TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

(silence until 00:00:20)

CLIENT: So, (pause) I can't remember what it was that kind of stuck in my (pause) head from Wednesday. (pause) I was trying to call it back and it was little foggy but here I am (inaudible). But (pause) we interviewed a candidate for one of the project positions yesterday.

THERAPIST: This is you and Phil?

CLIENT: Yeah. And (pause) I've mentioned in the past I think that I often have difficulty introducing myself or at least have quite a bit of anxiety about introducing myself. I can't remember whether...it hasn't come up in a while. At any rate, especially when professionally I've felt sort of an acute sense of dislocation for obvious reasons, that was very (pause)..., it was a process that caused me quite a bit of stress. And one of the ways in which that manifested was that I would be really hard pressed to introduce myself in a way that was kind of coherent. [00:02:10]

So yesterday I did not have any difficulty really. It was fine. I was (inaudible) a little bit, sort of continue to introduce myself (inaudible) something or other. You know, fairly straight forward. But a thought occurred to me in the course of that process that was kind of a follow up to something that had come up in our conversation the previous day. And I'm trying to recall precisely what it was that came up which would make this elaboration on it more sensible. It had something to do with (pause)...I don't remember the context in which it came up. It had something to do with (pause) feeling alienated. It was on the theme of feeling alienated and feeling kind of...difficulty feeling the connection with people at certain kinds of moments. And what occurred to me was that sensation or that experience was really, in a lot of ways, a corollary or extension or somehow inextricably bound up with this feeling of being kind of out of touch with my own history with that particular person. You know, out of touch with my...it's like there's this sort of continuum that I didn't have access to. [00:04:00]

And so I would be out of touch with somebody (inaudible) for a little while and to say that I didn't feel my connection and was therefore suddenly worried about its continuity in the future was another way of saying it is that I couldn't remember myself. I couldn't remember where I had come from. It's as if I had an experience that was not the only episode of this kind but that is stuck in my head where I was running around in San Diego and suddenly I just forgot where I was. I just like...something was going wrong. I don't remember what it was. And suddenly I was just like totally disoriented. I just did not know where I was in the world. And I think this experience has...it felt useful to me to kind of re-conceptionalize (sp) what we were talking about on Wednesday as a loss of memory about myself as well as about the other person, like I've lost a piece of my own history. I don't know if that is helpful but it was a striking thought. I don't think that's the first time it's occurred to me. It seemed important. [00:05:35]

I guess another maybe clearer way of putting it is that on Wednesday I was kind of thinking about not being able to access another person and the thought that occurred to me was that there's a symmetrical aspect of not being able to remember myself.

THERAPIST: Right, to access yourself.

CLIENT: Not really being able to see (pause) this historical...

THERAPIST: And in a way you are clearly there.

CLIENT: Yeah and it's somehow when (pause)...I guess this was the kind of train of thought was that when I'm there when I'm talking to somebody on the phone, when I'm physically present with them then suddenly it all comes rushing back and I'm like, "Oh yeah, I remember. I remember my connection to this person. I remember the person that I am when..." Phil sort of completed my introduction of myself and suddenly I remembered, "Yeah, I really am that person! Yeah, I really..." And were I to have remember that person from the beginning I would never have had this anxiety because of course I am that person. Why should I be afraid of (pause) dislocation? The person that I remember myself to have been simply wouldn't be jettisoned in the way that I have been appearing. [00:07:16]

So I guess the thought was that (pause)...there's failure...we've talked about different kinds of memory and how they're related to this (inaudible) time. But this seems like a very specific deficit. Not only failing to remember my connection to somebody else but failing to remember just the important piece of myself as it relates to them.

THERAPIST: Right, right. (pause) Yeah, one sort of (inaudible) that occurred to me is whether this fits with (pause) it being difficult and hard to remember things here, especially when you first come in.

CLIENT: (pause) I've forgotten that I've asked you this question a couple of times I'm sure and I don't remember your answer but is this unusual, these kinds of deficits? Isn't it kind of...it would seem kind of a structural phenomenon if you're not sort of seeing a psychotherapist every day to forget things.

(silence from 00:08:46 to 00:09:13)

THERAPIST: Yes and no. I mean, sure some degree of forgetting, just as in any part of life, is kind of expectable after a few days. And then there is though, an added thing with therapy where it's generally often and a bit harder to remember and where the last time doesn't matter, even when you see somebody every day. They can come in the next day and it can...and then (pause) it's erotic because we had a few conversations a while ago where you were very clear I don't know if you remember that you were convinced that this is not a normal kind of forgetting when you came in and you're like, "It's not just that I kind of don't remember what happened. It's sort of like it never happened or it's completely gone." There was a degree of disconnection that you felt, which seemed (pause) somewhat more profound than what people often experience where you might not remember or you might realize it's hazy and maybe this kind of charge (ph) but there's a sense of at least having been there when it happened. You know what I mean? [00:10:43]

CLIENT: Yeah, that happens sometimes.

THERAPIST: Yeah but you were saying I think, when we talked about this before that it was almost like it never happened or you weren't there until it came back. You weren't saying that to kind of encourage me to remind you so much as to make it very clear that this was a very profound experience that you were having.

CLIENT: Yeah, right, I remember this. (pause) So to me it seems pretty profound. Not having access to this kind of thing seems pretty profound. (pause) It seems like a good thought. So anyway, I'm not sure where it goes.

(silence from 00:11:50 to 00:12:24)

THERAPIST: Yeah I'm not sure yet either.

CLIENT: Yeah I'm remembering a little more of our conversation we were talking about the heater. (pause) It's not clear to me how much of this thing about forgetting is actual forgetting and how much of it is fear of forgetting stuff. I think if I was very sort of anxious, feeling really kind of as if I was not functioning very well, the degree of not remembering our conversation on Wednesday might have been very upsetting and prevented further recollection whereas in this case I was pretty relaxed about it and in five minutes (inaudible) kind of reconstruct at least enough of our conversation if we really put our heads to it, probably call it all back. [00:13:46]

I guess it's interesting how much of (pause) this process I conceptionalize (sp) as learning to remember something or figuring out how to remember something. I mentioned once (pause) in some ways being recorded is like the realization of a sort of expectation of psychotherapy that never...because like, I don't know, maybe there's a style of psychotherapy where the therapist just sits there with a pen and paper but I've never had the pleasure of experiencing that in particular and in some level I always wanted them to do so (pause) or thought that I did or somehow...disappointed with not having all this registered as significant. Not, I think, because it felt especially (pause) historic but rather because I felt like the problem was that things were being lost. Like the essence of the problem was that things were being lost. I don't think I ever articulated myself exactly in the way that I just did but certainly that's consistent with this much vaguer sensation of fear. [00:15:40]

It's sort of built in the question of whether the person you're talking to is retaining any of this but at least if I'm not retaining it, they're not retaining it, where are we getting to? I have somehow that concern even though it's a mechanical device. (pause) The paradox is that I have an excellent mechanical memory when I'm not feeling very...

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: I can remember long, long poems but not...Many kids memorize their children's books, that kind of thing. (pause) I still remember them.

THERAPIST: Really?

(silence from 00:16:59 to 00:17:49)

(inaudible) Because I don't usually think (pause) "Gosh, wonder if something traumatic happened." You know? All the business about forgetting did somebody beat you at some point for a while in a way that was terribly frightening and you felt like they were gone and it turns out they had taken a part of you with them and you were stranded and anxious and everybody forgot...

CLIENT: Well, I've had that model for a while. I guess I always thought of it less as a single episode that sort of happens in collective childcare, especially when some of the caregivers are 18, kind of don't have a clue.

THERAPIST: What would happen? [00:18:47]

CLIENT: Leave me under...like one time my mom came back and the person who was taking care of me had me under the truck that he was fixing. I think my mother...

THERAPIST: By yourself or he was there with you?

CLIENT: He was there, yeah. He was there but he was just going on (inaudible) collective (ph). It wasn't somebody that (inaudible). So that has (pause) always...not always but for a while...

THERAPIST: Do you remember that stuff being scary?

CLIENT: I know...I have a distinct recollection there's a (pause) story, even it's kind of a family story, of the first time my parents went away for a weekend without me and I got really, really upset and I wouldn't talk to them for a while, suggesting that it was an issue for me.

THERAPIST: How old were you roughly? [00:19:55]

CLIENT: Three. (pause) Three and a half, something like that. (pause) You know, so short of an actual trauma, which I've never heard ever happened, this is as close as I come. I think that we have a lot of biases about how people ought to be, how early childhood caregiving ought to happen. And not necessarily incontrovertible but (pause) one could come up with a paper arguing that it was not a good idea to farm childcare out to 15 people on the basis of this experience I would think. [00:20:57]

THERAPIST: So what was the structure of it?

CLIENT: There were, you know, (pause) let's see...by the time I was born, they'd been going for two and a half years. I think there were probably (pause) 10 to 15 households, something like that. I could be wrong about that but that's my sense. But at least, in my understanding, all tasks, including (pause)...each household had an enterprise that they were responsible for. They also had sort of collective responsibilities that they had and I was one of them. So my mother would go and work in the restaurant or whatever and while she was there, assuming that she was doing something that she couldn't watch me during, my understand at least is that somebody else would take me. Maybe it was more on an occasional basis. But what I I'd have to get more information about this believe (ph) it at least happened regularly that somebody else would, as part of their regular childcare responsibilities, is [I being] (ph) the only child for quite a long time. [00:22:33]

THERAPIST: Oh, there were other kids.

CLIENT: A couple years later the twins were born. They were a couple years younger than I was, a year or two.

THERAPIST: So you'd get farmed out to somebody who had childcare plus whatever else.

CLIENT: Yeah but it wasn't like it was somebody who was good at childcare who took this responsibility on. It was like everybody had...

THERAPIST: Right because none of these people have kids.

CLIENT: Everybody [has this other family] (ph). These kids were kids. Like the episodes that I heard the most about...my mother was really stressed out about this. She really did not like this arrangement, yet she didn't intervene until I had an ear infection and somebody refused to give or well, didn't refuse, but gave me something other than my antibiotics. [00:23:32]

(pause)

So these were kids. They didn't have a very good idea of what was the right responsible way to behave necessarily. And so, in my imagination at least, this happened a lot. It wasn't out of malice but...so for a while they had a collective underwear drawer, and I'd been angry at my parents. The thought...

THERAPIST: Like they literally had a...

CLIENT: Yeah, the thought was that I was kind of like the collective underwear, or angry incarnation of the complaints that I had about this arrangement. [00:24:25]

(pause)

From my perspective the shitty thing is that (pause) none of this really came out until after my father died, at which point the only person that I could really make this complaint to was my mother who was very unhappy with the situation and just felt kind of powerless to intervene. So it never really was a satisfaction (laughter).

(pause)

Anyway...

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) Yeah it does not seem like a very good way to do child care. (inaudible) there are people who are designated. The parents drop their kids off when their little because they're kids. (inaudible)

(silence from 00:25:52 to 00:26:29)

CLIENT: I mean...so this has been a part of my own kind of hypothetical model for this, I don't know, abandonment fear for a while, that right (inaudible). That's a good connection. In the absence of any specific trauma that I can recognize that (pause)... that's been a thought that's been in my mind for a while. The memory thing though is interesting because it's not quite...

THERAPIST: Here's how I would think about it fitting together. I'm not sure where [to be thinking] (ph) (inaudible) but the way that it seems to me like it could fit is that in the present your experience is that what you're saying today is that when the other person goes away they kind of take you with them.

CLIENT: Yeah, yeah. [00:27:48]

THERAPIST: And as a little kid that's part of the importance, I would think, of having consistent figures like caretakers is that they remember what happened yesterday and they help to keep you sort of in touch with routine, with how things work, with what happened yesterday, with sort of what you're preferences and inclinations are, what you like to do, what you don't like to do, the way of life things. They remember you like to eat your sandwich without the crust, you know, it's like...and with this kind of rotating group of (pause) probably not all that attentive and experienced caretakers...

CLIENT: Affectionate but not attentive.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you must have gotten this very different (pause) sort of...you know how the kid builds up a stable sense of who they are in part because the parent is consistent and provides that for the kid. And... [00:29:13]

CLIENT: Something's attracted to (inaudible)

THERAPIST: Yeah, and I guess...

CLIENT: It's like they were spawns in similar ways to similar things. There are routines built into the relationship that allow you to develop internal routines and ways in thinking about yourself.

THERAPIST: Yeah and partly because they have [their origins] (ph) and partly because they got to know you. In other words it's partly like, "Well, we eat lunch at 11:30 and before we eat lunch we do this and afterwards we take a nap." And some of it is because they, "Oh yeah, you know, I sort of picked up on the fact that you like the sandwich without the crust and you actually like chocolate milk and when you get angry you act this way." [00:29:56]

CLIENT: Yeah, our cat has a lot of rituals. So we'll walk into the door and often he'll be sleeping and sometimes he'll (pause)...well frequently he'll be there to greet us, especially when we've been gone for a while. We'll get to the third floor of the staircase and he's there and he'll lie down on his stomach like a lot of cats do and he'll want you to scratch his pelvis or whatever, the small of his back and when you do that his back slowly raises.

THERAPIST: Typical cat things.

CLIENT: Yeah, typical cat things, and he'll want each of us to do it, so he'll want Jennie (ph) to do it. She does it her way and she'll want me to do it and I do it my way and you know, it's like a regular thing. And the interesting thing is he'll want each of us to do it in our own way. And that's really important to the cat and some people and cat, whatever. But even for an animal with a much smaller brain, presumably with a less complicated kind of consciousness, that continuity is really important. I guess I can imagine that not being able to count on that continuity would be rough.

(silence from 00:31:38 to 00:31:58)

[They're not much more complex that (pause) the thought world in an instant is a cat.] (ph) Maybe not that much more complex. I just don't know. At any rate, I think that continuity is pretty important.

So I'm not sure how much (pause)...I guess it's important to me. I've held on to this thought for quite a long time so it's significant. Having something to hang this sense of dislocation on is important. So it helps in that sense.

(silence from 00:32:50 to 00:33:30)

I did something funny last night that's related to this in kind of an oblique way for the millionth time. (pause) So I got an assignment (pause) which is potentially a really good development for me in working for these people over in New York (pause) It means beginning to write some of this down and production pieces.

THERAPIST: In the way that you want it.

CLIENT: In the way that I want it but it has a very tight deadline. (pause) And so we kind of agreed that I would do it and communicated with the people who are going to be doing the production and it's a book. Katie (ph) will be contributing too and I was asked to write the piece, write the draft at least. And I mean, it's some little...it's good because I can write a thousand word piece of reasonable quality pretty quickly and yet I really want to get it done soon so I can polish it a lot because it needs to be good partly because I think this is a test you know? It's a bit of a test so (pause) I've been pretty sick the last few days but yesterday I started feeling a bit better and my fever came down and (pause) I've just sort of been in a position to work a bit better but I came home yesterday and sat down at about 5:00 and was just kind of ready to work and I really need to start. And this kind of time wasting exercise reasserted itself. It's just like anything but. There's an aspect of that phenomenon that is related to this, like I can't call the project to mind. It's really the analog instead of the person, what have you. And I think in the light of our current train of thought, in some sense it's also about not being able to call myself in my [glass theater] (ph), my interaction material to mind. [00:36:28]

So Jennie (ph) has been watching the West Wing and I've already seen it and I'm less interested in it than...she's not that interested in it but she's engaged and she's deliberately going through the seasons and so I've been skipping around with some of it but last night not only did I do that when I sat down at 5:00 instead of actually working but I did it until 4:00.

THERAPIST: A.M.?

CLIENT: A.M.

THERAPIST: Whoa!

(silence from 00:37:13 to 00:37:30)

CLIENT: All I wanted to do was work and I don't remember at least there's this dissociative phenomenon and so what exactly I was feeling is not always totally accessible but I don't remember feeling I panicked about it. I felt concerned I really need to get my thoughts out on this. There's not infinite time. They wanted it by the end of the weekend, the draft, and there's not much time to...it needs to be a good draft. In other words it needs to be a draft that really sets it on its feet otherwise we're not going to be able to deliver it to these guys. (pause)

(silence from 00:38:09 to 00:38:38)

So this is a really curious event, a fairly typical event. It was a little extreme certainly but not completely atypical. It seems related in some way although like you can't really see a direct line. You can see kind of the conceptual structure maybe but it's not an obvious direct line to hypothetical trauma and this kind of phenomenon but you see the analogy at least.

(pause)

THERAPIST: Well and often when you talk about these sorts of things it's sort of precipitated by (pause)...

CLIENT: Being dissatisfied with something.

THERAPIST: Yeah or like feeling a bit abandoned in one way or another and it does seem like that in this.

CLIENT: Well and I guess there's this possibly complex and difficult political thing where they handed off to this other...they've handed off some idea of specified authority to this other unit who is...who have not been keeping me totally in the loop. They've been sort of drafting with Alec and sometimes definitively not keeping in contact with me. I mean they're not being (pause) mean but you know.

THERAPIST: Right. (pause) Well the thing that you described sort of standing out about this project is that there's a bit of pressure on and it's a good opportunity. [00:40:39]

CLIENT: Yeah, that's the way I feel really. And I feel like people are definitely giving me more than a fair shot and not many people get an opportunity of this kind. It's really pretty cool. I feel good about it. I feel confident to do it. It's like at some level it does feel a little qualitatively different in that way.

(silence from 00:41:02 to 00:41:19)

But you know, something was strong enough, (inaudible) strong enough to keep me up that late. Like something was going on.

THERAPIST: Something was definitely going on.

CLIENT: I wasn't really in touch with it to the extent that...I could say, "Wow, this is a little odd. What's going on here?" And yet it was more like, "God, this is a little odd!"

(pause)

THERAPIST: We're going to have to stop. We'll talk more on Wednesday.

CLIENT: I have to go to New York I'll be back for Friday but not for Wednesday.

THERAPIST: Okay, when do you go?

CLIENT: Tuesday morning.

THERAPIST: Okay. (pause) I had a cancellation maybe on Monday. Do you want it or are you going to be (inaudible)?

CLIENT: Day, like noon?

THERAPIST: Yeah, I don't remember exactly what time.

CLIENT: Yeah, let's do it! Is that cool?

THERAPIST: Yeah, that's cool. Let me e-mail you the exact time within a few hours.

CLIENT: Okay, that sounds great.

THERAPIST: Okay. I hope you feel better.

CLIENT: Okay, thank you. I'm getting there. [00:42:38]

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