TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: I tried to do a French braid four times today and I don’t know how to stop it.
THERAPIST: Good morning.
CLIENT: Good morning. (long pause) [00:02:09]
THERAPIST: The way you look at me seems different. [ ] (inaudible at 00:02:17)
CLIENT: Like how?
THERAPIST: The thought I had was something like “what the fuck, dude?” But I don’t know; that might be my invention.
CLIENT: [ ] (inaudible at 00:02:45) I guess I was looking to you for something and maybe I had a look of [fear] (ph?). (pause) [00:03:16] I don’t normally look at you like that?
THERAPIST: It doesn’t seem like that to me. Your expression is a little different.
CLIENT: I guess I feel a little different. (pause) [00:04:15] Yesterday I felt really badly that I wouldn’t call you on my way to the hospital and I thought that you felt bad about it, too. I thought that it had hurt you, how you seemed surprised and used the words “tough love” and also just from your expression. (pause) [00:05:15] Like you kind of thought it was wrong or something and very sad. (pause)
THERAPIST: “It was wrong,” do you mean you felt like you had wronged me?
CLIENT: Or, even worse, like you felt like you had wronged me. [00:06:00] (long pause) [00:09:01] [It feels] (ph?) bad now. You’re not talking and you’re not letting me talk [ ] (inaudible at [0:09:35]. (long pause) [00:12:02] [ ] (inaudible at 00:12:02) (long pause) [00:13:15]
THERAPIST: I’m not really sure either, but a few things I seemed to be thinking of are what you are upset about that we were talking about yesterday to your imagining being on the way to the hospital and thinking about why you would or wouldn’t call me and you would be in a very vulnerable awful moment and would need hugs and reassurance, really personal and kind words and responses. [00:14:24] You, in part, imagined not getting those from me, and so did not want to call me, that being let’s just say awful. Then the e-mail that you wrote last night. I had time to read it briefly, but I haven’t spent a long time looking at it and thinking about it. [00:15:16] But what I remember is that you did describe the state that you are in that you said can be very hard to remember and get at when you’re not in it. I remember it was sort of raw and alone and awful. [00:16:05] I think what’s coming out in here is I think you feel like I am keeping you at a great distance. I’m not talking and I’m not letting you talk.
CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) And I can’t focus on anything else. (pause) [00:17:04]
THERAPIST: I guess, in a sense, only me pushing you away.
CLIENT: Maybe. (pause) [ ] (inaudible at 00:17:32) and not coming for me. (long pause) [ ]
THERAPIST: [ ] (inaudible at 00:18:15)
CLIENT: [ ] (inaudible at 00:18:20) (pause) It felt like it moved so quickly from what was hard about our session to some other energy. [00:19:04] (pause) [ ] or something, like there was so much other [fuel] (ph?). (pause)
THERAPIST: I think this is one very important version of me that you contend with when you’re not here. [00:20:09] (pause) What I have in mind is [ ] (inaudible at 00:20:29) that doesn’t want to hear from you, that doesn’t care how much trouble you’re having or how crucial it is that I take a step towards you. (pause) [00:21:11] I think at the same time there is also a quality of it eating you up.
CLIENT: Yes. (pause) That part comes from you and me. [00:22:00] (pause) When somebody wants to hear from you they make it clear. (pause) That’s not true here. (pause) [00:23:06] So I don’t know what to pay attention to. (long pause) [00:24:49]
THERAPIST: I expect you also feel pretty bitter, actually, and angry about it.
CLIENT: How I felt yesterday? [00:25:00]
THERAPIST: About my [putting] (ph?) you or leaving you unsure what to pay attention to. (pause)
CLIENT: [I’m kind of in a lot of pain.] (ph?) [00:26:03] [You feel like it doesn’t have to be there.] (ph?) (long pause) [00:27:14] I felt so awful (long pause) like I had run away from myself [ ] (inaudible at 00:28:02). (pause) [It came] (ph?) so quickly. (long pause) (sniffling) You’re being [wiggly.] (ph?)
THERAPIST: I’m being [ ] (inaudible at 00:29:26).
CLIENT: This whole time. It’s like me being really still. [00:30:03] I don’t understand why uncertainty about what we talked about together (sniffling) is [ ] (inaudible at 00:30:19). I guess I don’t need to understand it, (sniffling) but I wonder if there is something else that I’m missing. [00:30:58]
THERAPIST: I don’t understand it very well either. What seems pretty clear to me is that you kind of came to or stumbled into this very bad version of things between us and maybe part of it is that I didn’t respond to correct that.
CLIENT: Like yesterday morning?
THERAPIST: Yes. And just sort of left you with the space.
CLIENT: I could have told you when I was leaving this is probably going to end very badly today, Jay. [00:32:11] Like this has a pretty good chance of ending badly. I had that feeling right away.
THERAPIST: I think another way to say the same thing was that you are very upset with me.
CLIENT: I was really worried about my feelings and maybe I was upset with you for not helping.
THERAPIST: I guess you felt really hurt, not necessarily mostly because I did anything. [00:33:08]
CLIENT: Right. There was that and there was also my reading of how you felt. That can get really bad because I don’t really know how you felt. Am I totally off to say that I caught you by surprise or that you . . ? [00:34:05]
THERAPIST: The part about the tough love you mean?
CLIENT: Yes, or that holding it wasn’t just that. (sniffling) It sounded like you were sort of trying to explain to me why I would call you and why someone would and maybe I took that to mean it. There is something very sad, Allison. There is something very wrong about what you’re saying. [00:35:06]
THERAPIST: I was surprised we wound up where we did. I think what I had in mind was it seemed to me that you had assumed that I had gotten this call from someone in my family and had kind of set this up in your mind as being a little like being about me with work and me with my family and where are you? [00:36:01] That’s kind of the ballpark I thought we were in, in a way.
CLIENT: Yeah. (sniffling) I think we were there.
THERAPIST: I guess where I was imagining we were going – I didn’t have this as fully formed in my head or I would have just said it – was it kind of seemed conspicuous to me that you were sure the call was from a family member and that it was part of how you were imagining the whole thing.
CLIENT: I sort of made up a lot of stuff and I was really going with it. I didn’t realize it until yesterday. [00:37:00]
THERAPIST: I guess I imagined there was more to learn about all of that, but which I didn’t have, so I was saying, “Huh, I’m struck you kind of seemed as though I could [tell] (ph?) to have made these assumptions and I don’t really know what’s up with that.” And then we wound up somewhere else, which I feel there is an important thread that I am missing.
CLIENT: That we wound up somewhere else or that you don’t know how we wound up somewhere else? [00:38:00] There’s an extra-long pause there.
THERAPIST: For me?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: I’m thinking. I’m remembering a thought I had last week – which I think I said, but maybe I didn’t say it – which was I’m not yet sure how this relates to what we’re talking about today, but I have a feeling that maybe it does. You may be doing this split where there is the person calling me on the phone on the way to the hospital and there is me here talking with you and the way you were feeling. [00:39:02] You actually are strongly identified with both. Both are kind of [ ] (inaudible at 00:39:11) or more settled. I don’t know if that’s right.
CLIENT: You brought it up. (sniffling)
THERAPIST: Like ‘Jay, I think it’s important to me that if you need to leave, you know you can let me know and I will be okay.” And then another version of you that was what you were feeling yesterday, which is more like on the way to the hospital.
CLIENT: Yeah. [00:40:00] And it’s important that you go be with that person, but then it’s also important because I’m the same person that you be with the person who is going to stay. It’s important that you stay and it’s important that you go. (pause) (sniffling) I think I thought about what it would be like. It wasn’t a prescient thought, but I didn’t know how I was going to be feeling that night. [00:41:01] I think it really scared me that I . . . It’s like we’re building this whole thing and I still wouldn’t want to talk to you because I wouldn’t be able to handle it. And then where does that leave the on-the-way-to-the-hospital me? [ ] (inaudible at 00:41:44) (sniffling) Maybe because my impression of how you would act, which is also imaginary. [00:42:03]
THERAPIST: Most importantly, not close enough.
CLIENT: Right. It’s sort of like I’m on the way to the hospital and Jay isn’t there because I haven’t asked him to be.
THERAPIST: In being on the way to the hospital, you’re not on the way here. I think, the way you’re talking about it, part of what needs to be on the way to the hospital is that we have not been able to contain whatever it is.
CLIENT: Yes, and that was really disturbing; but that is true and could be true for another patient. [00:43:00] I don’t know why that can’t just be something that comes up and then sort of stays where it is, which is with another person’s life, not with my life. But it didn’t. It was like I was so much comparing and comparing is so corrosive and dangerous and never-ending. It’s like maybe what we have is really special. Maybe somebody else needs you way more than I do and I shouldn’t be taking up so much of your time. [00:44:00] Maybe you’re not the greatest thing ever for other people. Maybe you are the greatest thing and they still go to the hospital. All of these things are bad or very good. It’s like the fantasy is true or it’s not true, and both are really intense and hard to see.
THERAPIST: We should stop. (pause) [00:45:08]
CLIENT: I don’t [want to leave.] (ph?) (pause)
THERAPIST: I understand. (pause) [00:46:25] [ ] (inaudible at 00:46:25) It’s not altogether clear what [version looks like me and that the two of us are going to run into.] (ph?)
CLIENT: Yeah. (sniffles)
THERAPIST: It’s scary. (long pause) [00:47:21]
CLIENT: Did I hurt you yesterday? (pause)
THERAPIST: That’s too big a question to do quickly.
CLIENT: Because it brings up a lot about me or because you have a lot to say?
THERAPIST: Because, in my mind, to answer you quickly would sort of close things down and there is probably a lot to talk about.
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