TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Hi, come on in.

(Pause): [00:00:06 00:00:50]

CLIENT: We stopped at an interesting place on Monday. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:00:55 00:01:04]

CLIENT: Whether I thought what was expecting of being with Chris versus what he expected of me? Was it something like that or I don't know.

THERAPIST: What you imagine he expects of you.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don't know. I've been thinking on this stuff for a while now and like, just is he right for me? Is he right for me? (Laughs) It just keeps going on, that same kind of question. So I don't know. Yesterday, I had to submit a draft of what I recommend. I wasn't very happy with it. I was thinking it was because I've been so busy with this new initiative we've started and all that. Now, I'm like all scared and I'm like, 'oh, God, I'm not paying enough attention to my work,' which is the top priority for me. Should I just drop everything, all my commitments and I don't know. I get scared. It's just the wrong feelings with this. I keep thinking he will say like, 'this is not experimental enough,' or he's too cut and dry, you know. Methodical and it's not the right but then I'm like, I can make my own kind of, I can influence myself, like I don't have to look to him for anything. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:03:22 [00:03:38]

CLIENT: At school it was much better I think because then last week I was really, really tense. I think that was because of my fight with this woman in there. So I just couldn't take it and last week I e-mailed her, a very long e-mail like because she like blocked me on Facebook. We're still friends but I couldn't see any of her posts so I just wrote her like, 'I know what this is. Like, I helped you so much last semester and this and that and we should really talk this out and then she wrote back and apologized and you know, you'd said something that sounded very mean and so I put some distance between us and so we talked it out over e-mail and yesterday at school we keep running into each other. We were in class together and outside we talked and I felt so light. (Laughs) Like calm. But I was just thinking like when last week when I was so tense, I said to Chris, and Chris said, 'why do you even bother with her? She strikes me as totally a waste of time.' I'm like, 'why did you say that?' I'm very shocked that he said that because I really liked her and invited her home and I'd been to her place and I didn't care that she doesn't quite fit in to my agenda. I don't even have an agenda. Maybe that's why I'm floundering. (Laughs) But I didn't really have like okay I should talk to these people and I should seek out these people and those other people are out. You know, like they are not better than me at all. I just don't think that way at all and I guess Chris does. So he says, 'just don't waste your time with her. Just ignore her.' And I said, 'okay, I'll try to do it like you. I don't know how you do it,' but I couldn't. I just like carry around her and I have to talk it out and if I get mad I have to yell and scream at the person and thankfully it worked out. It doesn't work out all the time that you can resolve the situation, but so that made me think like is this beneficial for me to be with someone who is so structured and like I keep thinking it's going to make me a better person and I'm really sure now what I mean by that. I didn't really define like, 'okay, does that mean this, this, and this area?' But I can take off the others. I don't know. They had to be political, how to what books to read and stuff. I thought maybe, but now I kind of can figure it out.

(Pause): [00:07:09 00:07:31]

CLIENT: I'm trying to do things that I (unclear) do like go to open mic things and have more poetry and more art as much as politics but I don't go to his colleagues' place and so then it would just be a bunch of (unclear) people and maybe I am wrong to shut that experience out but I've done that and I found it to be dry for me. I didn't really contribute much there.

(Pause): [00:08:10 00:08:20]

THERAPIST: What are you feeling as you're talking about this?

CLIENT: I don't know. What do you think?

THERAPIST: There's this way in which you just seem to (unclear) like (Sighs).

CLIENT: (Laughs) About what?

THERAPIST: About what you're saying.

CLIENT: About Chris? Well, anything can make you say (Laughs).

(Pause): [00:08:40 00:08:47]

CLIENT: Everything should? Or but this (unclear) you're saying I should be excited about why are you surprised about that?

THERAPIST: It just seems like you're I don't know, kind of like dismissive like, 'oh, whatever.'

CLIENT: Yeah, but that's surprising to you.

THERAPIST: No. I just thought it was no I just thought it was worthy of comment. Did it make you anxious that I commented on that?

CLIENT: No, I just thought, you know like this question that I've been trying to answer like is Chris right for me I thought maybe this was a cue that I was wondering if this was significant enough to help me answer.

(Pause): [00:09:26 00:09:59]

THERAPIST: Well the way you talk about your relationship in here, he's less of a companion than kind of a model for how you should live or resist living.

CLIENT: Resist living?

THERAPIST: You know like, I could do this but I'm not going to. You know. I try to say just forget it, write her off, but I can't do that. So that's the resistance to it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: He may feel like a companion but you don't describe him in here like that.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's true. I suppose it seems more interesting to talk about him as the other part rather than companion we (unclear) about him being a companion. I don't know. We sit around and talk. (Laughs) We cook together. That's not really very interesting. I mean, that's not a source of anxiety, I guess. Because the mode of this thing I assume he wants to talk about makes me anxious or he's just naturally doing this.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess I mean that's part of being a companion for sure, but it seems like everything that he says to you, for you is loaded about what you should or shouldn't do. It's not really about sharing experiences with each other or this is what it was like for me. It's about directives.

CLIENT: I don't know. I don't know why that is the case. (Laughs)

(Pause): [00:11:51 00:12:05]

CLIENT: I wonder how long it's been that way. Maybe just since last year, it's been like okay I have to better myself to be like, to be worthy of him or to be his equal and like I don't feel his equal because I'm still a student and he's a professor and you can't get a new start from that. (Laughs) Like yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe. I don't know. Really?

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: I was thinking if one person is a lawyer and the other person is a medical student, to like, one's a student and one's an attorney. They're doing different things. You're doing different things.

CLIENT: Yeah, that's true.

(Pause): [00:13:10 00:13:42]

CLIENT: I just wonder how much difference is encouraged actually in our relationship. Maybe I've got the sense that it's not. You know like it's not something that is articulated but it's like it's something you sense. You've just got to guess the kind of people he admires or talks about or hangs out or speaks highly of. You just get a sense that okay, so you know, like that would be ideal and I'm not the sort of person who doesn't think they're his ideal. You know, like just be, why does everything have to have a meaning can go in that way because yeah.

THERAPIST: Well, you serve complementary roles in that.

CLIENT: What do you mean?

THERAPIST: What he brings to the table is different, like you're bringing to this table looking for guidance and a way to live. He brings to the table wanting to give you that.

CLIENT: So you mean if I'd brought something else to the table he would bring something else to it?

THERAPIST: I don't know that. I don't know if at some point if you'd outgrown this relationship or that this relationship could grow. Which I think is a (unclear) one of the few reasons that I think couple's therapy could be helpful for you. I don't know that piece.

CLIENT: Yeah. But it's not growing right now.

THERAPIST: No. It's not. It really isn't.

CLIENT: Yeah. Because we do, we're not committing and stuff for -

THERAPIST: Because your dynamic is so centered around this student/teacher and winning his approval and feeling that you have to do things his way or resist doing things his way and I'm sure he plays a part in that.

(Pause): [00:16:18 00:16:23]

THERAPIST: But it's not about being adult companions. Maybe you wouldn't want that but I think you'd be happier that way.

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: Having an adult companion. At some point I think you need this.

Chris serves a need for you at this point but from my vantage point it's a need I hope you outgrow to some extent.

(Pause): [00:16:47 00:16:58]

CLIENT: It's funny like when I think well okay I won't seek his approval then all I'm thinking of is resistance like when I think I'll do this, I'll do that, it's like in the back of my head I'm not saying that's the motivation for doing that sort of thing but one thought really is 'well, Chris will have to know, like this is not what Chris would pick. But he comes like, like some of those things he comes. So is he being a good companion, then? (Laughs) Are we growing (unclear)?

THERAPIST: It's so interesting because I gave you you're asking for cues and I gave you such a direct response.

CLIENT: Yes. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Such a direct response.

CLIENT: (Laughing)

THERAPIST: I couldn't have been more direct.

CLIENT: (Laughing) Yeah.

(Pause): [00:18:04 00:18:10]

THERAPIST: Did you not hear that?

CLIENT: No. I did. You know, it's just kind of like then we have to probe that malady, slap the thing on that's stable. I have to, like a cat, go around it. (Laughs) Inspect it. (Laughs) I think I don't know how quickly he'll sort of outgrow because I definitely feel needy or like my need for direction is so intense. I really, absolutely feel lost without it. You know, all the things we talked about several times I'm sure. I just feel like the thing that I'm doing is so like directionless, so like maybe it's just my perception of it but until you get sort of like a decent break, a (unclear) break, you feel, you really define yourself by not yet. You're not there yet. I mean you don't have to but I guess I did and makes you like inadequate to be with anyone, you know?

(Pause): [00:19:59 00:20:07]

CLIENT: You feel like as an adult companion I just cannot bring it to the table. But maybe I do. I don't know, like the cooking and cleaning. (Laughs)

THERAPIST: What's it? You said, 'bring it to the table.'

CLIENT: I don't know. I can't think of it that's Chris's but maybe I haven't been in a proper adult relationship, so how would I know?

THERAPIST: But I do think you feel aware it is you feel you're lacking in now. You've sort of identified different things while you were a student. A lot of students are married.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: They're in relationships. And that's healthy. So you keep assuming that you're lacking it somehow, that it's not already there.

(Pause): [00:21:14 00:21:26]

CLIENT: I don't know. I guess there is that list you know like as I go from A be sexy, 2 look pretty, 3 be smart, 4 be political, 5 cook good food. I don't know, and so on and so forth. (Pause) I guess I could do those things. (Laughs) And that would be it.

(Pause): [00:22:07 00:22:37]

CLIENT: What do you think it is?

THERAPIST: You as a person.

(Pause): [00:22:45 00:22:52]

CLIENT: That's what (unclear) wants, like what as a person?

THERAPIST: You as a person.

CLIENT: What is a person? (Laughs) I'm really floundering as you can tell, not grasping the -

(Pause): [00:23:08 00:23:27]

CLIENT: If feel like I bring it, I so desperately want to bring it and do bring it to my friends like when I was writing to my friends like the person I had a fight with. I got so desperate and (unclear) was like, 'no one loves you in that classroom like I do.' And like we were going through similar things and this and that and I see you in all your troubles and in your beauty so that's what breaks my heart and you're (unclear) off someone like this and I was so embarrassed writing that but I was thinking that I was so desperate like to show like friendship and warmth. But there has to be a receptor at the other end, right?

THERAPIST: It sounds like she was.

CLIENT: For a minute, yeah. And like she comes and goes and you know she's there when she can be. Trying to learn that one of the reasons I think I was mad at her was that she wasn't doing what I wanted her to be and that's a lesson that I should learn, that people cannot just drop everything and be available when I'm open to it even if (unclear) things to make them, like you owe me, you have to help me. How dare you not to? You owe me. So that kind of device is very, very damaging for everyone. And (unclear) is not a child. (Laughs) But like just let them go and like I wouldn't like someone to make me feel that I owe them. You know? But she's there on and off and I'm learning to just appreciate that. Because I'm also on and off (unclear) with different people.

(Pause): [00:25:58 00:28:17]

THERAPIST: What are you thinking about?

CLIENT: Oh just (laughs) generally about my not quite success at it. I just keep thinking unless I get what I want in this area I won't be happy. (Unclear). (Unclear) never. (Yawns)

(Pause): [00:28:51 00:30:02]

CLIENT: Do you think that might be the case?

THERAPIST: How?

CLIENT: Unless I get what I want in my career, I won't be happy in any of it.

(Pause): [00:30:14 00:30:24]

CLIENT: But it feels like kind of a dangerous thing to think or say because that's just putting on too much pressure on me. So maybe I should flip the phrase and say, 'unless I'm happy in as many areas as I can be, I won't fail' when I do my work because maybe that's the thing.

(Pause): [00:30:49 00:31:04]

THERAPIST: Does it make you anxious to sort of rely on your own judgment?

CLIENT: Judgment about what?

THERAPIST: In general. Like when you asked me, "do you think that's right?" Does that help you allay some anxiety to have me say, 'oh that's right?'

CLIENT: Yes,

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: I'm feeling precarious judging and standing on my own judgment.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: I think that's what happens with you and Chris all the time.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah? What do you mean?

CLIENT: Like always looking to him this is right, this is wrong. Should I do this or should I do that? You go and to do your own thing some of the time, maybe much of the time.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:31:52 00:31:59]

THERAPIST: You don't need the content of it. It's not like you don't have your own ideas about what you could do. It's not the content. I think maybe on the surface it looks like you're looking for the content, but you have plenty of your own ideas, but there's something else. A sense of security, a sense of validation that you're looking for. It's not like you're completely lost and have no thoughts.

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe I have too many thoughts and I don't know how to prioritize and yeah. How does one prioritize? (Laughs)

THERAPIST: Looking inside themselves.

CLIENT: (Unclear)

THERAPIST: Figuring out what's most important to them.

CLIENT: I'm so confused about what's important to me. (Laughs) Some are competing interests.

(Pause): [00:33:07 00:33:13]

CLIENT: Is it always worth looking inside?

THERAPIST: Yes, all the time.

CLIENT: (Laughing)

THERAPIST: Well, what do you think?

(Pause): [00:33:25 00:33:31]

CLIENT: I'm trying to think of an instance where it's worth like -

(Pause): [00:33:40 00:33:43]

CLIENT: I don't know.

THERAPIST: It works for you all the time. You contacted your friend based on what you thought was best to do.

CLIENT: That was a sudden impulse. That wasn't like a planned thing.

THERAPIST: It still guided your behavior.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: You make decisions all the time, every moment of the day.

CLIENT: Yeah. But I thought we were talking about making priorities.

THERAPIST: Yeah, well in a sense making priorities means making decisions as the outcome of priorities. It's a piece of it, right? You can't do everything every minute of the day. You have to make decisions for yourself based on what's important to you.

CLIENT: But maybe in some sense I'm getting the sense that I make the wrong decisions.

THERAPIST: Well, you're re-evaluating your priorities, but that doesn't mean you don't have any, it just means that you're re-evaluating them. I mean you made the decision to move back in with Chris so you can pay your (unclear) rent. That's a priority and you talked about whether you want to continue to be a priority so you're re-evaluating them. It doesn't mean you don't have any.

CLIENT: Yeah. But you're re-evaluating because you think you've taken a misstep.

THERAPIST: The number of times I say, 'what do you think?' during our session or what do you think during your sessions is very interesting.

CLIENT: It's a lot of times?

THERAPIST: Do you think?

CLIENT: (Laughs).

THERAPIST: What do you think?

CLIENT: (Laughs) I can't go on. I can't do this. I really feel lost. (Laughs)

Where do I go?

(Pause): [00:36:03 00:36:07]

CLIENT: This material is as true for me to kind of preside over it like and take it by the holders whatever it is I'm supposed to take it by. So (Laughs) I don't see all the pieces. I don't see the direction in which I'm going, so.

(Pause): [00:36:39 00:36:45]

CLIENT: Yes. I think so. (Laughs) Let me try and play at being really decisive. I might make a complete ass of myself and fall on my face but (laughs) but (unclear) when we get there.

(Pause): [00:36:59 00:37:16]

CLIENT: I think to me re-evaluation sounds like I have made mistakes in judgment in priorities, incorrectly.

THERAPIST: Well that's a very pejorative way of framing it where you could frame it as you get older you have different priorities where different things become important to you as your needs change.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I guess for making mistakes it's a very static view, that you should be the same and you've made mistakes about what you decided.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:37:55 00:38:23]

CLIENT: Well, I don't know. It's like I sense that I have whatever big mistakes/I have grown and I have different priorities and (unclear). Maybe I got that sense of needing to do that but not having enough confidence to rely on myself to make that, to do any of this. I constantly look to Chris for seeing what a person's priorities should look like, you know?

THERAPIST: Which assumes that you want to be Chris.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Maybe in some ways I do and then sometimes I really don't.

THERAPIST: I think that's true.

CLIENT: (Yawns) I want me but me is not ready.

(Pause): [00:39:24 00:39:37]

THERAPIST: Humph.

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: (Pause) But you're too late for that. You're already here.

CLIENT: But it's already it.

THERAPIST: You're being me.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Oh, well. We try, begrudgingly, to walk about in me. Yeah.

THERAPIST: Begrudgingly?

CLIENT: Yeah, really, well this is what I have to work with.

THERAPIST: That's true for all of us.

CLIENT: Really?

THERAPIST: What else do we have to work with beside ourselves?

CLIENT: Oh. Oh. Yeah.

THERAPIST: What did you think I meant?

CLIENT: That everyone is begrudgingly being themselves.

THERAPIST: Humph. I don't think that's true.

CLIENT: You're happy to be you?

THERAPIST: (Laughs) You such interesting questions? What do you think? Do I seem happy to be here?

CLIENT: Maybe. I don't know you very well, so (laughs) Yeah, you do. Everyone does. Everyone seems quite confident in their skin, so -

(Pause): [00:41:07 00:41:29]

CLIENT: I guess they have like moments like where they feel they could change some aspect.

THERAPIST: Do you feel that you don't know me very well?

CLIENT: Yeah. (Laughs) We're, you know, meeting professionally, not like socially.

THERAPIST: That's true. That's very true.

(Pause): [00:41:53 00:42:03]

THERAPIST: But that doesn't mean that you don't know you don't know a lot of facts about my life, that's true, but it doesn't mean that you don't know me.

CLIENT: (Laughs) Yeah.

THERAPIST: Maybe you feel that way but -

CLIENT: Well.

THERAPIST: Try to think that you wonder about.

CLIENT: Not too much. (Laughs) I mean you seem like a nice person, so (laughs) I'm sure if I were given the opportunity I would wonder.

THERAPIST: What does that mean 'if you were given the opportunity'?

CLIENT: Well, like if we were friends or something, you know, or if we were associated professionally, I think.

(Pause): [00:42:53 00:43:02]

THERAPIST: I would imagine how you would think and feel about things you do wonder.

CLIENT: Huh?

THERAPIST: I mean you do wonder so much about the people you interact with what's important to them and who they are and how they are in the world. I imagine that you would wonder about me too.

CLIENT: I try not to.

THERAPIST: Why do you try not to?

CLIENT: Well, I would like to keep that professional.

THERAPIST: You're talking about these things that's somehow unprofessional?

CLIENT: No. Just I don't know, like I'm learning there are ways of interacting with people, various ways you know where you don't have to know every single thing, every single person. People could be friends even like you said the other day. People are friends for the longest time and they still don't know the particulars about the other person's job and you know and major chunks of life can be hidden and that's quite usual and normal also. I don't have that skill of editing myself, so I generally just tend to tell everything to everybody what I'm trying to do.

THERAPIST: We should be (inaudible) today.

CLIENT: Okay. Have a good weekend.

THERAPIST: Thank you.

CLIENT: Do you -?

THERAPIST: I'll give you a check, yeah.

CLIENT: Thank you.

THERAPIST: I think it's for two months but this month and February isn't due yet and I'd want pay for January and February first.

CLIENT: Do you know the amount?

THERAPIST: I'm not sure. I'd need to look that up.

(Pause): [00:44:58 00:45:03]

THERAPIST: I think it might be $90 for January and $80 for February, but -

CLIENT: And $80?

THERAPIST: Yeah, $90 for January and then $80 for February but let me make sure. (Pause) Yeah, it's $90 yeah, $90 it is but I just want $70 for the two months.

CLIENT: Okay.

(Pause): [00:45:25 00:46:47]

THERAPIST: Thank you, (unclear). Great. I will see you on Monday.

CLIENT: Yes, thank you.

THERAPIST: Okay. Have a good rest of the week.

CLIENT: You too.

THERAPIST: Bye-bye.

CLIENT: Bye.

END TRANSCRIPT