TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Hi there.

THERAPIST: Hey.

(silence from [00:00:14] til [00:00:50])

(throat clears)

(silence from [00:00:51] til[00:01:43])

CLIENT: I'm having trouble gathering my thoughts. I'm not sure what exactly Well I spoke with New York, and we're, we're about to get launched. We talked about the substance, rather than the contract, but I think the contract details, are, are underway. [00:02:09]

THERAPIST: Well, congratulations, or I guess.

CLIENT: Yeah, I want to talk about the details of the contract. I'm glad we're, I'm glad we're moving forward. It's been, it's been much more delayed than I had, had anticipated. Our household, household needs, needs money, the more so because we basically went on the fritz for three months or so.

THERAPIST: (blowing nose) I'm sorry, what went on the fritz?

CLIENT: I did. For about three months. There's, there's quite a bit of clean up from that, in terms of bills and dealing with stuff like that. [00:03:08]

THERAPIST: I see, you mean,

CLIENT: So we need, we need income to deal with that.

THERAPIST: I'm a little bit confused, is your salary going to be different?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Will they pay better?

CLIENT: Oh they'll pay better. (sighs) (pause) You know, so, so disappearing for three months, it's, it's information I guess.

THERAPIST: I forget again why it should fall on you?

CLIENT: I just stopped, opening mail.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's what I thought, in kind of parallel to what's happening at work.

(crosstalking)

CLIENT: I just opening mail

(crosstalking)

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: In the, I guess, this is as good a place to start as any. Obviously, I, I, I feel a responsibility to deal with the bills that we've Philrated. But the other thing about it is that, I don't know, I mean, this is, not some great revelation, but. There's something, there's something in this state that relates to I don't know, object constancy, some, there's something that disappears when I'm in this state that, makes it difficult for me to, kind of, have a sense of reality about many, people, institutions, projects etc. When we talked, I think we were touching a little bit on this on Wednesday. Trying to, trying to call it back to mind, I guess that's one of the reasons I was having trouble gathering my thoughts was that I couldn't, couldn't quite reconstruct our conversation a couple days ago. [00:06:06]

Just think, I want to bring this up, at any rate So yeah, it disappears, it disappears, and you know, I feel relieved that we're, that the end game is at hand or the beginning game, however you look at it. The end game of this latest, year and a half really, which has not been especially fun quite frankly. Maybe the end game, you know, if I, if I can do it right, the end game for quite a few years. I'm hopeful about that. I'm hopeful about that. But, (pause) (sighs) I don't know. So I guess I should feel a little more excitement. But really I just feel some worry at this stage. Worry that, you know what we've constructed will end up being sort of a mirage where, we're just kind of locked in to the same kinds of responses, and the same kinds of interactions, and the same you know what I'm saying? (sigh) I feel worried, I feel, I feel less satisfaction than I would like to. Part of it I suppose is, I've kind of, you know, I'm in a, since we've already basically begun, and I've already agreed with the contract having been set up and finalized. My negotiating position, even to the extent that I had anything, since I was pushing so hard to do this, is not very good. [00:08:17]

Which is fine, I mean these are people that I trust, and you know. That feels like an old story, which is I guess one of the downsides of asking someone for a job instead of having them ask me to do it. Anyway, I feel some, I feel some concern or worry about that. I would like to pick up our conversation from Wednesday, but I can't quite find it. In the same way that I guess that I can't quite find my creditors, when in the zone so to speak. (pause) And as I was, walking over, I was thinking, you know, that I would like to pick up that thread. And realizing I can't quite do it, and thinking to myself, you know, it's a good thing we are recording. Maybe I should ask Ethan to, just ply me with my own recordings. And I thought to myself, no, you know, that really confutes the purpose doesn't it. It's not, that wouldn't be a very good idea. So it's a, there's a kind of idea there's some significance to me I guess that, of, of, our completely unrelated decision to record these sessions has, it has some kind of significance. Even if I'm not actually listening to them, it's symbolic. They're not lost. [00:10:33]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I'm aware of it. (pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible)

(silence from [00:10:49] to [00:11:12])

(sigh)

(silence from [00:11:15] to [00:13:15]

THERAPIST: I, I, I think where you're having it hard is that, this is kind of an effect of being upset about the last conversation about the new job. Not that it went badly, but, I think the things not as nailed down as much as you wanted to, and you're feeling, it sounds like a bit bad about not being able to negotiate much. You're not in a position to, and this has kind of, upset and maybe discombobulated you a bit.

CLIENT: (pause) I don't know, no, I don't think that. What I've done, in order to manage my anxiety, I've conducted the negotiations through my old friend and colleague, Jack. And, as a result, all of my interactions have been with Jack, who's not, not the play master here. You know, the advantage of that is, that I've been able to manage, what otherwise would have been, you know, it was already difficult, even in the arrangement that I arrived at. The downside is that I'm not, I'm not negotiating with the decision maker, and so, I had a great conversation with Jack, and he, he's going to be an intermediary for me since he's there already. And you know, very good willed, and we are excited about working together, and we had a good conversation, and I think both of us are quite pleased to be, you know in this position. [00:15:52]

But, you know, there was no real negotiation, I kind of, I spoke with the communications director,

THERAPIST: What's the purpose (inaudible)

CLIENT: Once by phone, Robert. And then I've had two very brief e-mail exchanges with him and that's been it. So, you know, I talked with Jack, and Jack said you know, he would set the ball rolling for my contract etc. But you know, I guess, I guess what's really giving me anxiety is, I don't really have contact with the system at all. I have contact with Jack. And that was the way that I set it up, in my, it would have evolved very differently had I not, you know, largely as a means of kind of managing my, my, my really crushing anxiety about this. It might not evolved that way had I not done that, but I did, and I have, and now I guess I'm worried that at the end of the day, you know, all of my contact will be with Jack and I will be completely dependent on him. Both for, you know, in the same way that I was completely dependent on Phil, for really, largely in many ways the same reason. [00:17:18] Now Jack is a shit load more reliable than Phil.

THERAPIST: I'm glad to hear that.

CLIENT: I mean, you know, it's, it's not, it's you know, whatever. But, you know the comparison is interesting. But the comparison is also interesting in that, you know, I've kind of done it again. So it's kind of an oops I've done it again role. I never thought I would be quoting Brittney Spears. [00:17:46]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I was going to say you were quoting her again.

CLIENT: Yeah, again. Right.

THERAPIST: (pause) What crushing anxiety were you referring to?

CLIENT: Oh God. I mean you know. Like every time there was any interaction about this, I felt like, you know, I guess the parody, the example, after this phone conversation with Robert, a month and a half ago, more than a month and half ago. God, it was in, was it September, September. Anyway, when I just, it's like, every interaction or every you know, either after the interaction or before it, that's what we were talking about on Wednesday. Before it, when I was, anticipating, I was waiting for some kind of contact. And then the contact was kind of classic, for me classic construction, it's like a dynamic. You know where they, just need some kind of reassurance, that the relationship was still valid. (pause) It's funny, I, I have this, all of these tendrils of our last conversation kind of floating around. And I feel them and I sense that we are getting warm, but I can't really get a structure out of them. It's a very strange feeling. [00:19:40]

So I mean, it was, it's been pretty awful. I felt, I felt, really, since we, since I began this, this, since I re-framed my conception of what I would be doing in this direction. You know, there has just been this succession of moments of which, I felt I was likely to be dropped, or to have been dropped.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And, you know they've been terrifying, and having Jack as an interlocutor, has been a huge relief. But, he's really my interlocutor, and I feel danger there. I have a sense of, I am concerned of that structure. On the one hand I don't think it's totally healthy. You know, I feel as if we've kind of arrived at that structure for reasons that you know, in a variety of ways are kind of symptomatic of A and B. I think you know that, it means, you know, all sorts of things, it means that I'm not really interacting with the system as I said. So that, you know, Jack is, I think at the age of 50 has decided to go to med school. he's taken all the pre-req's and sent out his applications and they are coming in. He told me this, he'd been keeping it close to the vest until the acceptances came in. So, so he's gone in September. I mean in between now and then, I really do have to interact with the system in a way that you know, preserves my viability. [00:21:52]

THERAPIST: Will you be working for him, or will you -

CLIENT: Well, that's kind of unclear frankly. You know in the way that Robert put it in his last e-mail, kind of suggested to me that I would. Which is a bit of a concern to me. Maybe that's, maybe that's what really my concern is. I had never really, I had just assumed that, that Jack, I mean maybe he had to vouch for me. I really don't know what the

THERAPIST: Right, that would be de'ja Phil.

CLIENT: Yeah, that would be de'ja Phil. (pause) So I mean, this is the kind of thing I can easily talk about with Phil, with Phil, With, with Jack. But I don't want to do it again, I don't want it to be de'ja Phil. It's just, it's just been a shitty year in that respect. Shitty.

(pause from [00:22:48] to [00:24:00])

So Wednesday, now I remember. Wednesday, we were talking about, the two functions that, God it keeps on escaping. It's weird. It's a weird feeling. It's like going in and out of a phase. On the one hand, when I'm asking you for a kind of accounting, I'm asking for content. And on the other hand, I'm kind of trying to reassure, to reconnect with, you interactively. It's a kind of redefinition of, how we're relating to each other. And it's not a very eloquent way of putting it. We were talking about these moments at which I say, you know, what the plan. How is this working? How do you see this functioning? It's a relief to be able to call that up again. You know, over and above the substance of it. I have real fears about just being left adrift, without any markers. [00:26:03] I guess I do feel adrift. I guess that's

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I guess I am adrift in some sense. (pause) That's what I've been talking about the last 20 minutes or so. I don't know why that's true. I don't know really how this capacity forms.

THERAPIST: Remembering?

CLIENT: It's not really remembering exactly. Although that's part of it. It's like how do you, how do you create a mental map you know? I feel like my mental maps are written in invisible ink. I'm not sure what chemical reaction causes them to disappear or to reappear. I have maps of my creditors, there's maps of my professional obligations and relationships. Maps of my friends.

THERAPIST: Well, maybe something that helped there, was kind of putting together and clarifying a bit for yourself, some of how you are feeling in relation to your new job. You've seen the parallel of what's going on with Jack and what's happened with Phil, and how that makes you anxious, and why you sort of, got yourself into a situation that has some similarities to the one you've been in. How you feel, you know, worries about feeling adrift there, at work. So gathering together and organizing what's going on and why it has some of the affects on you that it has. [00:28:59] Maybe that kind of pulling yourself together has something to do with being able to remember more about Wednesday here.

CLIENT: Likely. (pause) (whispers) So the theory is that taking stock, (sighs) It's like, (pause) like a (inaudible) if that's possible. [00:30:15]

THERAPIST: And maybe that, sort of in the opposite direction of what happened after the conversation with Jack, where it sounds as though there were some things that you were feeling more, worried or disparative about, without, without sort of having as much perspective on why. (crosstalking)

CLIENT: No, I think maybe I had perspective on, I don't know, it's good to talk it out I guess. It's not, it's not (pause) it's kind of an artificial thing, talking it out, but helpful. But I don't think that I was not aware of this. I think I was thinking you know, thinking about his stuff subconsciously. [00:31:32]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: I don't know, I'm not sure. (pause) (sigh) I don't know. (pause)

THERAPIST: (inaudible whisper)

CLIENT: Things.

THERAPIST: Like what?

CLIENT: (pause) Some bullshit that, that Phil asked me to do for some report. I really like to have a date, so that I can, you know, create a transition. I'm not him.

THERAPIST: You'd like to have a date, for the new job.

CLIENT: Start date for the new job, you know based on that start date, get a sense of when there would actually be funds flowing so we would know when it would be safe to interrupt the flow. The check salary from executive source. (ph)

THERAPIST: Like knowing when they are going to start paying so you can quit.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm not quite sure how to handle the quitting. I don't theoretically need to quit in the sense that, it's complicated. I mean, I want to, you know, I, I, I'm not going to be working, I need to have my salary. But whether I want, whether there's some way of retaining the position for some amount of time after wards, and the institutional space is another question. [00:34:18]

Like I don't, I took the job, ten months ago, so yet another brief line on my resume that's not great. So the question is whether I can keep the (inaudible) and etc. I've tried to as best as possible, given the realities of the last three months, sort of, you know, finessed these relationships in such a way that I wouldn't have to. Just kind of leave. I mean I guess that's really it isn't it? What's really is, is there's not really a there, there institutionally. On this other end, and yet, I'm thinking of leaving, you know, really dramatically. You know I would not be going back, if I were to leave. And yet, I don't really see, I don't really see the space for myself you know, I mean. This, this new gig, right now is just kind of a project. It's not, you know, even the contract itself is not yet finalized. What my status is, is not yet finalized. You know, what, I'm thinking of, you know, of making a very dramatic change, and kind of my professional orientation and status, and yet there are no details to that change as of yet. You know, I guess, I guess as we talk about it, I can kind of see, you know, what feels troubling right now. I, I feel like, I've said goodbye, I've said, I'm sick of trying to navigate you know, the Medical School, and, and. You now, this, this idea of doing policy work as, you know with a very different professional background. I'm sick of that, I'm done with it. I'm moving in this other direction, and you know the other direction, from the perspective of you know, finding work for myself, and not just a kind of project with somebody that I like, is, is totally ubiquitous and murky. [00:36:38]

(pause) Now, maybe this is the kind of thing that becomes clear over the course of time, and just sort of inevitably. But, the way that it's come together, you know, I think, it feels understandable to me at least, maybe, maybe this is just something in my head. But it feels understandable to me why I would be anxious. I'm jumping into something that is completely unknown, from that perspective. What it would be? How long it would last? Whether it could be durable, you know, how it would what my status would be, etc.

(pause from [00:37:20] to [00:37:55]

THERAPIST: (pause) I'm not, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this. But let me throw an observation out there, which is, you know, as we've been talking, I've had some times, and the way you've described at least for me, but particularly today as you've been talking. There have been many moments where it felt to me like you were being somewhat distracted or something of removed. Not so much of an emotional remove, but like a remove from the little details of what's going on, like with the new job, and it's been the main thing.

CLIENT: Like what I would be doing, on the project?

THERAPIST: Yeah, like, for example when you say, you haven't seen the contract, but you've worked out a lot of the arrangement. And, you're not sure how much leverage you have to negotiate because you know that they want you there. So, like, you know, does that mean, and you know they will be paying you more money? Or like the issue of money there, there's the issue of the content on your job, there's the issue of who you would be working for, and where you'd be in the organization. There's the issue of, you know, I mean, apparently, whether this is sort of an on going, permanent role or relates to a particular product, or set of projects you'd be working on. You, you know, haven't gone into the specifics of any of that. And I'm not saying that most people necessarily would be specific with all the details. And I didn't ask you about it because, you know, while it stuck me that it, it seemed a little abstract or kind of big about those things. It just didn't seem to be the point to get into the details. You know in the same way that if you were talking about, having gone out for dinner, with Jennie, I would say, where did you go, what did you order, and how were the appetizers, and how was dessert, you know, like that. [00:40:36]

But, sometimes it's been to where its been a little bit hard to follow, which is why I've asked for certain details, or sort of tried to clarify. And now, as you are sort of saying, well gosh, I can see why I'm anxious, because I don't know, you know, this is just this one project with this one guy. And there are so many things I don't know about, you know whether, about the contract this and that. Then it sort of makes me, well gee, maybe there was something important in those details that it seems like it was besides the point to ask about. You know? And maybe there is some way in which the abstraction isn't just, you know sort of short hand so you can focus on what seems to matter. But also, like reflects the degree, sort of remove of some kind. That you have, from what's going on and how it's affecting you in the situation. In other words, like, yeah, I mean that's [00:41:49]

CLIENT: So repeat the last, the last -

THERAPIST: What emerges, that, the details that, you sort of point to in a kind of vacant way that actually makes me curious about what they are. But I don't want to derail you, turn out to

CLIENT: Be unknown.

THERAPIST: Actually be unknown, be sort of a source of anxiety for you, as you think more thoroughly about it.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: And, so I'm, I'm just kind of struck by that. [00:42:30]

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: And, again, its sort of like,

CLIENT: It's a (inaudible) I mean, I guess, I guess what I'm not understanding is, it's surprising to you that I don't know these details? Or that I'm not insisting on getting these details.

THERAPIST: No, I want to go back to the analogy with Jennie and dinner. So, you know, gosh darn, I had a really rough night the other night. We had (inaudible) during the restaurant, and it didn't go well, and I don't understand what happened. And this and that, and, you say you sort of, again, like, it isn't quite right. And it sort of emerges -

CLIENT: That I didn't actually eat.

THERAPIST: You didn't eat, or that, she chose the restaurant, and it was food you hate and what you ordered was so bad, that you were cranky and then you got into an argument about it. And, like, it was just frank to you now that there was this whole, sort of, quite comprehensible string of things that happened, that bothered you. That you sort of hadn't thought of that had a central role on how you were feeling. [00:43:44] It's kind of a little like that.

CLIENT: I see what you are saying. So, so you are struck by the fact that, I didn't immediately -

THERAPIST: Like when the sense of uncertainty, and kind of vagueness, and sense of like not being grounded, that I have listening to what you are saying. And that you turn out to have about what's going on.

CLIENT: Okay, I'm not, you know, and again, this is really the product, the uncertainty is really the product of not negotiating or discussing directly with Robert. You know, and part of that is just because he's swamped. So it's been convenient for him I think -

THERAPIST: Are you seeing the kind of general way with Jack, of what you, like what your job responsibilities would be?

CLIENT: Basically yeah. yeah.

THERAPIST: What projects you would be working on. How much they would be paying you, and

CLIENT: I, I, have not spoken, I have spoken with Jack about what we'd be doing. You know, we've had several conversations about this.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: We have not had a conversation about how much they would be paying me. I know, I know from my conversation with Jim, you know, months ago, that they'd be paying me a lot. You know, certainly more than they are paying me right now, which is less than they had agreed to pay me, by several ten's of thousands of dollars frankly. [00:45:04] But, but, it's the specifics I don't know.

THERAPIST: Would this be a permanent job?

CLIENT: But that's you know, yes in theory. Yes, in the very vague discussion that we've had, suggests this. You know, I've said as much that, that's what I want, and I trust Jack to communicate these aspects to Robert, since, since he's there.

THERAPIST: I see, but there's really a lot you don't know.

CLIENT: But there's incredible amount that I don't know, that's so unclear and we just -

THERAPIST: And this is the only alternative that you've got right now.

CLIENT: That's the real problem.

THERAPIST: It is a pretty as you were talking I wondered Huh, I wonder why you haven't been looking elsewhere too.

(crosstalking)

CLIENT: That's what, that's what Jennie said. That's what Jennie says. That's what Jennie says, she wonders why I haven't been looking elsewhere. And I don't know man.

THERAPIST: I imagine it has something to do with how anxious and fraught,

CLIENT: Well, that's it, I mean that's why, that's why I come back to, this sort of very consistent pattern that I have, you know with Jack and with Phil and with others where, you know, I'm not applying for positions where the uncertainty would just be painful. And when I have gone through that process, it's been, it's been devastatingly difficult. [00:46:30]

THERAPIST: Yeah, we have to stop.

CLIENT: We have to stop.

THERAPIST: I know.

CLIENT: Too bad. I thought we were getting to something. (sighs) Alright, Wednesday then. Yep?

THERAPIST: Yep.

CLIENT: Wednesday is the day before Thanksgiving you're still here?

THERAPIST: Yeah, no, I'm here.

CLIENT: You're still here, Wednesday but not Friday.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Okay.

END TRANSCRIPT