TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
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CLIENT: It's so hot. (pause) [inaudible]
THERAPIST: That it was so hot?
CLIENT: Mm-hm. (pause) How are you feeling?
THERAPIST: A little better, thanks. (pause) [inaudible]
CLIENT: [inaudible] better. [00:01:17.29] (pause) I guess it's hard [inaudible] (pause) It's made me say things that I wouldn't normally say. [00:03:55.23] [inaudible] (pause) Yesterday I said some things that, I don't know, like invited you to put yourself in my hands, which I think was my effort to reassure myself and reassure you, like you don't ever have to worry about being late for me. You don't need permission to be late. You don't need my permission. Why would I say that? It wasn't a pure sentiment. [00:05:08.17] I mean it felt pure at the time but I don't think it was. And then telling you that it's okay with me if you aren't feeling that intimate [ph] [inaudible] Also clearly not that true. I mean it's okay with me but it's hard. And also I was thinking yesterday [inaudible] (pause) use all just a lot of energy around being worried or something like worried. [00:06:36.17] (pause)
THERAPIST: Yeah, I think it's hard for you to think about how much my maybe not being as sort of [inaudible] little receptive or engaged or something. It's hard for you to think about how big a deal that is, and so instead you try to manage it by taking care of me or [inaudible] You'd rather just kind of solve it than think about it. [00:08:19.11]
CLIENT: I don't know that I was trying to [inaudible] I was trying to (pause) but I [inaudible] I'd leave any space for [inaudible] talk about it and also removed the things that I thought I could remove. Okay, so maybe I was trying to [inaudible] (laughs) Well it's not really fair to you for me to care so much. (pause) Because it's entirely fair to. (laughs) Do you know what I mean though? [00:09:44.03]
THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean I think [inaudible] is or what you're trying to say is that it feels as though to you I thought you were making an unreasonable demand on me too, in a way that sort of feels insistent that I'm feeling 100% of something.
CLIENT: No. I think just by giving it so much attention and space while maybe it's not at all what you want to focus on or think is important to focus on.
THERAPIST: Well, I think you were talking about doing that because it feels like you're making a demand on me, both in focusing on it and in what you want, which may be better.
CLIENT: Yeah, or for you to talk about it with me.
THERAPIST: Talk about?
CLIENT: [inaudible] Both of those things would make me feel not included, [ph] your being better or your talking about it. [ph]
THERAPIST: And that's what your focus is on, that seems like a big affair to me. [00:12:11.08]
CLIENT: But then again you asked for it. We asked for it. We created it. Right? (pause)
THERAPIST: I think you'll try to find a way into it.
CLIENT: Yeah, but there's only so long that I feel bad about it because it's like well, this is what this whole thing is about, and if you're willing to work with me, this is part of working with me.
THERAPIST: Again, I feel like you're I think you should feel bad about it or I think it's unfair or something like that.
CLIENT: I don't know. Maybe I think that you wish that I would talk about something else. [00:13:50.28]
THERAPIST: [inaudible] that you both do and don't wish that I was thinking that.
CLIENT: (laugh) Yeah, yeah. Are you going to ignore it?
THERAPIST: You mean that I'm not going to give you a straight answer on that one? No, I'm not going to give you a straight answer on that one. I mean I had an interpretive thought about it which I said but...
CLIENT: I didn't sleep well last night because [inaudible] thought that I was worried. [00:15:09.04] I had some kind of performance anxiety about coming here. (pause)
THERAPIST: Yeah, I think you really worry a lot about my not being able to be here for you in the way that I usually am, and you very quickly and mostly unconsciously sort of shift responsibility for doing that back onto yourself, and feel responsible for me managing it.
CLIENT: Whose responsibility should it be? [00:17:02.19]
THERAPIST: Well you changed the nature of the problem, I think, in part not to see how it's affecting you. In other words you switch into feeling like you have to be performing, worried about whether you're going to be performing enough, well enough, to keep me here and engaged because you're worried and end up being disturbed if I'm not feeling well or up to snuff are harder to sort of stay with I think. So that your attention moves.
CLIENT: Well I guess it's hard to stay with it because I don't know exactly what it is.
THERAPIST: What pops into your head? [00:18:33.29]
CLIENT: [inaudible] you haven't been well and [inaudible] going through all this week, Monday, Tuesday. [ph] That pops into my head. You were tired on Monday. [ph] What also pops into my head is [inaudible] that it's not very nice to react with me because you're doing the best you can. What exactly do I expect you to do? And also it's really not that big of a deal, and it seems like a bigger deal than it is, to me. So it's like this second guessing. And also just give the guy a break. [00:20:42.15] I want that. I don't want to yeah, I don't want it to be as big a deal as it is. And [inaudible] this happens when [inaudible] so it feels familiar and it feels frustrating that [inaudible] and possibly all the momentum that I feel is maybe more coming from the past than dealing with what's actually happening here, which is not that big a deal. But my dad getting sick on a couple of occasions and then getting alcohol poisoning were a big deal. [00:22:00.02] (pause)
THERAPIST: [inaudible] you feel sort of guilty and ashamed. You feel like it's a big deal [inaudible] so I think to feel angry or frustrated with me about it, there are those feelings in themselves, and then there's the kind of reacting to them, which as I said I think is one of shame and guilt. [00:25:05.05]
CLIENT: Well also like, I don't know, it's kind of like a tease or something, like you're teasing me.
THERAPIST: How so?
CLIENT: Well it just like makes it really hard not to...
THERAPIST: Like mentioning that I'm not feeling well.
CLIENT: Yeah, like wondering what that (pause) and no, not so much mentioning it but I don't know, sort of like I have this thing and it's going to affect you and I'm going to shroud it in this veiled mystery. It feels like that. [00:26:33.07] I don't think that's what that (pause) I think that's maybe more what feels important about it, is I'm not included [inaudible] excluded.
THERAPIST: Like only included enough to let you know that you're included.
CLIENT: And maybe that's how I feel always when people are [inaudible] And maybe that's how I feel people change in their relationship to me when I'm [inaudible]
THERAPIST: [inaudible]
CLIENT: That I'm excluding them or they're excluded. That was a nice interpretation. [00:28:20.21]
THERAPIST: Well that happens quite a lot between you and me.
CLIENT: What?
THERAPIST: Your being in pain and excluding me.
CLIENT: How?
THERAPIST: [inaudible] unconscious but when you sort of refer to having a hard time, say, between sessions or how upset you're feeling or kind of disoriented or overwhelmed. I don't think it's that you consciously think about it and consciously decide not to tell me about it or talk about it but...
CLIENT: Talk about it more.
THERAPIST: Yeah, with me, but you sort of allude to feeling those ways. But then having a that's [inaudible] a hard time talking about it here. [00:29:42.29]
CLIENT: More than just bringing it up.
THERAPIST: Yeah. Which is [inaudible] bringing it up and then not talking about it.
CLIENT: I'm trying to think if there was some moment yesterday where I felt like you I was like [inaudible] or I wanted to say something and I felt like you weren't going to get it. I don't remember what it is but I wonder if that's part of it. Also, I don't get it [inaudible] hard for me to say something about [inaudible] I don't get. [00:31:18.11] There isn't enough confidence behind it or something. Do you remember that session when it became clear that it was upsetting to me that you weren't acknowledging how much time my thoughts about you take up and how nice that felt to realize that? I think there's something like that getting in the way but I don't know what it is. (pause) [inaudible] demonstrated more knowledge about how to do [ph] things like creep into my mind in really small and everyday ways. And maybe if I demonstrated more willingness to talk about those small and everyday ways it would be easier to break it down into [inaudible] parts instead of [inaudible] that might push me around. [00:34:35.27] (pause)
THERAPIST: All right, well I'm going to start out being slightly didactic but I have a point that I'm headed towards that requires that. So [inaudible] put, there's conscious anxiety and there's unconscious anxiety. Conscious anxiety is when you know you're anxious. [00:36:09.15] When you're anxious your palms get sweaty, you feel butterflies, you feel extensive worry; it's pretty clear. Unconscious anxiety's more subtle. So it could be more like your mind going blank before a task or sort of forgetting something that has an emotional charge to it, like it upsets [ph] your mind or you realize you avoided it or avoided thinking about it. In those instances you might not even necessarily be aware that you're anxious but you can see the affects, and when you look at it retrospectively it's pretty clear that you're anxious. So I think you feel or I think you [inaudible] considerable unconscious anxiety around talking about certain bad feelings. [inaudible] But clearly also in your mind. [00:37:32.10] And I think that's probably because it [inaudible] that's really not okay about doing that, like sharing and connecting with people around things that feel really bad and especially that you feel shouldn't be making you feel so bad or that feel kind of demeaning, as though they were [inaudible] on your being sort of needy or dependent or something that can feel like mean or petty or something like that. I think when you feel things like that it's kind of like a smoke bomb goes off in your mind or something of anxiety that you're not aware of, and then it becomes very difficult to know what to say, how you feel, where you're coming from, how to articulate what's going on clearly. [00:38:53.26] I mean to yourself as much as, say, to me. And I think that experience itself is really quite disturbing and disorienting for you, and frustrating. (pause) Yeah, and I think it was triggered partly today by and yesterday by my not feeling it was not [ph] and sort of [inaudible] you say saying my saying that but not really any more than that. Because I think it probably did feel to you like I wasn't having an experience of this sort that you have. [00:40:28.17]
CLIENT: You weren't?
THERAPIST: I was. In other words, there's something bad going on for me. I'm not talking about it. I'm going to keep it to myself but I'm probably overwhelmed and struggling, and that, in turn, is quite disturbing for you.
CLIENT: Far more so that I could feel it, not like I don't think I was assuming that much about it.
THERAPIST: In other words that you could feel that I was feeling that way.
CLIENT: I could feel something bad was happening but it was confusing me because I didn't know anything else about it.
THERAPIST: Well and it's tricky there because I mean intuition's a fine thing and you can be very intuitive, but it's not clear to me how much was sort of an accurate perception of how I felt and how much was a perception of just this sort of thing.
CLIENT: I think I said that yesterday. [00:41:40.09] I said...
THERAPIST: Yeah, [inaudible] defensive about it, I'm just saying...
CLIENT: Worrying makes it hard to see clearly. (pause) The dizziness that I felt a lot last year seems important.
THERAPIST: Yeah. We just have a few minutes. I mean...
CLIENT: There was a moment of it yesterday. I [ph] mentioned one's mind going blank, like when I sat up and so that I couldn't ignore your body language and then said then realized that I had just reacted really strongly to something that I'm not even sure I saw, and then worrying [inaudible] Right before I sat up I sort of saw you closing your eyes, but not fully, and there was this very strong wave of my mind going blank and my feeling dizzy just for a second. [00:43:08.20]
THERAPIST: I see. I think when I asked you you said something about that I think like are you tired or out of it. (pause) And I guess that perception of me really threw you.
CLIENT: Yeah, it was really disturbing. (pause)
THERAPIST: And I wonder if you did imagine that I was going through something like you, that I was feeling that [inaudible] something emotional with me and that I was overwhelmed by.
CLIENT: Or that you were overwhelmed by [inaudible] but yeah, that you were overwhelmed. (pause) The light is really good in here.
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