'm sure it's the way that the person experiences and perceives the world has a lot to do with where it came from. But my parents are so perfect in the way that imperfect beings can [inaudible].

THERAPIST: What?

CLIENT: Well I don't know, just the context of my saying that after you just said the parents inevitably contribute to their children's suffering. It seems like what I'd expect to be wrong.

THERAPIST: It would be interesting to find out who. [00:26:12]

CLIENT: I am laughing because -

THERAPIST: I hope it's me.

CLIENT: You. Well it just seems like I said that and thinking (ph) in your head and you were like wait and see, chickey.

THERAPIST: You know I'm of two minds. On the one hand I did not say something quite like that in my head, although generally when people feel something like that about their parents or somebody else it changes with time and further exploration. On the other hand, I never met your parents. I don't know.

CLIENT: Yes, but you are acquainted with human .

THERAPIST: Yes, but I don't know. People certainly still surprise me.

CLIENT: Did I surprise you?

THERAPIST: Sure. I mean in particular in sort of what's emerged and what's happened after you had stopped I didn't see it coming. Surprise. It related to some things I had thought but I didn't expect it. And more broadly in the sense that everybody that you get to know better over time tells you things for you come to know things about them you otherwise didn't expect and I guess I had expectations but it's all new. [00:29:02]

CLIENT: I was kind of lost back then.

THERAPIST: Yes, you weren't better.

CLIENT: But if you have that view and it's not surprising to you, but you find out things that explain them.

THERAPIST: That's true.

CLIENT: [inaudible].

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Okay, well, how can my parents not be perfect? I don't know.

THERAPIST: Yes, I don't either. If I knew or if I had some ideas about it, I would tell you. I don't.

CLIENT: My mom said something that hinted at one way she might think she's not perfect which is that this is in the context of first-born children or second-born children and the parent's tendency to give up absolutely everything your time, your energy for the first born and I don't know just some people's pet theories that maybe that contributes to a lot more recklessness and dependency on stimulation and people and whatever. And my mom, I don't know. Maybe I'm confusing. [00:31:23]

Then there was another conversation about how I'm kind of bad at not getting my lot or I get really attached to certain visions or I don't think that's the right way to explain it because I think I'm pretty versatile in day-to-day [inaudible at 00:32:16] but there's some bigger sense like panic or funny that I don't like I've never been able to sit with when there's certain major shifts or I don't know, I don't know. You have to that should come up in the way that it comes up should be in my mom's life. But the thing she said was maybe we shouldn't have given in to you so much. And I agree, she shouldn't have. [00:33:09]

THERAPIST: How did they give in to you?

CLIENT: You want examples?

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: Well I had the tendency to hysterically start crying and hyperventilating and banging things and yelling and screaming and making myself sick when I wasn't getting something that I wanted. The things that come to mind are when my parents didn't let me join the wrestling team in high school, the all-boys wrestling team. When -

THERAPIST: How come you wanted to join the wrestling team?

CLIENT: I don't know maybe the same reason that I box. Maybe the same reason I smoked cigarettes in high school and then in college. It was, it appeared to me to be a very cool thing to do and being strong and sort of fitting in with the guys was important to me. And I think I got some attention from the wrestling coach about joining and when I went to matches I think I had a couple of crushes on some guys. I know I had a couple of crushes on some guys on the wrestling team and there was one girl who was on the wrestling team and I thought she was very cool.

But this episode happened the night before my PSAT. Then that was one time when my parents were, they're usually extremely disturbed by my reaction, my dad more than my mom. My mom is sort of [inaudible at 00:35:31] a whole lot of [inaudible] and I get that way, but my dad it really shifts him, it pushes him into a bad place, into sort of a make it stop, I'll do whatever you want to make it stop. [00:35:49]

THERAPIST: You said that it started crying, saying things, making yourself sick, like making yourself throw up?

CLIENT: Not when I was 16. It just started like not being able to breathe and just completely overwhelmed by how unjust things were. When I think back to those times there was no possibility of being able to see their side. Pure irrationality meets an abundance of emotion. Other times include when they wouldn't let me go to some friend's cabin in the woods for New Years or something.

THERAPIST: Also in high school?

CLIENT: Yes. A lot of this happened in high school. I guess a lot of stuff happens to people in high school.

THERAPIST: And these are things that they did give into you or they didn't?

CLIENT: Oh that's a good point. These are supposed to be examples of when they did give in.

THERAPIST: I imagined the ideas that they gave in earlier, like when you were younger, and that led you, I mean the model we're talking about is that that led you to have a harder time of not getting your way on these things later. [00:37:27]

CLIENT: Yes. Going to visit Vermont to see Jeremy our first year together when I was a sophomore in college, the summer between my freshman and sophomore year there, I ultimately did get into that but it was a similar thing. I was a little bit more mature in my approach. I read my mom an essay and cried a lot for days and days. I mean I'm giving a picture of kind of a really permanently disturbed person at that time.

THERAPIST: I'm sort of imagining this is the highlight reel.

CLIENT: Yes, but I've always been able to laugh and smile and enjoy things throughout the times that I remember it seemed very difficult. I've never experience darkness for very long, even if comes back every day or I mean usually I just fight until something big happens and then I guess usually I win. But with the wrestling thing, they were never going to let me join wrestling. [00:39:05]

THERAPIST: Why not?

CLIENT: Because they thought it was dangerous and they thought it was inappropriate and they thought that I should do my sports. I mean I was already on the varsity softball team when I was a freshman; I was on the tennis team for a couple years.

THERAPIST: Those both on the string?

CLIENT: Tennis is the one with the ball. And competitive jazz band and debate and newspaper and [inaudible at 00:39:45] and piano lessons. Someone who's doing all of that and wants to be on the wrestling team doesn't get on the wrestling team from the parents who have temporarily become chauffeurs at that time. So I think I just got tired and went to sleep. And I have this thing that I say: I had my head on a string at that school so I wasn't interested in jeopardizing that, which I ultimately did. My parents still talk about it. I kind of bombed the PSAT.

THERAPIST: Oh really? Because of this incident? [00:40:23]

CLIENT: Yes, I was up until 1:00 or 2:00, and the thing was at 8:00 in the morning. And I was more able to wake up early back then than I am now. Did I tell you I was late 81 times to my first period?

THERAPIST: That was bad, yes. Something like that, yes.

CLIENT: So yes, for this test, I had the same anxiety that I still do now about having to wake up early. I'll try to I haven't thought about this question much, or if anything's come up. Kind of like the feeling of maybe you should see a therapist who's in network. When I hear that I just have a more mature [00:40:23] I guess, like a big back pain gut reaction. Bleh. Yes.

THERAPIST: [inaudible at 00:42:15] for an expression.

CLIENT: Well it's more just like no, no, no, never, no, there's nothing you can say. And maybe I surround myself by people who walk divorces (ph), for example. One really cool thing that came out of that conversation was when I asked Jeremy if he was going to divorce me. He said I'm never going to divorce you. And I said that man is wonderful. Yes. [00:42:55]

THERAPIST: We have about five minutes.

CLIENT: So I'm coming up on the black hole, the Jay blackness. But we're traveling. We've got a string of [inaudible at 00:43:56] on Sunday. And that should help distract me.

THERAPIST: I have a thought I have a list of things to do I forgot to mention. I don't think I have your new Blue Cross number. Do you have your new Blue Cross number? I put the gold thing on the form and sent in the forms.

CLIENT: That is my new Blue Cross number. [00:44:35]

THERAPIST: the HBA blah, blah, blah?

CLIENT: Sure. Yes. I was never a Blue Cross member.

THERAPIST: You can e-mail me now. I'll get it.

CLIENT: Okay. I can give it to you now.

THERAPIST: I'll lift (ph) it.

CLIENT: Okay. I'm going to go now.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: See you later.

END TRANSCRIPT