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THERAPIST: Well thank you.

CLIENT: They're lemon squares.

THERAPIST: Well thanks. That's very kind.

CLIENT: You're welcome.

THERAPIST: I look forward to eating them.

CLIENT: They're good. They're a little sweet. Sorry I'm late. (Pause) I would like to talk about your love for me. (Pause) I think it's there. I feel it. [00:01:06]

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: (Pause) I'm envious of it because it's really different from my love for you. (Pause)

THERAPIST: What differences did you have in mind?

CLIENT: Well I feel like (pause) kind of crazy, and possessive, and very invested, and preoccupied with my love and it's kind of really hard. (Pause) While your love is also invested it doesn't seem preoccupying or possessive. [00:02:58]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Or hard. It seems easy. Maybe it's not easy but it doesn't seem like it. (Pause) I don't know. It seems enabling instead of disabling.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And I think I have that kind of love for other people. I don't think that it's I'm not capable of it. I think I just don't have it here. And it would be really nice if your love could be more like mine or if mine could be more like yours. [00:03:45]

THERAPIST: I see. (Pause)

CLIENT: Do you know Ellen Siegelman?

THERAPIST: No.

CLIENT: She's a psychoanalyst who has written a really lovely article about this. (Pause)

THERAPIST: And what did she say?

CLIENT: I think when I was (inaudible at 00:04:37). So she's at the (inaudible at 00:04:41) Institute of San Francisco maybe. And I think this is like me sort of feeling like I have the feeling but really needing confirmation or some kind of validation. And this is like a really familiar process where there's some seed that's planted and then I try to read about it, or try to talk to people about it, and then based on that form my opinion. And I wish that it hadn't been that way. Not that her article was transformative or extreme in any way; it was just pretty accurate. [00:05:43]

So she writes about the analyst's love and how it's not really accepted as a positive part of the therapeutic relationship by a lot of people but for those for whom it is acceptable it is critical. And her own experience is that it has been critical for her in that where she wasn't able to love a patient. There were a lot of significant things about that too. [00:06:34]

She talks about why hating a patient is a lot more accepted than loving a patient. So she goes on and on about what has been written and the theory, and then she also just talks about it on experiences. She has this thing at the end where she describes this space as a series of smaller and smaller Russian dolls. Where the space is the biggest doll and is the container, and you are the next biggest doll, and your love is a container for me, and I'm a container for a little black figure that Karl Jung chiseled out of his ruler. Some story about this little black figure and I guess it's meant to be like my true self or something. Anyway it was just nice to read another human account of something that I have been (inaudible at 00:08:21) I was aware. [00:08:24]

Those shovels are so loud.

THERAPIST: Yes they are. (Pause) My goodness. (Pause) There is... There's something going on where (pause) some of the intensity of what you feel and I guess in a way the intensity of your reaching for me happens outside of here. [00:09:51]

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Are you saying more because you don't feel it in here so it must be outside of here because from what you've heard?

THERAPIST: Um.

CLIENT: It's different from what you feel in here. Is that a positive or negative statement? I do know from what I've told you and whatever else that it's more intense outside of here or it's not very intense here. [00:10:33]

THERAPIST: The first one. (Pause)

CLIENT: I interrupted you. I'm sorry.

THERAPIST: It's okay. (Pause) Yeah. It's like there's something maybe that gets a bit split off from our actual interactions here to do with (pause) what or how much you want to know about me, or about psychoanalysis, or where I'm coming from, or whether you feel it is okay, or sort of contextualize the thing. And I'm not saying bad, I'm just saying it strikes me how it takes place in some ways outside of here that it doesn't as much here. [00:12:11]

CLIENT: I think the separation makes it more intense. (Pause) Like I think if I were separated from you permanently it would go away, but the intermittent separation makes it like the most intense it could be.

THERAPIST: I see. So in that sense I'm kind both there and not there.

CLIENT: Uh huh. I think I also feel a little bit performative here. Not that I have an agenda. I really don't, but I think it comes from a sense of relief, and anticipation, and excitement that is masking (pause) the hard stuff. [00:13:24]

(Pause) In other words, I think you're in the unfortunate position of not really being able to see everything because your presence is so polarizing (pause) or fortunate. I don't know. Your position is better than say Jeremy's who's really overwhelmed and kind of feed up with how much I talk about you and how much I talk about analysis and therapy in general. (Pause) And I think I talk about you like 100th of what I actually how often I would actually like to talk about you. (Pause) So I don't know how to bring that here. [00:14:52]

I think it's here sometimes; not all the time. (Pause) I think also... Do you remember that day that I fainted, and I had this whole day where I was deciding whether to go to lab and talk to various people on the phone, and you noticed that I didn't really tell you about the resolution to anything like there were lots of little resolutions; like whatever they were talking to Jeremy's mom and my mom? I think it might be like the opposite here or related but I don't know how. (Pause) I don't know. I'm leaving something out not really consciously but compared to what I feel outside of here (pause) for the sake of shaping, or crafting, or performing. [00:16:35]

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: Or something. I don't really know.

THERAPIST: My impression is that you don't generally feel the sadness here.

CLIENT: I do feel sadness here. I feel sadness about or in response to the very, very, very short session and the ending of it. And sometimes I feel sad about that before I even get here. I don't feel the whole spectrum of sadness here. [00:17:46]

I don't really feel the whole spectrum of sadness when I'm with a person that I'm connecting with. (Pause) I guess that's important. (Pause)

What? [00:19:14]

THERAPIST: Oh I was going to say yeah I have a sense that when you're here you have more of a sense of clattering, and banging, and shoveling.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah, there's not a lot of stillness here. (Pause) I mean there is if I can get myself if I forget that there's an end to time then there's a really nice stillness but it's like a diluted talk. It's not joy with suffering. It's like temporary relief of suffering. [00:20:10]

(Pause) But I think... When I feel badly about your not (pause) letting me in I don't think it's a consequence of your not loving me. I think it's the nature of my love for you that's creating that dissonance (pause) or the nature of my love for you. [00:21:15]

(Pause) What's going on?

THERAPIST: I'm thinking about what you said.

CLIENT: Okay. [00:22:02]

I mean do I wish (pause) this were sort of life changing and transforming for you and that it made you feel out of control and... Yeah. I really wish that were true. But I think I also some other part of me wishes that (pause) I could treat you a lot more like you treat me like I'll take either one. [00:23:12]

(Pause) I can't feel sad here because there's always the potential to change to change how you feel about me or how I feel about you. It's kind of like it's action time or... I don't know. I don't know why I don't feel like there's the potential to change how I feel about you when I'm not here. It's kind of like I go back to feeling really stuck. [00:25:15]

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: But you have me teetering on this edge of (pause) hope and not hope. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Like I may come around? [00:26:03]

CLIENT: Uh huh.

THERAPIST: And that feels like it's going to be because of, let's say, how you are here?

CLIENT: No. I don't put that much pressure on myself I don't think. I think it's going to be because... I don't really think that, but I think I feel it so I can justify it. (Pause)

THERAPIST: I think it may be more to do with something you're needing or with (inaudible at 00:26:56) or something like that. [00:27:02]

CLIENT: I don't think it has a rational basis. I mean everything I know about you does not point to your breaking down and (pause) professing an uncontrollable desire to be with me. I don't think that's going to happen but somehow... I think my heart and my head aren't on the same page.

THERAPIST: (Pause) In the sense of possibilities... I know it was kind of absorbing. [00:28:23]

CLIENT: Uh huh. (Pause) Plus it's like really fun to kind of poke (pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:29:16). It's fun to poke? [00:29:21]

CLIENT: Uh huh.

THERAPIST: That would be at me?

CLIENT: Uh huh. (Pause) I think it's really intense to be loved by me. I make a lot of grand gestures. I think it's probably intense to be loved by anybody. (Pause) Yeah. I know love is great to a lot of people in our family and it really made Jeremy really frustrated. [00:30:25]

THERAPIST: How?

CLIENT: Like lemon squares are gooey and why can't you just mail a card? (Pause) I think he was pretty happy, but it was the kind of argument where I wasn't saying anything. I wasn't hearing him like I made him lemon squares. I don't care what you say. [00:31:08]

THERAPIST: Uh huh.

CLIENT: No I'm not going to make cookies and mail cookies. I'm not going to buy perishable things. I'm not going to just mail a card. I'm making him lemon squares tomorrow which is why I was late. (Pause) I don't know where that comes from.

THERAPIST: It was important?

CLIENT: Yeah. But why was it important?

THERAPIST: I really don't know. I think it was in part important in some way for you with Ben... I don't think there are that many things where you're like nope. I know I'm upsetting you. I don't care. In other words, it has this feel of your making a point with him among other things I'm sure. [00:32:24]

CLIENT: Yeah. Maybe. Like this is how I am. (Pause) It's important to show your love and this is one of the ways and how you do it. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Mostly you mail them to family?

CLIENT: I mail them to Jeremy's sister, and my parents, and his parents, and also I made a little package for my landlord who I think I love. Just loving everybody considered. [00:33:07]

THERAPIST: You could do worse than that.

CLIENT: I could do worse?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Meaning like... I mean I gather you're being a bit tongue and cheek there but...

CLIENT: I really think I am like a love spout. (Pause) My landlord loved me I think. They don't have children – Morris and Ellen and somehow I can't forget that when I interact with him. Morris gives me flowers sometimes and loves Jeremy too, but Jeremy doesn't really care that much. I think there's something about their not having children that makes me feel like I can swoop in, or that I have to, or that it's just extra special for them. [00:34:14]

THERAPIST: How old are they?

CLIENT: In their 70's.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: Ellen's probably in her 60's.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Morris teaches science writing at the School of Public Health where I'm at. (Pause) I had a dream that I told Morris or that Ellen told me that Morris loves me, and that I told her that I loved Morris but I think he was there. He was just agreeing or something. After I had that dream Jeremy said I give up. It was bad. (inaudible at 00:35:23).

THERAPIST: Thank you again.

CLIENT: You're welcome. [00:35:31]

END TRANSCRIPT

1
Abstract / Summary: Client discusses her love for her therapist and his feelings for her.
Field of Interest: Counseling & Therapy
Publisher: Alexander Street Press
Content Type: Counseling session
Format: Text
Page Count: 1
Page Range: 1-1
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Alexander Street
Place Published / Released: Alexandria, VA
Subject: Counseling & Therapy; Psychology & Counseling; Health Sciences; Theoretical Approaches to Counseling; Client-therapist relationship; Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento; Dreams; Love; Nonsexual relationships with client; Client-counselor relations; Attraction; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Psychotherapy
Clinician: Anonymous
Keywords and Translated Subjects: Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento
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