TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: You can eat them now. Or you don’t have to.

THERAPIST: You want one?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Very good.

CLIENT: Thank you. How are you?

THERAPIST: I’m okay. [0:59] Do you want some water?

CLIENT: No, because I’m sick.

THERAPIST: You can have another one.

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m sorry that I came here but somehow it didn’t thanks seem like I didn’t want to come.

THERAPIST: Sorry you’re sick.

CLIENT: Thanks. Do you get sick by your patients often? [2:08]

THERAPIST: It’s hard to know where the germs are coming from.

CLIENT: So many germs.

THERAPIST: I don’t know. I don’t think so.

CLIENT: Yeah, maybe you’ll know more when your kids are grown. (pause) I’m stressed about the flowers. I’ve been stressed about them all week.

THERAPIST: What do you mean?

CLIENT: I don’t know. [3:13] I’m sad that I told you what to do with them. I’m sad they’re gone because I have those tulips at home and they’re still there, and they’re dying but they’re quite charming. (pause) I really like… it’s like the… my most favorite thing in the world, select and arrange and sort of fantasize about getting you flowers and then give you flowers. That makes me very happy. But I guess I must’ve been anxious on Monday about them. So I just said something. The pigeon started to squawk and I said something pigeon-y, and it was throw these out and they die. [4:42] I didn’t mean it. So the pigeon won’t shut up and the pigeon says well, if you want your flowers to last longer you have to cut them every day, you have to change the water, you have to make sure that the jar is clean because the bacteria stays in the jar. But I just want to give you flowers and have them be yours.

THERAPIST: Well first, I mean thank you. That’s lovely. I know there are also issues. I understand.

CLIENT: It was supposed to be a non-analytic gift and then it turned a little bit into an analytic gift. (laughter) And it’s fine. Something… there’s something there and it’s been bothering me all week.

THERAPIST: I guess so.

CLIENT: I think it’s because I have the tulips in my house. And I think they’re the first flowers I’ve purchased for you. [6:11] Maybe that (pause)

THERAPIST: Maybe you were talking about your heart.

CLIENT: Like this is how to care for it? Plus, I don’t actually want to tell you anything about how to care for it. I want to be in your hands. What did you mean? (pause)

THERAPIST: Maybe you wanted to give me something and put it in my hands and you… your anxiety is worried about doing that because you feel like it wasn’t in a way that I guess you wanted to be. [8:39]

CLIENT: My anxiety about putting myself, or the flowers, in your hands? But they are the gift I want them to be. I want to get out of the way of them. The… at least whatever day it was, Thursday, there was something that was too anxious about just being out of the way, so it felt better to say something to try to take control or something. It wasn’t what I wanted. [9:57] (pause) I feel like I messed up or something. (pause) I’m thinking about all these flower associations [inaudible] you go to the temple as a family or my mom goes once or twice a week now if I don’t really anymore. [12:54] Often she will bring a bouquet of flowers and fruits, depending on what’s happening and when… what it is exactly. She’ll cook something. And you sort of just put them there and you don’t try to control what happens to them. But it’s because there’s a priest who does the flower management. There’s hundreds of bouquets of flowers. It’s a thing. People bring flowers. And at the Waltham Center there’s fresh flowers everywhere, and if somebody’s… it’s like the people who go offer flowers. And I think there’s somebody who sort of… there’s somebody in charge every week, of them. And it switches off. But there are always fresh flowers there. [14:30] And then the third association I had with this, boy in 7th grade. (laughs) His… he was among several suitors at that time. I played tennis with him and he… he’s from Puerto Rico or something but he was adopted by these white republican Christian people in Arlington, Virginia, this white republican Christian town until just about ten years ago it started changing. That’s where my parents live. So anyways it’s this dark brown kid. He shows up unexpected at my house. He would come to my house often to pick me up to play tennis. He shows up with this bouquet of dandelions in a vase. (laughs) And my dad opened the door and I was like bye Dad. I went outside with him and just started to receive them and do whatever I could to make it clear that I really appreciated it. And then I come inside, my dad was hysterically laughing. And he said that was the funniest thing ever and proceeded… has made fun of this boy since then. But it’s like if you want to bring flowers to a girl and you’re young, you’re not going to… under pleasant [ph?] circumstances you might ask your parents to help you but you’re not going to ask for your parents to help you. So what’s at your disposal in the summer? Dandelions. They’re perfectly good flowers. And it was so sweet. And he didn’t know anything about the stupid conventions about flowers, like dandelions and carnations and whatever else. [17:07] He just, yeah, he was a blank slate or something. He hadn’t been written on by women. [inaudible] So I see myself in all three of those stories. (pause) Sometimes I think of myself as a blank slate for you. And I’ve been written on by [inaudible] therapist [inaudible] counselor [inaudible]. So I’m not jaded the way that I hear… I don’t have that in my [inaudible] (pause) Next you’ll [ph?] write about the flowers’ heart. [21:55]

THERAPIST: I have another thought, too. (pause) There’s something, one aspect, I think, with these flowers, I’d say, was something I think I, too, felt pretty young about it. And not like [inaudible] give flowers as a kind of gesture or part of a communication where it’s more like how a little kid gives her dad a picture.

CLIENT: Like draws her dad a picture? [23:37]

THERAPIST: Yeah. And it’s not sort of like you know what this is and what it means and I do and here’s sort of this thing we have that’s kind of [inaudible] understanding. I was like…

CLIENT: Look what I did!

THERAPIST: And I think it’s something about that quality of it relates to the intensity of the shame that you feel, I think, too. Maybe some of the stuff about the pigeon felt a little bit about how your dad was about the flowers. I guess the similarity I have in mind is from this vantage point we understand for him what was funny. He wasn’t laughing in a critical way but if the boy had seen it he would have probably died on the spot. [25:13]

CLIENT: He would’ve just died, yeah.

THERAPIST: And similarly I don’t think you felt like I was being sort of mean or critical with the pigeon stuff, and you told me as much.

CLIENT: Yeah, it didn’t. I didn’t think so.

THERAPIST: But still I wonder if there’s that sense of shame about it.

CLIENT: Well immediately it seems like there was a difference between me and the [inaudible] pigeon. Maybe it started off without too much shame about wanting to be the one to decide where we go and when and how fast and steer, drive. But I don’t think that lasted for very long so there’s… it’s more comfortable for me to decide on some path because it’s better than dealing with the anxiety of… for the flowers, okay, you’re right. I feel pretty differently about looking back on it in light of the pigeon than I would have if you had never mentioned the pigeon. [27:16] But the shame, I don’t know what the shame is. It’s… maybe it’s confusing why there’s anxiety there in the first place. And it’s even… and it feels shameful the way that I chose to react to it. And already today I’m choosing a very, very… it feels like I’m choosing a very, very different way.

THERAPIST: Well it seems like some of the rawness is still there.

CLIENT: Right. I think I haven’t chosen is part of it. It’s like I’m bringing it to you and it’s raw and I don’t… some part of me feels like I need to cook it and then bring it to you. And that’s the pigeon part and that’s the throw out the flowers before they die part.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And then I think a growing part of me is like… and I just want to bring it to you or sort of talk to you about it, the way it is. [29:15] (pause) I think that’s a struggle that shows up a lot here. But I don’t think I’m aware of this. I think I just rush really fast to cook things. And the flowers and the pigeon and the timing is making me realize how much I struggle with it, yeah, with that, how strong those two forces are, always, when I’m here.

THERAPIST: I guess this is getting a little theoretical, but have you read about or heard about the Oedipus complex? [30:40]

CLIENT: Mm-hm.

THERAPIST: This is probably it.

CLIENT: [inaudible] say more?

THERAPIST: Sure, that theory, sort of pure and vulnerable sense of desire and openness, the possibility for shame, for getting a shaming response to that, and the sort of automatic and pervasive protecting and also concealing response.

CLIENT: That…

THERAPIST: That sort of collection of elements. [32:08] I guess part of… I have in mind a few things. I don’t tend to focus much on the historical aspects of things, but I think it’s probably all there, the story about your dad. And it wasn’t you giving him the flowers, it was the boy giving you the flowers, but he was involved and he had the response that you were afraid he would have. And I would guess that the pigeon-y stuff is… my hunch is that’s an idiom that is from your mom.

CLIENT: What about the Oedipus complex [inaudible] talk about with respect to gender? And what do you have to say about that in light of this?

THERAPIST: These days most people… okay. I believe Freud imagined it was different for boys and girls. These days people don’t really think that way about it so much. Nor do they think about it as sort of as Unitarian things. In other words, there’s all possible… all sorts of possible triangles between the kid and the parents. And they’re not necessarily correlated with someone’s adult sexuality. [33:54] But these kind of triangles often emerge and play an important part in how people find themselves handling lots of situations, which seem to be what you were saying about this.

CLIENT: A really strong… when you talked about the kid giving her dad a picture that she drew, a really strong image came up for me of my dad giving me a Valentine one year. I think my dad gives me a Valentine every year. [35:05] I’m trying to think if he did last year or the year before, but certainly until then.

THERAPIST: There’s something else I want to add to it. I can wait, to hear this.

CLIENT: Did I just make you think of it?

THERAPIST: I thought of it a minute ago as I was talking and forgot about it.

CLIENT: Well one year he gave me a green Valentine. It was a green heart card. And it said remember, you’re always my favorite Valentine inside. And I read it and I was like (sound effect) I think I was 17 or something. And I’ve asked for pretty green Valentines since then. He usually remembers to make it green. But it never says that in it again. So I was thinking, when you talked about the kid giving the dad the drawing, I was thinking about my dad giving me a green Valentine. [36:24] Because somehow it works the other way for me, for that Valentine and some other stuff. You can be very, very, very good embodying (pause)

THERAPIST: The other thing I was about to say is trying to be clear that I’m not trying to reduce what happened with the flowers or what you felt with them to early stuff. I’m just saying I think there are echoes of that early stuff in what happened, which I think is sort of expectable, generally, in relationships.

CLIENT: I don’t think I’m clear about it but I don’t need to be right now. I don’t think I’m clear about the scope of the early stuff that you were talking about, beyond this one dandelion thing that…

THERAPIST: I think the Valentine seems to be [inaudible] pretty clearly. [38:56]

CLIENT: I don’t know how; it’s so confusing. How does that get at the flowers?

THERAPIST: Because there’s this… part of the whole thing is the little kid wants that parent exclusively for themselves.

CLIENT: Yeah, I definitely wanted [overlapping talk]

THERAPIST: …to be the favorite, and probably we should really either run away or get rid of these remedies [ph?]

CLIENT: Yeah. So do you think that people develop concealing habits, your protective habits, because it’s so painful, and maybe not even possible, to be so… stay so vulnerable with your parents or parent or parent figure forever? [40:26] (pause)

THERAPIST: Well that makes me wonder what made it typical for you, or what makes it typical for you, to feel vulnerable in that way with me. Maybe anxious is a better word than difficult [ph?] (pause)

CLIENT: [inaudible] That can make me anxious.

THERAPIST: It can. And I think it also relates to the shame. [42:14]

CLIENT: Of really liking you?

THERAPIST: No, no, sorry, the shame that you felt about being [inaudible] or the shame that’s sort of out there in the ether that could’ve been part of my reaction, or that could’ve come from my reaction.

CLIENT: But I totally am the pigeon. I think I’m ashamed of it here and not… and… or I’m starting… I don’t think shame is strong. I think I’m starting to see that part of me as being somewhat restricted… restrictive to me. And it’s embarrassing here, I think, because of the nature of our relationship. [43:54] Whereas I think I’m still quite empowering in most other times. Being the pigeon has felt empowering to me because it usually works, and that’s somehow the only part I’ve paid attention to. But it also does a lot of other things, like you don’t really get to see what the other people want to do or want. You also… there’s also a lot less serendipity that comes in life, and that, I think, comes directly from my mom the way that she is in her life. She’s a pigeon too. And [inaudible] not getting what you want, it’s not totally useless. [45:19] (laughter)

THERAPIST: Okay, I never heard you say that.

CLIENT: So those are things that I have in mind. Or maybe there are lots of things that I am not thinking of now [inaudible] about why I haven’t really thought about or I haven’t been made to think about what aspects of my behavior… how that aspect of my behavior could be making things harder for me until the pigeon. There have been lots of [inaudible] pigeons here too.

THERAPIST: Do you mean that’s something we talked about [inaudible]?

CLIENT: I keep thinking of this tug, this raw versus cooked tug, and there… and maybe it’s the same tug but there’s this other pair of opposing forces that has been coming up for me and Jeremy. [47:14] I wonder if it’s the same thing. So I didn’t treat him… I didn’t behave that well towards him over our Christmas travels. And I knew it and he knew it and he brought it up to me and I… and we sort of watched it through the week. And it… I’m very grateful that we could look at it in that way and not have it become a big thing. But it was… the [inaudible] was very bad. I sort of ignore him when I’m with my family. In Kentucky it was different because there were 24 people, and it was two and a half days of very, very condensed and very concentrated for me. [48:33] So I was really navigating all the people and what has become a household term for us, harvesting, everyone, working my way through. But then I was a little sensitive to the fact that it was sort of downright unpleasant for Jeremy to be there so I thought that I kept it in mind. Then when we got to Virginia I… he’s very happy there, at my parents’ house, and enjoys being there, so I think that part went away. And then I just really didn’t pay much attention to him at all, to the point where he would walk into a room and I would continue my conversation with the person and leave to go do something else and never acknowledge him and never make eye contact with him. [49:39] Again and again and again. And I think that’s been true always in my parents’ house, but I think I was particularly bad this time. And it’s in such contrast to how we are at home where I’m please talk to me, please do something with me, please help me with this. Can we please do something together now? Jeremy! You’ve been doing that for so long; what are you going to do next. I’m so, I hate the word but, dependent. And it’s obviously changed a lot in the last year. And while that is a pretty accurate caricature, it’s still a caricature. Maybe it was more, a lot more, accurate maybe a year ago and now it’s okay; I have a great time by myself. [50:58] I just need to remember that. And I can tap into that space and I can approach Jeremy in a much less pigeon-y way. Sorry. Pigeon is good.

THERAPIST: Did you like the book?

CLIENT: I haven’t read the book but I remembered that Michael loves Knufflebunny. And I talked to Tammy about Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus. I asked if she had it. And she said no, but anyways, so I have it. I haven’t thought about getting [inaudible] but I have it.

THERAPIST: Sorry, go ahead. I [inaudible]

CLIENT: I think I will read… I’d like to read the book sometime. So while that is the way that I am, with Jeremy at home, it’s changing. It’s still much more skewed to the… Jeremy’s really comfortable with a ton of space and gives me a ton of space, and we’re talking more about how my growing into the space can be easier, can be made easier by his being a little more sensitive to the fact that it’s kind of a slow process for me. [52:31] So I think I’m very ashamed of… that I feel like I need Jeremy so much when we’re at home. And I think when Jeremy is around a lot of people, especially… actually, it’s really anyone, even my nights with his family he’s always looking to check in with me. When we’re around a lot of people he sort of becomes the dependent one. And it’s slightly not… less comfortable. And it feels really good to him to be… feel like I’m on his team, which it should be. It’s not like soon someday Jeremy will… when will I not have to be on Jeremy’s team when we’re at home. [53:43] Jeremy’s my family. So anyway, so I think I notice that he’s not shining. It’s not an environment that makes him shine. And I don’t like it and want him to be more independent at… when we’re with my family. I want him to find his own things to do and talk to people and not need me, not need to make eye contact with me or check in with me, so I just enforce it. And of course it has the opposite effect. It feels terrible to be ignored that way. And I’m so comfortable and I just have no… the anxiety really melts away. The anxiety that I feel in my home with Jeremy melts away when I’m with people that I love turn out to be my family. And so my… and then… but then there’s the anxiety of seeing him dependent, and somehow that brings out cold [inaudible] (pause) I feel that [inaudible] here too. [55:44]

THERAPIST: What do you mean? (pause)

CLIENT: I either… or I want to feel… either feel really dependent on you or really independent. And I’m sort of ignoring you at one level. I’m cooking [inaudible] things left and right myself and I’m not really letting you be a part of the scene, even though it’s… I always really want you to be part of the scene. But somehow I access it from two really different places. [57:05] (pause) There’s other stuff going on with my family, too. I don’t go to Virginia to talk to Jeremy. I feel like I’m making up a lot of missed time with other people there. So some of those outright responding to what I perceive as being somewhat… Jeremy being somewhat too dependent, and then some of it is outright responding to what I perceive to be, I don’t know, I need to get all of my mom as I can, all of my grandfather as I can, or the other people. And then there’s this really tense history of Jeremy coming to my parents’ house as a young college boy. And he’s still the worst conversationalist ever. But back then I had not accepted that and felt like my love should be contingent on him… his becoming a better conversationalist. So there’s a lot of… I get stirred up sometimes when he’s in my house and he’s not making conversation with other people. No, go talk to somebody else before I talk to you. It’s very hurtful. [59:19]

THERAPIST: What I think this is… what [inaudible] think of is actually how you can be with yourself, the side that feels… that can feel very sad and lost and on her own. Do you tend, often, to put it aside, [inaudible] has trouble making conversation with the rest of you or with me be more so in the past. It sort of irritates you and makes you feel critical to feel that way. (pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, I think I respond to Jeremy that way because… where it’s very similar to how I respond to myself when I’m feeling that way [inaudible] it comes up the most [inaudible]

THERAPIST: Yeah, so it’s… I think it’s sort of related to pigeoning, I think, when you’re that way. You don’t want to be reminded. [60:50] We’ve talked about two, I think, of being passive, being unable to kind of maneuver with people.

CLIENT: Yeah, I can round up the troops really well when I’m feeling comfortable and in charge and happy in the momentum of things, and when I’m feeling despondent or desperate or even frustration can sometimes bring this up, deeply, deeply frustrated or lonely or sad or upset I have trouble remembering that there are any troops or knowing what to say to them or being really worried about how I’m going to seem. [62:07] And most of all asking for them, asking for help, asking… saying that I need them. (pause) Sometimes I don’t know if you think that sometimes I think I’m under the impression that I am driving the bus here. The pigeon is [inaudible]

THERAPIST: [inaudible] the pigeon.

CLIENT: I’m afraid that it’s making you think that I feel really ashamed about it the more I bring it up.

THERAPIST: Oh, the pigeon?

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s like I feel some shame about it but I’m bringing it up because it’s… the timing and the visual and the way that you told the story fit well, so I’m going to use it. Okay? So I don’t know if you have the impression… if you think that I have the impression that sometimes I totally drive the bus here. Or maybe not now or recently but that I have had the impression that I’m in charge or that I am (pause)

THERAPIST: I don’t think you mostly feel that way. [65:00]

CLIENT: Early on did you?

THERAPIST: I mean you worried about it to think… I remember you telling me look, when I try to break down boundaries, boundaries always break down. And it seemed like you were both letting me know how it was and anxious about that, but it was more in the future. You didn’t… but no, I don’t have that impression that you feel like you’re…

CLIENT: Because when I talk about you, which I don’t get to do often, which makes me sad, but when I do I told Jeremy all about the pigeon book. There’s a godlike reverence in my voice that doesn’t really match, sometimes, how I want to feel here or how I try to feel or how the pigeon makes me seem or something [inaudible] But it’s always been there. It’s been there since I met you, where the other person hearing the story would think, man, this Josh guy is good or man she… he’s really got her wrapped around his finger or man they’ve really got something going. [67:07] All three. So it’s confusing to me why my driving the bus comes up because there’s this other… there’s this reverence part that’s always been there. (pause)

THERAPIST: [inaudible] I mean I feel like that comes across to me at times although I’m not [inaudible] sure what else to say about it. [68:58]

CLIENT: You don’t have to say [inaudible] (pause) You can tell.

THERAPIST: I have music in the car. [ph?]

CLIENT: No, I can tell what’s coming across now [inaudible] (pause) How I talked about Jeremy for many years to people, especially my parents. [70:04] How they couldn’t hear the end of how incredible he is even though many times it felt like I was trying to change him or make… control him or make him better when it was just the two of us. And that’s a dynamic that I feel here. And it’s confusing why they seem at… they don’t seem to gel. In both cases it was very important to me that the person I was telling got how good he is. It was like I needed their approval, or it was very, very, scary to think that they might not agree. [71:22] So there was some sense of that, of worry or desperation. It doesn’t really happen now much with Jeremy. I don’t feel like I have to compensate or convince anybody. And it happens a lot less with you, but I heard it in my voice in the pigeon story. (pause) Do you think it’s possible that children bear their parents’ grief? [75:13]

THERAPIST: Do mean in terms of carrying it for them?

CLIENT: I don’t mean are shaped by or get messed up by, actually hold it. Sometimes I think I do that for my dad or it’s unfolding that way. Or… I don’t know what makes me think that. I can’t really explain it. (pause) He has so much grief and it’s just there and it’s not… it’s sort of sealed up except to me. [76:50] And there are different times in my life where I… I see this in others, too, different times where the different children are like one of the two parents. And I think that’s fascinating, how this… what their switches [ph?] are and why they happen and what are times for other [ph?] person but [inaudible] But this feels exclusively like a father [ph?] lifetime for me. And I feel like I’ve taken up many… very uncanny parts of him, or I was given them. [78:15] Or I inherited them and they’re all coming out now. Or they’ve always been there and I’m noticing them now. Both. I don’t know, so many things. Like his muscle build. My brother, the way that he puts on muscle is so much like my mom. No matter how strong he is he doesn’t look strong. And I put on so much muscle, or my muscle definition is… looks so strong even when I’m not fit or strong at all. And perspiration. My brother sweats like my mom, which is not at all. And my dad and I are just like constantly dripping from so many different things. And it’s really weird. That… was there were lots of examples like that but just now I was thinking of the sort of childlike excitement and the sort of very, very, very intense pain. And he has whatever pain he has and I’m whatever pain I have but they seem to… the intensity seems to be much more similar between the two of us than with my mom or my brother, the way that his pain works and the anxiety and the dreaming and the sort of attachment to or reverence of people and the philosophical approach to things and sort of, I don’t know, constantly being challenged by existential questions. [81:04] There’s a lot to say but it came up that maybe I’m… he didn’t have the space to hold his grief until, really, I was born because I’m told then people were dying and people were getting moved around the world. And then I was born, the PhD ended, the job started, the… his dad got to live with my parents forever, and things sort of seemed to quiet down a lot. But it feels like I have the space that he didn’t. (pause) Yeah, there’s the whole reincarnation [ph?] of his mother thing. And the fainting. Did you know that he has the same fainting thing?

THERAPIST: I remember that he collapsed on your birthday before your wedding but that was different, right?

CLIENT: Yeah, he had lost a third of his blood that day.

THERAPIST: Oh my God, I don’t remember that.

CLIENT: Through rectal bleeding. Yeah, I have many flashbacks from that day. No, he has the same, whatever it is, combination of anxiety and a sort of hyper sensitive vasovagal response. So he faints when he’s very sick or when he’s in a lot of pain. [83:45] (pause) Hi. (pause) Right before you said that Oedipus thing, you had a pose that was the pose that I would want to draw you in, which is a somewhat common pose for you where you’re sort of searching for the words. [85:39] And you were looking that way. You were like this. There was sort of a crinkle in your eyebrow and you were about to speak, and it seemed like you were about to speak for a while before you actually did. And I wanted to interrupt you and say that’s the pose but you were about to speak. (pause)

THERAPIST: [inaudible] minutes. [87:06]

CLIENT: I think the elements in the Oedipal complex come up real fast when you say we’ve just got a few minutes because the same combination of no and how can you say that. You were so mean, you’re so cruel, and how could I change this so it would be less painful. Maybe I should suggest that I should say when we have a few minutes. Not like whenever I want; when we actually have a few minutes. All of that just came up really fast and it feels really similar to the flowers.

THERAPIST: I was wondering, also, if in the pose that you wanted to draw me, I seemed sort of open and unselfconscious in a way that [inaudible] related to what you’re just mentioning. [89:27]

CLIENT: There’s a lot of potential in the pose that says to me there’s a lot of potential here in this moment and about to reveal something, or something’s forming but it hasn’t quite formed. It’s got the anticipation and sweetness of something actually being formed and it’s clear that you’re… that I will… that you will share it with me but you haven’t yet. And it’s not by itself conscious as some of the other poses are.

THERAPIST: We should stop now.

CLIENT: Thanks.

THERAPIST: I hope you feel better.

CLIENT: Thanks.

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