TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
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CLIENT: You look nice.
THERAPIST: Thank you.
CLIENT: [...] (inaudible at 00:00:09) (pause) [00:00:42] Blaaah.
THERAPIST: That sounded like a mad "blaaah."
CLIENT: I didn't know you spoke that language. I don't know. Yeah, I'm mad. (pause) It's a lot. (long pause) [00:04:22]
THERAPIST: What's on your mind?
CLIENT: Not that much. (pause) I feel a lot, but I haven't got a lot on my mind. I feel afraid [...]. (inaudible at 00:05:12) Sad and worried. (pause) [00:05:45] And excited. (long pause) long [00:05:45] Do you ever take vacation during school vacation week? Good. It's really good [...]. (inaudible at 00:07:11)
THERAPIST: How so?
CLIENT: When I was a kid it was really nice when my parents took off from work and it happened a lot more with my mom than my dad; but it was really nice when it happened with my dad or my mom. And they did it a lot. I don't really see a lot of people in my day-to-day life. Well, there is this tension there. I was wondering how it was for you. [00:08:22] (pause) [...] (inaudible at 00:08:35) sort of does a half-assed job in my opinion. (pause) [...] (inaudible at 00:09:05) (pause) [00:10:19] Hair is really convenient. Yeah, because it really filters light really well but it doesn't block it off and it's soft and it smells good and you can groom it. (pause) [00:12:46] How is your narcissistic equilibrium?
THERAPIST: How is my narcissistic equilibrium? What's a narcissistic equilibrium?
CLIENT: I forgot where I read it. I read it somewhere in my reading. It's sort of like the state of your I guess I can ask it more specifically. It must be kind of an imbalance thing, off balance thing, sort of like to have somebody you want and need so much. (pause) [00:14:32]
THERAPIST: Maybe it could be [...] (inaudible at 00:14:33) or go to my head.
CLIENT: Yeah, both. It influences the way that I treat people when it's happened to me in the past. On one level it makes me feel really good. On another level it's kind of unattractive, but it can also be very attractive. In all, it's not a neutral experience. It's very intense and charged. (pause) [00:16:30]
THERAPIST: It's intense and very nice, certainly flattering, and I wouldn't want to create any distance for me from what's going on with you.
CLIENT: It is nice. [...] (inaudible at 00:17:26)
THERAPIST: What's your perception?
CLIENT: I don't think I have. (pause) [...] (inaudible at 00:18:57) It doesn't make sense. (pause) [00:19:53]
THERAPIST: It will, I think.
CLIENT: You sound confident. Does it make sense to you?
THERAPIST: Not yet. If it did I would explain it, at least explain how it makes sense to me. [00:20:48]
CLIENT: It's impossible to do anything with you. (pause) [00:21:34]
THERAPIST: That wasn't rhetorical?
CLIENT: It was. (pause) I feel like leaving. (pause)
THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:22:37) and frustrated?
CLIENT: Yeah. Stuck. Too stuck.
THERAPIST: What is it that you want to do?
CLIENT: When I leave?
THERAPIST: But can't do.
CLIENT: Oh. I want to be okay with the way I feel, is one answer. I want you to explain (pause) why, (pause) why we can't have sex, but I don't really want to hear it as well, so I want some (pause) companionship in the way I feel, even if it can't become real or action. (pause) [00:25:50] I guess I also want some practical advice about getting through the days. (pause) These are my feelings. (pause) [00:27:11]
THERAPIST: I think you're heartbroken and grief stricken and I think the stuck part probably comes from the hope that things between us now protect you or save you from that.
CLIENT: But they won't. [00:28:41]
THERAPIST: I think the idea is that if we had an affair, they would.
CLIENT: No. That would be horrible.
THERAPIST: In reality it would be horrible. In fantasy it might not be horrible.
CLIENT: In fantasy it would be wonderful.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Do you know that?
THERAPIST: I think that's a lot of what you're feeling. Have I doused your question? (chuckles) [00:29:48]
CLIENT: I'm pretty sure it would be incredible. It's very hard to not act on what we want.
THERAPIST: Sure. I think especially when there is both love and really tremendous grief, I think, involved. (pause) [00:31:13] I don't think the grief is just over [...] (inaudible at 00:31:15).
CLIENT: Of course, you don't. (both chuckle)
THERAPIST: Come on, you douche bag. (both chuckle) I actually mean that in a more [...] (inaudible at 00:31:51) theoretical way than I imagine you might think. That's more like the specific feeling I have about your grief than it is from some idea about transference.
CLIENT: [...] (inaudible at 00:32:33)
THERAPIST: It just feels to me like some of the sadness and frustration is very much tied up in your feelings about me and some of it is doesn't. It's really more like [...] (inaudible at 00:33:44) intuition. [00:33:53]
CLIENT: I agree there is more also tied up in my feelings about myself or some other...?
THERAPIST: I don't know. I just have this sort of impression of a lot of grief.
CLIENT: And you have the impression that there is multiple ideology?
THERAPIST: I think so. Something like that. There's something else that I also wondered about, which is it does seem pretty clear to me that you and I would have an awesome fantasy affair; and I've not really asked you so much about why. I wondered if I was not understanding not knowing about the fantasy it's not because I disagree, I'm saying this because there may be things about where you're coming from that we haven't talked about or I don't know about and that can be important about your sense of our compatibility. [00:36:02] (pause)
CLIENT: I wonder if we actually do disagree.
THERAPIST: More where I was coming from is I think you are, of course, I can imagine I see your feelings to be with me as mostly transference driven. I'm more agnostic than that. I would say I know it can often be that way, but I also wouldn't say that unless I knew more particularly that the transference is more for you; like I wouldn't make that decision until I actually knew more. I guess what I'm saying is that I would imagine you have the idea that I see things that way and it feels kind of dismissive. [00:37:49]
CLIENT: [...] (inaudible at 00:37:48) The feeling about my idea of our compatibility would help how? I guess that's really the price of feeling very different. To no longer have questions [...] (inaudible at 00:38:12) so I'm...
THERAPIST: [...] (inaudible at 00:38:16) defensive about it?
CLIENT: I think that compatibility is obvious to me, so it either seems like an exercise to think through it, which is fine, or it seems like a challenge to make me see that we're not compatible; and I'm not sure if I'm interested in finding that out. I could be interested in the exercise. It might be nice, but I wanted to know if you had more of a hunch than you're letting on. [00:39:22]
THERAPIST: About our compatibility?
CLIENT: Or about what you want me to learn.
THERAPIST: Honestly my most immediate thought is more about what I would learn.
CLIENT: (laughs) Okay.
THERAPIST: The point of which ultimately lead back at you, I'm saying just for my own whatever.
CLIENT: It would be awesome if you would ask me something for your own whatever.
THERAPIST: I don't understand.
CLIENT: Yeah, I know you do. Yeah, okay, well how much time do we have left?
THERAPIST: We have like maybe five minutes.
CLIENT: I think it's more I mean it's very presumptuous in my own fantasy. I don't know how to explain it, so there is that. There is less of putting pieces together logically and more just making it so.
THERAPIST: More "duh." [00:41:17]
CLIENT: Yeah, but I don't think I'm completely missing the boat or delusional and I have a...
THERAPIST: And I'm not at all saying that you are.
CLIENT: Okay. I'm... well it's like lots of little things, like... I think a lot of this compatibility lies in touch, which is hard to explain, but I think it's there and I think there would be like a similar dance or trading force or whatever. But it would be non-verbal and that's not really easy to explain [...] (inaudible at 00:43:17).
THERAPIST: So your kind of chemistry.
CLIENT: Yeah. Meditation is a big one. [00:43:52] There is sort of an intellectual compatibility that can make intellectual things really good, but it can also make sex really good. (pause) Somebody in your family is Jewish, and that's a big one for me. I didn't plan for my life to be this way, but most important people in my life are Jewish or have Jewish ancestry. [...] (inaudible at 00:44:51) Jeremy, other boyfriends. I mean there is a well-known compatibility between Indian people and Jewish people, so that's that. And also I think probably, if you haven't been to India, I think you would like it; and if you have, I think you liked it. There are aspects that are very consistent or I don't know. I think I've embodied some of the important and unique things about being Indian-born. (pause) Yeah. I'm a good person and I think you probably are, too. (pause) [00:46:42]
THERAPIST: Thank you.
CLIENT: And respect. But you need to [...] (inaudible at 00:47:00). (pause)
THERAPIST: We should stop.
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