TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: How are you?
THERAPIST: I'm doing okay.
CLIENT: Had a silly (ph) morning where I got here a while ago and I thought I'd left the stove on and the back door open; so I went back and I hadn't. It doesn't happen that often that I think I've done those things.
(pause)
CLIENT: I also don't usually cook in the morning, but I cooked some of dinner in the morning, which threw me off because I didn't have a habit of checking various things, like the stove being off. [00:01:05]
(pause)
CLIENT: Are you excited for your break?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Good. Are you staying at home?
THERAPIST: No, I'm going (inaudible at 00:01:45).
CLIENT: Cool. The water here is so cold, still. [00:02:00] But in Virginia it's not cold. I think we're going to go [to the beach] (ph) in Virginia this weekend.
(pause)
[00:03:00]
CLIENT: [Sighs]
(pause)
CLIENT: Where do you on the Hamptons?
(pause)
THERAPIST: Usually we go...
(pause)
THERAPIST: ...on the upper Hamptons, the closer part of the Hamptons. But this time, we're going to the mid-Hamptons region, (inaudible at 00:03:44). It's a long story.
CLIENT: Hmm.
THERAPIST: Or we go to...the other end, [I think you'd] like (inaudible at 00:03:53).
CLIENT: Like really close?
THERAPIST: No, (inaudible at 00:03:59) is like the-it's (inaudible at 0:04:02).
CLIENT: Oh, yeah.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:04:03)
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:04:06), traditionally where...in the 70s and 80s all the shrinks would take August off and go to Ventura (inaudible at 00:04:17). I mean, it doesn't happen like that anymore.
CLIENT: It doesn't? No (ph)?
THERAPIST: No; I mean, at least not amongst folks (ph) my age, really.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm. I wonder why. People work more?
THERAPIST: Because you don't make as much money doing this relative to the cost of living as you did 20, 30 years ago.
CLIENT: Yeah. Did you have a lot of student loans?
THERAPIST: Like that, I'm not so much going to go into. [00:05:02]
CLIENT: Okay. I went to the 7:00 a.m. sitting today. I would like to be able to do that every day.
(pause)
CLIENT: I imagine it's really different meditating around other people who are meditating from meditating by yourself. [00:06:02] Well, I guess I know it's different.
(pause)
CLIENT: It's not a lot of people who come to the daily sittings; it's a handful, two or three or four or five.
(pause)
[00:07:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: Your emergency text or your emergency message is still bothering me so much. I'm sorry...because I would really like to leave it alone.
(pause)
[00:08:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: And here's a case where managing this relationship means a different action than...using this relationship as a means...to my own "whatever," understanding of myself. Does that (inaudible at 00:08:58)?
(pause)
CLIENT: Normally, with other people, I would not say anything and wait for it to come up again...and be very patient. But it's on my mind, so I say it here. [00:10:00] But it's not lost on you that I'm saying it and that I'm-actually want to know about it, right? You can't help but treat it as...well, I'm not going to tell you what you can't help.
THERAPIST: [Laughs]
CLIENT: It's very frustrating.
THERAPIST: What? I mean.
CLIENT: It's frustrating that...
(pause)
CLIENT: ...that it's the sort of strange thing and it feels exclusive. And I can't just put it away. [00:11:00] And I don't have to talk about it here, but...it's probably good to talk about it because it's upsetting to me. But then I've gone and talked about it and haven't given you your space or been patient. And it feels like I haven't let it arise naturally.
(pause)
THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess talking about it...makes you feel like it turns you a little bit into someone you don't want to be. [00:12:00]
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Who...I think...sort of needy and pushy and..."incompetent" isn't quite right, but...too much so those things to [give me] (ph) the kind of space you have an idea I should have.
CLIENT: Or that feels natural for me to give to anyone else; whether you need it or not. If I wanted somebody to tell me about something, I wouldn't have talked about it like this. [00:13:00] So I guess it feels bad because this isn't my normal strategy.
(pause)
THERAPIST: I think that by (inaudible at 00:13:51) off of it a little bit in that I don't think it's that it's not your normal strategy, per se, that makes you feel crummy (ph) as much as what you feel this not-normal strategy involves or how it reflects on you; (inaudible at 00:14:14) in making you feel needy, dependent, and pushy.
I think you...don't (inaudible at 00:14:33) yourself and you really don't want me to think of you that way.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm (ph).
(pause)
CLIENT: At least, yeah, not about that. [00:15:01]
(pause)
[00:16:00]
CLIENT: And I don't (inaudible at 00:16:04) about it anymore.
(pause)
THERAPIST: I think...there may also be an added edge to it...today, because...of...my being out the rest of the week. [00:17:11]
(pause)
CLIENT: Maybe; not that I'm aware of.
(pause)
THERAPIST: I guess my thought was that...
[00:18:00]
(pause)
THERAPIST: ...well, I did have some more thoughts about it, but I'm also thinking that you've just said you don't really want to talk about it anymore.
CLIENT: We can talk about it more.
(pause)
[00:19:00]
(pause)
THERAPIST: Well, I think you want to feel like it's going to feel okay (ph) to talk about it more. I mentioned it was actually really not easy to say, "I don't want to talk about this anymore."
CLIENT: That wasn't easy.
THERAPIST: In the same way that you want to feel good about my going away. And in a way, I think you do; [or maybe] (ph) that's part of what you feel.
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: But I...don't think that's the whole of it and I think you don't feel very good about feeling the other part of it, as well.
CLIENT: Well, I don't really feel good about your going away every session. [00:20:00] So this is sort of...like an extension of that. It's like, "Okay. [Time is back up] (ph)," certain feeling that I have about it.
I think...other feelings get cut short because it's not-doesn't feel possible to exist with them...for too long, by myself. [00:21:02]
(pause)
CLIENT: Yeah, so that...I go and I [couldn't do it differently] (ph) or something.
(pause)
CLIENT: It's hard because there's not...explicit anxiety about it. [00:22:04] But...it's very prickly, your leaving. And it...has a lot of different parts to it. And I'm always (ph) pretty ambivalent about it...but I can't-I don't feel like there's [a large] (ph) space for those things when we're actually apart, so...
[00:23:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: ...so they don't get a lot of attention.
(pause)
[00:24:00]
CLIENT: Sort of like having a school photo of David Novak (sp?) in fourth grade. And having all sorts of secret coping behaviors around the photo, like saying "goodnight" to him; like kissing the photo occasionally.
(pause)
CLIENT: I don't know what else to say [about it] (ph), but it feels like it's like that. [00:25:00] So it's like David Novak's going away for several days. It just amplifies what's already so [hard and bad] (ph).
(pause)
CLIENT: It doesn't mean a whole (inaudible at 00:25:48) about the behaviors or anything. [00:26:00]
CLIENT: And the longer I'm away from you, the more...the more ways I find to cope; so it...actually, a long time feels...it actually goes (ph) easier, in some ways. It's kind of like if I were...it's like a short version of (inaudible at 00:27:06) dating again.
I guess it feels pretty ridiculous to say that, because it's like (inaudible at 0:27:18) for hours or something; but...
(pause)
THERAPIST: It makes a lot of sense to me, actually. I think there's [parts of it] (ph) that really don't [reckon time] (ph) very well at all, and...it's certainly (ph) to go an hour, 24 hours, 96 hours...feeling or (ph) knowing you're never going to see anybody again, even if...another (inaudible at 00:28:21).
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
(pause)
CLIENT: On Thursday...it was a big upheaval for me; the things that happened in our session, and then I watched this movie..."The Kids Are All Right." [00:29:09] Do you know about it? Did you watch any movie?
THERAPIST: [Laughs]
CLIENT: [Chuckles]
THERAPIST: Not very many, (inaudible at 00:29:19).
CLIENT: I don't watch any movies. And I think I remember why, after seeing this movie. Have you seen "Mary Poppins" yet?
THERAPIST: Maybe bits and pieces of it. [Laughs] Yeah.
CLIENT: So "The Kids Are All Right" and our session and whatever my state of mind was, which was so...ripe for poking...and my heart...yeah, it sort of just caused this huge explosion for me. [00:30:10]
In the movie, there's this lesbian couple that had-they live in California and they have-
THERAPIST: Oh, yeah. I'm remembering the trailer. It stars Annette Jeremyning and somebody else.
CLIENT: I don't know names of actors.
THERAPIST: Oh, okay; all right. Sorry, go ahead yeah, it's a lesbian couple in California.
CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:30:30) but sure. [Chuckles]
So they each have a kid with the same sperm donor. And their kids grow up and they-the older one turns 18 and the younger one is 15; it's a boy, wants to meet the sperm donor. And he convinces the 18-year-old to call him. [00:31:00]
And he's just totally attractive and nice, funny guy. And basically the whole family falls in love with him, except the working, sort of the doctor, perfectionist, critical wife that the...more accepting, more outwardly, very loving gardener wife who doesn't work. And the daughter and the son, they all fall in love with him.
So over the course of the movie...he sort of harvests all of them, I guess? And he sleeps with the wife, the gardener wife, who he had hired to do his garden. [00:32:07] Or she's not a gardener, she's like a landscape designer.
And they have this very exciting, hot sex, even though clearly she's not that...into his penis. But he's so in love with her and he wants her to leave the wife. And it's very tense and the other wife comes around and she's so angry, at the beginning, because she knows that this guy's come in and harvesting all of her family.
But she comes around and she makes a big effort, and then the peak of her good will-at the peak of her good will, where she's finally learning to really like this guy, she finds her wife's hair in his drain and...and then they have this...very difficult...time. [00:33:19]
And then the daughter goes to college the next week, or in three days or something. And the daughter going to college is-actually, the daughter, the whole time, is individuating in ways that I never, ever did, in the span of these few weeks. Where he comes to pick her up on his motorcycle and the doctor wife is like, "You know how I feel about motorcycles, get off," and she doesn't listen to her. And then, later on...the doctor wife is coming to check on her and the daughter's like, "Thanks for checking on me. It's nice to know-I know how you feel, thank you for your concern. I'm 18 now. I'm going to make my own decision about the motorcycle." [00:34:20] "I love you, bye," and she shuts the door.
And...she goes away to college and they're trying to put her sheets on the bed and she's like, "I just need some space, guys. I'll meet you outside." And she is alone in her room, putting her sheets on her bed, and she gets really sad and stops and then goes to find her family and they're not there. Then they come back; they had to park the (ph) car.
And then they say goodbye, and everybody's so sad because it is a goodbye; it's not, "We'll see you when you visit," or, "We'll see you," or, "We'll (ph) call you." [00:35:16] There's none of that; it's, "Goodbye."
So I watched this movie. It's very funny and I cried a lot. And I watched it alone. Later at night, I...Jeremy was in bed doing something and I visited him and just started crying and I...felt so badly that I was going to cheat on him. [00:36:00] Because I told you I wanted to have an affair with you that day.
(pause)
CLIENT: (inaudible at 00:36:17); and...but I'm noticing all of these things about these American families; about their way of saying goodbye and how their children are so aware of their parents' faults. And...whatever we talked about on Thursday made...made me feel pretty alienated from my parents. [00:37:00]
And the fact that I don't have to talk to them about it, ever. But I want to. But it's probably because it's making me really anxious to...be thinking about them in...in a critical or more holistic (ph) way-a more whole way.
So that sucks, because I-it's hard to just hold onto it. And I'm going to have an affair. And I'm going to hurt Jeremy. And that I'm going to be an American person. And all of these bad things about America are going to seep into me. And my mom predicated the whole thing, because I didn't marry an Italian person. [00:38:04] And I will be lost forever. That was (inaudible at 00:38:12) people; it was very scary.
(pause)
CLIENT: Jeremy didn't really know what to do with me because it didn't-it doesn't make a whole lot of sense without his knowing what we talked about in here, (inaudible at 00:38:41). So when I was saying, "I'm afraid I'm going to have an affair, I'm afraid I'm going to have an affair," it was not...it sort of just added to the being upset. [00:39:03]
(pause)
[00:40:00]
(pause)
[00:41:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: I feel pressure to hold it together because I have to go soon; or you're going to ask me to go soon. [00:42:00]
THERAPIST: Mm-hmm, yeah. (inaudible at 00:42:02)
CLIENT: Well, it feels like I did (inaudible at 00:42:04), [I guess] (ph). [Therapy immersion] (ph). What?
THERAPIST: [Is that how] (ph) you feel?
CLIENT: [None of that feels when I feel I did] (ph) to say it.
THERAPIST: You also want the time to fall apart.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
(pause)
[00:43:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: Do you still love each other in the end of the day (ph)? (inaudible at 00:43:53)
THERAPIST: Yeah, my impression is that...somehow...the actions and the kid leaving for college and the rest is...
(pause)
THERAPIST: ...a dramatic distraction. [00:44:27]
CLIENT: You don't think the affair-do you think the affair is a dramatic distraction?
THERAPIST: And when they wind up together, it's going to make things tense; it exposes a problem that is already there in their relationship, but the one who's too uptight and the one who's more easy-going and he's... (inaudible at 00:44:55) [their lives is] (ph)...symbolic, in some way, but he's not something (inaudible at 00:45:02) long-term relationship with and they're losing their kid. Forever (inaudible at 00:45:13).
CLIENT: The college didn't take up five minutes; (inaudible at 00:45:24) for five minutes.
THERAPIST: I could well be wrong about the movie, (inaudible at 00:45:36).
CLIENT: I think you're right. It's referred to throughout the movie as sort of this-she's (inaudible at 00:45:49) the center of the movie, in some ways. But it's her mom who sleeps with the guy who takes the spotlight of the drama. [00:46:03]
(pause)
THERAPIST: I mean, if I really was going to go on in the movie, I would say that the two women are two parts of you, who-the one part that's...if I'm the guy on the motorcycle, there's the one part that feels anxious and uptight and kind of clingy and can't deal with the other part that's easy-going, that's off having an affair with me. [00:47:02]
And...yeah, I think you're sort of similarly worried about...both your families falling apart.
CLIENT: Mm-hmm.
THERAPIST: With Jeremy, with your parents.
(pause)
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: We should stop (inaudible at 00:47:45).
(pause)
[00:48:00]
(pause)
CLIENT: Bye, Josh.
THERAPIST: Take care, (inaudible at 00:48:15).
CLIENT: Okay.
END TRANSCRIPT
