TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I'm trying to pick up the thread. Just start talking. Usually works for something. So I had a trip to New York last week and -

(Pause): [00:01:18 00:01:26]

CLIENT: I found it kind of aggravating. There's this young, about 26, and what I imagine a typical New York kid to be like. He's like nakedly, openly ambitious in a way that really rubs me the wrong way. And I was freezing him out, not intentionally but just because, you know, it's like, something to be done and I'm pretty good and I want to be involved and I have I think some concerns, you know, we discussed ad nauseum between us about kind of being shut out and stuff or [dis-included] (ph). [00:02:18] Anyway, so we had a discussion of a maybe the political background is important for this particular conversation so that my colleague, came in he one of the themes that he talked about a lot as something important to the future of the institution was the idea of developing this science of delivery implementation, sort of a systematic way of taking policy from kind of abstract levels to concrete deliverable -

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So, and this is something that we, frankly, had been talking about for years so it's kind of (unclear) long conversation that (unclear). [00:03:19] Anyway, as is usual at a big bureaucracy whenever anyone hears this recurring theme, they're like, 'oh, yeah, I'm doing that. That's my work.' And more generally, they're just like, 'well, all right, how can this benefit me?' So the company has an incredible number of vice presidents and four of them in particular decided that they really feel like this kinds of delivery initiative is their area. So I have no idea of exactly how they manage to do this but they constituted themselves as a working group on the science of delivery which was a total hassle because what we really want to do is kind of be nimble and start generating projects and what they want to do is own stuff plus they're temporary because they didn't have the capacity to constitute themselves as the permanent science of delivery group so they're like an exploratory science of delivery group. Anyway, whatever, so this Kevin, I think he used somewhat poor judgment in selecting the place where this initiative was going to be situated. He chose somebody who frankly I don't think is very creative but he chose them and so all along we, meaning I and Jack, have been working with them and they were completely they had been completely bottled up for the last two months because it wasn't clear how this working group was going to get together, what they were going to do, how they were going to structure themselves. Finally they structure themselves into like three groups. So the group of I and Jack and this 26-year old kid are ex officio for the president's office on this group and we had a discussion on Monday and it was kind of an interesting discussion. I felt kind of stimulated so, actually as I was on the phone I wrote a one page summary of kind of what a vision statement might (unclear) initiative and I sent it around, got really excited. Yeah, cool. Let's start the discussion of the first thing to do is draft a somewhat longer piece. Anyway, Steve correctly saw that if he wanted to insinuate -

THERAPIST: The 26-year old.

CLIENT: if he wanted to insinuate himself into this thing in a substantive way, kind of make a place to hang his hat, then he had to be in charge of the two pager and I don't want to be in charge of the two pager, getting comments from people and just wanting to (unclear) and all that crap, but you know, whatever. I'm a fairly high level contributor and I'm involved in and so like I sent this thing around and I sent it to [Ben] ph) [00:06:46] and I said, you know, 'listen, I wrote this up and I'll trust you to kind of orchestrate the interaction with this group.' I'm not being (cross talk) -

THERAPIST: [Ben] (ph)?

CLIENT: Sorry, [Ben] (ph) is the person I don't think very much of but who's kind of not only in charge of the whole thing or has been and so he did, he sent it to the person who is coordinating the group and she said, 'great, that's great. Let's start with this.' And then Steve got kind of freaked out and said, 'oh, yeah,' so he sent this stupid series of e-mails around where he's like, 'oh, you know, Galen's contribution is great but really we need to be answering these questions and that should feed into the question that I'm asking here,' in this very kind of stupid, annoying way and I felt kind of annoyed so when I came on Thursday I made a point to kind of own it for reasons that don't really make sense, like the response that would have been easiest would have been just to say, 'okay, fucking Steve, I don't give a shit. This is stupid.' But I got really mad, and I got really mad in a way that was interesting because it was really destructive to me. In other words, you know, I was pissed off about this and I was pissed off about him being so frankly disrespectful in a way that I don't know, it was kind of infantilizing. I responded I sensed that I was angry and I also sensed that this whole thing was kind of stupid. I mean it made responding in a more powerful way kind of it was disempowering, I guess.

You know, so I continued to remain engaged and I continued to be pissed off and I continued to kind of hold this thing and Steve got kind of more and more freaked out like I'm not going to have an opportunity to insert myself in this way at this critical moment and like I don't need to insert myself. Like I don't need this. Putting it mildly, you know, in fact being in charge of this two pager would have been a little bit inappropriate.

Anyway, to make a long story short, finally so I kept owning it and I kept responding to Steve in ways that made him more freaked out because it seemed as if I was just going to block him the whole time and I kind of was. You know, I wasn't totally conscious of doing it but there was some level at which, like I was consciously pursuing strategies that were tending to block him like, you know he asked me to send a direct he asked me in this completely stupid, like scheming way, 'why don't you just send it around,' you know so that he could swoop in and take it and then send it out himself. And I'm like, 'no, no, no, no,' and I printed it out, 'give me your comments on hard copy,' and so on and so forth. So finally in the end I didn't do this consciously, but at some level I must have just said, 'fuck it.' You know, this is so stupid and so like I was leaving and it was the thing to do was send it around to the group, the thing that had to be done in the end after like I had basically written the thing even throughout the course of this time partly because I insisted on owning it and partly because you know that kind of thing, you know.

And so in the end I had to leave, I had to go to the plane and so I just said to Steve, 'man, I don't give a shit,' and not directly speaking about this whole scheming enterprise that he constructed for himself but I just said, 'whatever, just take it.' And went home and he said exactly what the draft that I had produced, he sent it around exactly as I had expected that he would and I sent the comments that were necessary on the draft which was really not complete because I had to leave and you know, some people started commenting on that draft. At the end of this round of drafts I sent around some comments that were necessary to make it into something useful. I just sent it around to them and of course Steve took (unclear) whatever. At some level that's fine. At another level I'm like somewhere in between being kind of disordered by the fact that I was so pissed off about this and you know, really feeling it wasn't that I was played, because if I knew what was going on and to a certain point I was kind of responding to it in a way that would forestall it, and yet I'm having difficulty articulating it exactly. Like these power games are so obnoxious to me and yet I have to play them. So that's one thing. So like to the extent that there's you know, I'm angry at this mulishness and stupidity of this kid. But why am I don't understand quite why I'm angry at the kid. He's just a kid. He's like doing his thing, he's living in shared housing near Penn Station in a bedroom the size of a closet, you know what I mean? Like, why the hell not throw something?

And yet I was angry. I was angry enough to really A., make me feel extremely uncomfortable, basically; B., to kind of interfere with my rational processes; C., enough to behave in some unconscious behavior that was strategically fairly effective (laughs) at some level but at another level just not under my conscious control. So I guess those three things were interesting. But you know, it was very clear, yet thinking consciously at the time if I'm not mistaken, just that it was anger, that I was angry and because I was angry these three things happened: physical discomfort, a sense of kind of disempowerment and I guess being out of control out of controlness, maybe is the best way of describing it, three kind of shift into the unconscious or a delegation may be better of kind of like executive function to the unconscious which is interesting in and of itself. And it continued. Like this sense of anger continued all weekend. Like I was angry all weekend and yet, I don't know, I had an you know I had an interest in these things being good. I want them to be good so like, and my contributions I make are fairly instrumental in that regard because there aren't that many good writers in this group so, plus you know, like I inserted very cleverly, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't toot my own horn, but like a project that I want to do that nobody's been talking about. I inserted it into the draft that I sent him and of course he took it verbatim and now it's there and I think it's going to survive. So, I don't know.

So, you know, it's good, it's good, it's good like to continue to remain engaged is like good politics and yet you know, just for my own -

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: selfish and silly point of view, but it's painful at some level. I continue to re-engage even though I've ceded this thing to somebody who really behaved badly in my view. Like he didn't deserve it. He behaved like an asshole, not like a colleague, but like an asshole. So there's something about continuing to serve his interests that makes me angry and that anger is painful.

(Pause): [00:15:42 00:16:21]

THERAPIST: Well, I you reacted I think as though he did pose a threat.

CLIENT: Yes. That is the curious thing.

THERAPIST: I think I know in a way why you would (unclear) [00:17:06] you know, so curious to me in that we know you can be very vigilant and sensitive to and worried and sometimes reactive when you feel like your place is in jeopardy even if like, okay maybe this is the way to say it you almost always feel like your place is in jeopardy.

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Regardless of the reality in some settings.

CLIENT: Did I say "curious?" Maybe I'm using it in a nonstandard way. I don't mean surprising. (Both laugh).

THERAPIST: All right.

CLIENT: I'm being fairly rational. I'm being there on the face of it, it doesn't make sense and yet in fact. (Laughs).

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Laughs) CLIENT: (Unintelligible) [00:18:09]

THERAPIST: So, I noticed that like your place is kind of threatened and here's somebody who it sounds like doesn't really pose a threat.

CLIENT: He's a kid.

THERAPIST: But, you know, pushes your buttons because that's always something you're really worried about (cross talk).

CLIENT: No. I mean I mean, I don't know. It just strikes me as one of those Midwestern jocks, I don't know. He pushes. He annoys me. Like his behavior whatever. He's like as a kid he doesn't annoy me, but in practice he annoys me. In other words, you know things that are familiar, it like in communication he's a little sententious. Whatever. That, that kind of -

THERAPIST: (Unintelligible) [00:19:04]

CLIENT: He just, he you know how students over write.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: He over writes.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: In communications. This is just one kind of affective of his kidness. And that's a real, a really common, if you communicate with students like undergraduates ever, that's smart kids, kids who have had very good schooling, the first thing that's hard for them to do is to find some happy medium between formal and informal speech, right? And that's communications what written (unclear) is. Anyway, that kind of thing, whatever. Like I notice it and whatever. I sort of remark on it consciously. But that doesn't the kidness doesn't annoy me, but this these power games annoy me and yet they're just kidness, you know, I mean it's like, I don't know, he's making his way in the world. He feels

(Pause): [00:20:12 00:20:19]

CLIENT: Everybody else is older than him so he probably feels a little isolated in this environment. He's coming from a government office, so likely you know, that's probably a much more cutthroat place then this needs to be. And he's living in shared housing, whatever. He needs to make a name for himself and like as I talk about it and think about objectively afterwards I can see where he's coming from. But it really, I really object to it. Somehow I feel it feels objectionable.

THERAPIST: (Unclear) (Pause) are pretty quick to excuse it. I mean there must be smart, ambitious 26-year olds in New York, who aren't assholes.

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, I'm with you. I don't know if I'm quick to excuse it. I guess I'm trying to be interested. Like my I said this to Jack, I think shortly after I came on, I'm like, 'yeah, a lot of this stuff is horrible, like gross, but you just got to be interested.' And I'm trying to be interested, trying to kind of understand this stuff analytically and not hate distance myself through excessive judgment in a way that, A., makes it more difficult to respond; and, B., prevents me from coming to some kind of insight about it. But in this particular case I find it pretty [lame] (ph) [00:22:07] making those two operations difficult. But more to the point, you know, for whatever reason, the way that I judged made it more difficult for me and like made an interaction that ought to have been fairly trivial, a series of interactions that ought to have been fairly trivial but so I guess in thinking about it I had a strategic problem, you know, because it's not clear, like at some level I want to punish this behavior, or at least make this individual less prone to engage in it where I'm concerned. I want a shot across his bow. And I think I gave him one actually, or at least he interpreted my you know, because he's a little bit stupid this way, he interpreted my behavior as a shot across his bow, I think, or something, you know, because he's been a little bit less than an asshole. But I want to punish it. I want there to be a consequence for this kind of bullshit behavior. And I feel a little bit of regret that I didn't at some level, stupidly really, because it would have been a lot of work that I don't really want to spend my time doing to shepherd this two page blurb through. But at some level I feel regret that I didn't actually block him and freeze him out of this. That he was able to get what he wanted which feels stupid on many different levels and yet it's a very strong impulse. I think about this and it's a very strong sensation that it's really too bad that I kind of let him win. Now, I let him win in a way that made very clear to him, again this was instinctive, it wasn't like -

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I thought this through. I would have liked to have thought this through but in a way that made it clear that I could have taken it but in fact I was giving it to him. So there's that. But I don't know, I even as I talk about it I feel an inarticulateness that comes when something's not quite resolved. I'd like to think that I had some equanimity and distance at a kind of analytically remove (unintelligible) with him. [00:24:53]

THERAPIST: Right.

(Pause): [00:24:54 00:25:05]

THERAPIST: I think it's pretty uncomfortable for you to inhabit your own and also in here with me the more sort of angry, instinctive, reactive -

CLIENT: Those are some points. Really painful. Like physically painful.

THERAPIST: And I think you're embarrassed about that. CLIENT: Yeah. Shamed.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But I think you are probably worried that I'm going to judge that critically or that -

CLIENT: I don't. I mean I feel ashamed.

THERAPIST: Maybe it's more like I seem calm so if you're that way you'll feel more ashamed or something like that.

CLIENT: No, it's just really memory of being ashamed like there was this moment where you know I was making the two of them, Jack and this kid sit down and read this thing in hard copy and I knew that it was, like I felt, I was really feeling intensely uncomfortable at that moment like I kind of didn't know how to orchestrate it. Like the anger was just kind of disorienting and -

THERAPIST: Your kind of [angled overhead] (ph). [00:26:37]

CLIENT: and deranging, yeah it was kind of [Jeffreying] (ph) and that [Jeffreyage] (ph) lasted for about 15 minutes and I went to talk to Jack afterwards and I said something like, 'I'm sorry, you know Steve was just getting under my skin,' and I don't know, I mean, whatever. It was fine. So we had a conversation after that but, I felt intensely uncomfortable physically. I felt I like the word "deranged," it's kind of nice, archaic but very descriptive feel to it. I felt kind of deranged meaning, disrupted. [Ability] (ph) [00:27:17] is not meaning "psychotic," but -

THERAPIST: No, I understand.

CLIENT: You understand what I'm saying.

THERAPIST: I mean in a way there it is, there, I think. I get what you mean and I can see how it's like a well suited word but you're sort of on one side having fun with the language and the well suitedness and again I get that, but at the same time in a way that I think is distancing you a bit from the derangement you're referring to.

(Pause): [00:27:49 -[00:28:04]

CLIENT: I don't know, I feel, it kind of is like a movie I guess, in the way that I'm seeing it now. I'm not there.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: At the moment but the fact that we're doing a post-game analysis here if that's the case, it was very upsetting. I was feeling very uncomfortable. I don't know what else to say about that. And then as I was leaving Steve, he kept on saying, 'can I send it out?' at one point or, 'can you send me more,' in a more scheming way, you know, 'can you send me the file?' And, again, finally, whatever, my flight leaves at 7:30 and it's like 6:35 and I said, 'fuck it. Whatever. I don't really give a shit.' And at that moment I felt a lot better I guess. You know, it was like giving that up felt good and yet as I thought about it afterwards it made me feel discomfort and nervous and uncomfortable. And this lasted until like last night I got home and Steve had no, he hadn't written a message. I got home and he was sitting all night and interacted with people about it there, about the draft, basically about the draft that I'd sent there and you know, hadn't yet written. And just I guess because the conversations were not complete you know, fortunately I've kind of progressed in my process of whatever, enlightenment is definitely not the right word, but like I have enough a layer of kind of subconsciousness or observation or what have you, to like I can rein these back whereas once upon a time I had actually a sense of the message, but like playing with the message to Steve saying, 'listen, this whole thing, this whole power game that you're engaging in is stupid. It's a lot easier to be collegial. Why don't you just stop competing.'

THERAPIST: (Laughs).

CLIENT: You know, which would have been useless and just kind of silly. But I'm playing with it and I finally get this message from him, this message from him came in saying, 'you know, Galen and Jack, you know, can you engage with this process now?' At which point I felt a lot better. I mean this message was unnecessary as if what was really necessary was that I was not included. And that was kind of interesting. Like my objection was not to his my conscious understanding of what was upsetting me and what I felt was so objectionable was his stupid junior varsity football attitude toward this whole thing. But in fact what was upsetting to me was that I wasn't included.

THERAPIST: Yeah. That seems like you're onto something there.

CLIENT: Yeah, okay, thanks.

THERAPIST: (Laughs) Yeah.

(Pause): [00:31:26] [00:31:30]

THERAPIST: And maybe that's also like under the shame you're focused a lot on kind of how young he was and how immature and so forth -

CLIENT: Really.

THERAPIST: the stickier point is CLIENT: that the phenomenal.

THERAPIST: Yeah is the way you felt you reacted that was (cross talk) (unclear)? [00:31:50]

CLIENT: Because he has an official position. He's there full time. They just hired him to do this stuff.

(Pause): [00:32:00 00:32:08]

CLIENT: Now if I were in New York they would hire me in the same, you know not the same capacity but in a permanent capacity. They can (unclear). I'm going to talk to the boss about it, the temp (unclear). [00:32:17]

THERAPIST: Is it getting closer to the three months?

CLIENT: The three months are up. I have a new contract.

THERAPIST: Oh good.

CLIENT: Through June.

THERAPIST: Oh good. Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:32:17 00:33:04]

CLIENT: I mean, all right, so this is clearly like a, an at least an evocative observation, it not a true one, but there's another piece to this which is that when I feel deranged in this way my thinking becomes extremely schematic so that, I mean there's a paranoia there, or maybe that label isn't helpful but like there's, I see things very schematically, like and I don't quite know how to describe it but there's stories become very I'm trying to think of an example that will tease out I'm chewing on it. So like I had a fantasy and the fantasy was that as part of my evaluation they, I guess Kevin, Luke Masterson the communications advisor and Jack had decided to see whether I really want to play power games and the point of evaluation would be whether I would block Steve. You know so I told myself this story like it was important to block Steve not because it was, you know, I needed this thing or wanted this thing, but because they were evaluating how much I really wanted to go ahead and play the game. This was something that I had spoken about with Kevin years ago and he'd said, 'yeah, you know we really enjoy the game, you know.' And I said, 'why do you enjoy the game?' Like, whatever, the game is stupid. And I don't know how seriously he took that conversation or whether he remembered it but it was kind of evocative in this long, running sort of dance between us about whether I really wanted to do something in partnership with each other because he was like playing the game is something that is important to him and if I was just dismissing it kind of like why was I there? If I was dismissing this key aspect of operating in this environment. So, you know, so like one of the things is definitely going on in this place is -

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Kevin's attempt to figure out whether, you know, I really want to be there working with him or not and if I do then he'll support me and if I don't then he won't.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

(Pause): [00:36:13 00:36:22]

CLIENT: So I had this fantasy -

THERAPIST: Right.

(Pause): [00:36:23 00:36:45]

CLIENT: And it feels like you're in a train of thought I can see and I don't want to interrupt you.

(Pause): [00:36:49 00:36:57]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I feel like I sort of have a piece of it but what's the other piece? I feel like in part I think the fantasy helps to manage the shame in that you don't feel like you're being reactive or sort of pulled down a few levels to be bothered by Steve and the sort of threat to your position, but clearly there's more to it than just that and there's something about what it means to you to play the game or not in your relationship with Kevin.

CLIENT: I mean one of the things that happened on this trip further relevant detail like my thinking about all of this stuff is probably significantly impacted by is that we finally had a long conversation just in passing. It was funny, you know, I -

THERAPIST: You and Kevin. CLIENT: I had gone to this all of these lengths to schedule time with him back and forth with his executive secretary looking to schedule and then they had a retreat on Friday morning and I was sitting alone in the open space office and there he was and we just sat and chatted for half an hour or something. And in a very, in a way that made clear that he'd kind of gotten the sense that I was willing to, interested in doing all this stuff and really was engaging again after being quite cautious most of the time that I'd been there. And as a result of that conversation he started involving me. So, I don' know, that made a difference. Are we we're ready to go. Okay. Friday.

THERAPIST: See you on Friday.

CLIENT: See you then.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Take care.

THERAPIST: Thank you.

CLIENT: Bye-bye.

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