TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: All right, so I got through it. And it went OK. It was... let's see. (pause) [0:01:00] I think what happened to reconstructed it was that I was very upset up till Tuesday at some point I was leaving on Wednesday up till Monday or Tuesday. And then finally I wrote Jack (ph) and I just said something in between kind of very transparent and matter of fact. That I was feeling... I'm trying to remember how I put it. It wasn't too bad. But he knew what was going on. He's known me for a long time. And he wrote back immediately with a very nice message. And that was it. [0:02:00] Classic. Saying it was fine. Not to worry about it. And after that, it was fine.

THERAPIST: After that, you felt fine?

CLIENT: After that, I felt fine. I had an... I was conducting an interview shortly after that. And I mean, I think I was off. In other words, there was just... it was just so much affect. That was the sense that I got. (sigh) (pause) There was such relief or release. [0:03:01] I do my best. It was fine. It was fine. I mean, it wasn't. I think it was just... it was just a little... I mean, I suspect it was just a little odd. At any rate, I could see that pretty quickly and I didn't worry about it. Not a big deal. (pause)

So I went and I mean it was productive. And then one of the reasons that I'd gone over there was to meet with Kevin (ph). And his wife got into a car accident and we ended up having four minutes instead of much longer.

THERAPIST: Is she OK?

CLIENT: Yes, she's fine. But the car was... I mean, it was pretty badly damaged. [0:04:00] Yea, she was fine. (pause) So we had to reschedule for another two weeks. And then Jennie (ph) came on Friday and we ended up having a very, very nice weekend together. And saw my father's first cousin who has been... we've been pretty close to. I wouldn't say close but very in close touch with. (pause) Though when we saw him and his wife at their house, I was feeling kind of anxious about work and he used to be a senior guy at the a large company. So we talked about that a lot and that was a bit uncomfortable. [0:05:01] Not uncomfortable in any objective sense but I felt a little unresolved about it. (pause) We just had a very nice weekend together and then I... I'm telling this kind of paratactically.

THERAPIST: What does that mean?

CLIENT: There's this happened and then that happened and then the other thing happened.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: In the way they tell things in the Bible. Then the other thing happened and the next thing happened. Kids talk like this.

THERAPIST: You guys are getting ready to get somebody (inaudible at 0:05:52).

CLIENT: I guess so. (inaudible at 0:05:54). So yea, Tim (ph) and his kids are in town. And I ended up just paying for their hotel which was fine.

THERAPIST: Wait, Tim (ph)...

CLIENT: My friend. I'm sorry. My old childhood friend...

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: ...Tim (ph), was in town and his wife and three kids. So they stayed on the same floor as us at this hotel in New York. (pause) I mean, I came back with nothing any more resolve in any objective sense than when I'd gone. In fact perhaps even less resolved. But I had lots of nice interactions with people and productive ones. And I was able to navigate and make some contacts. So I think on the whole it was good. It was a fine visit. I felt OK doing these navigations and confident to do them and et cetera. [0:07:06] (pause)

I don't know. I think I said in the last we spoke that was kind of the moment in which I would typically bail. I guess this is the other side of that. What happens when you don't it's nothing really. In other words, there was no I don't know it's just kind of just fear itself, I guess. (pause) [0:08:00]

Not quite. I mean, there's the objective situation which is that I don't have a reliable workplace. And I'm kind of struggling or hard pressed to decipher the code of how people who are fairly accomplished and reasonably smart how they go about finding and/or making such a workplace. [0:09:03] I mean, that's a structural issue that I think is part of what our project here is that I'm still a little mystified by, I think. But the immediate kind of sense of crisis...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...which at some level is a response to that problem. Immediate sense of crisis has passed. So I'm kind of in a better position, I guess, to tackle this mountain once again. But that doesn't mean that I really climbed the mountain.

THERAPIST: Sure. (pause) [0:10:01] (pause for two minutes) What else is coming to mind?

CLIENT: (sigh) [0:13:00] (pause) I guess I was thinking about... I mean, whenever you tell something paratactically, everything is a non sequitur in some sense. I mean, in some sense there's a logic to it and it makes perfect sense. But the things that you emphasis are significant in one way. And I was thinking about telling the story of the last few days and emphasizing that I paid for Tim's (ph) hotel room. And it kind of jumped out at me as a detail that one would not necessarily have had to add. [0:14:08]

So I thought maybe it was significant. I mean, I've been paying a lot of bills at our household even though Jennie (ph) is now earning a normal salary. And I set up a joint checking account. Returned my old checking account into which my paychecks from the government are still deposited into a joint checking account which hasn't yet kicked in.

And there's a bit of a collective action problem, I think, on that front partly because I don't like pressing it with Tim's (ph) hotel room. I mean, he's a teacher and they're living on one salary the five of them. [0:15:02] So I mean, he couldn't have afforded this fancy hotel in New York What I had told him originally was that it was 139 bucks via the company rate when in fact it was 239 bucks via the company rate intending to take 100 of it. But then I paid it and it was kind of awkward to...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: ...bring it up. And the truth is at least in the current state of cash flow I can take it. He can't. So I don't know. (pause) I guess I feel a little bit challenged in the way that I feel challenged to just find a workplace for myself. [0:16:09] And I think that's really kind of the heart of it is workplace as much as anything else.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: I also feel challenged, kind of, I guess asserting this thing about money. Since my cash flow has been OK, I've been very sort of top the bills but not in a regular way. Not like every Saturday...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: ...I did bills. But rather just kind of monitoring.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Sort of constantly monitoring all of the things that, had I done them before, my credit rating would have been excellent. We wouldn't have had this complexity with our billing and so on and so forth. I mean, some of that is having funds as opposed to not having funds, I guess, but not all of it. Ultimately I had... I often had the funds even when I just...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...let it slide.

THERAPIST: You kind of (inaudible at 0:17:32). Yea.

CLIENT: So some part of that has to do with relationships with people. And interacting with people that I'm close to or intimate with Tim (ph)...

THERAPIST: Jennie (ph) [0:17:54]

CLIENT: ...on one hand and Jennie (ph) and the other. Within the rubric of those terms is troubling to me enough that even when I feel as if there needs to be some resolution to something, I have a hard time pressing it or framing it or engaging it when the truth is that either of them would probably be fine.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: This scenario that seems troubling to me. So there's some kind of parallelism between having difficulty looking for a job and...

THERAPIST: Yea, that's kind of, I guess, a similar worry about your place with them.

CLIENT: Something of that sort.

THERAPIST: But in another way, you sort of know better that one level, it feels shaky.

CLIENT: And I guess there's the third parallelism or maybe it's part of the first of worrying about our relationship with people at the place where I'm at... I'm working now to the point where I really make myself sick. [0:19:14] I'm not sleeping enough. Everything that was going on last week...

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: ...it was about that worry. So anyway, I'm not sure how useful it is to spin off parallelisms but certainly those two.

THERAPIST: Right. (pause) [0:20:00] And there's the sense that comes up here that was really evident in our last conversation where in the throes of feeling what you were. (pause) [0:21:00] Something happens between you and I where you're not getting help with what you're in the throes of. (pause)

CLIENT: (sigh) How do you mean? [0:22:00] What's the relationship? Relationship that is in all of these circumstances, I need something. I have a need and it's not being fulfilled at least immediately by the other unless they do unless I request it. I mean, the interaction with Jack (ph) that kind of brought it first to a close was one in which, in the end, I just said, "I need reassurance," essentially.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And he said, "Sure."

THERAPIST: There you go. Yea.

CLIENT: Now the structural phenomenon didn't change. The underlying issue of my...

THERAPIST: Right. He didn't. Right. Whatever he needed to write or...

CLIENT: No. I mean, the structural issue that I see was more along the lines of I don't really have a place. [0:23:05] And...

THERAPIST: I see. He didn't say, "Oh, OK. Here's a ten year contract."

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, nothing really changed in any substantive sense. Although I had the feeling that it was possible for me to do that. Although in many ways this resolution is not very suitable since they're in New York and I'm here. But... so I think that the meaning of in this framework of Jack's (ph) reassurance was, "Well, it's not over. The possibility is not foreclosed. It's not going to be impossible to at least get some recommendation for yourself from this source. You haven't burned bridges by performing in a substandard way." Which is kind of the cognitive companion of the state of feeling that I was in the midst of. [0:24:03] I... so I was able to get some reassurance on that from him. But on the other hand, the substantive structural phenomenon didn't change. I didn't suddenly have a job. It wasn't like I was being offered something...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: ...really substantial. So I mean, I guess that was... that request that I made of Minerva (ph) like was somewhat parallel to the request that I was making of you which was to feel better that you did not give me in that sense. (pause) I mean, you weren't able to give it to me.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: It was not...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I was asking for something. [0:24:59] Something I didn't really...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I wasn't really able to characterize it very well. And you weren't able to give it to me. And I think that's the way I understand what... your formulation just now.

THERAPIST: Yea. That's sort of one possibility. I mean, I don't have the impression that you were feeling about... I'm not sure though. It didn't seem to me like you were feeling unsure of your place with me. More like I wasn't helping with the thing that you were really struggling with and worried about.

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, it's an interesting... optimally the relational aspects of this exchange. [0:26:03]

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: It wouldn't be the same. I mean, I think it's not so much my relation to you that I worry about.

THERAPIST: Yea. (inaudible at 0:26:15).

CLIENT: It's more my relation to the world.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: Am I able to... what is this status of my interaction with the world? And that continued to be troubling.

THERAPIST: Right, yea. I think it's...

CLIENT: And that's what was troubling. It wasn't...

THERAPIST: Yea. I don't think there's a simple parallel where it's sort of like (inaudible at 0:26:30)...

CLIENT: I mean the way that our relationship functions is just different. It's kind of a proxy for this question of how to be in the world in general. And I'm not sure that the dynamics are the same in our interpersonal relationship as they are in these other two personal relationships, I guess. Is that... does that makes sense? [0:27:00]

THERAPIST: Yea. I think...

CLIENT: There's a pity inside that, I suppose, but... yea.

THERAPIST: Right. I think... (pause) yea, I think sometimes there are... sort of it's a three party system in a way in that like there's the one you feel on shaky ground with and then someone else that you're looking for help with that from or reassurance about that from. [0:28:08] And sometimes it's the same person but sometimes it's a different person. But it seems to be that there is sometimes another person involved in that way.

CLIENT: Yea. OK.

THERAPIST: And I'm not sure if it's right... this is right. But I'm wondering with Jennie (ph) with work and kind of the same with the money. [0:29:03] I wonder if the third party is the money. Like...

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, no. I don't... I mean that doesn't ring true for me. I think it's... what's clearly what's difficult is that in... clearly, it seems evident to me that there's some element of the following. Just as there's some feeling of being an immigrant in this bourgeois reality in which job and work and all these things are not collectivized. [0:30:00] I feel alien in a world in which you don't just sort of completely eschew monetization or any inter-monetization (ph) in relationships with people that you're intimate with.

THERAPIST: I see. Whether it's sort of one big joint account...

CLIENT: Yea, yea.

THERAPIST: ...or (inaudible at 0:30:22).

CLIENT: I mean it's clear to me that there's some element. Whatever other things can be going on here, it seems fairly evident to me that there's some aspect of being an immigrant. I mean, there's kind of the immigrant experience of being or an anthropologist or... I mean, just like being an alien. There's some cultural aspect that is learned and not quite...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: ...comfortable and...

THERAPIST: Like there are these strange rituals...

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: ...in this culture around having your own checking account.

CLIENT: Something like that. [0:31:01]

THERAPIST: And you're transacting with people and your money.

CLIENT: Yea, yea. There's something... I mean, I think it's convenient. And I think that understanding is... has allowed... it's not like very... something that I'm proud of or that I think if I...

THERAPIST: Yea, yea. You're saying it feels weird.

CLIENT: It feels weird. Well, it feels weirder. Or at least it feels weird enough that, by default, I tend in that direction or have allowed myself to tend in that direction. Even though, in fact, I am the kind of same cultural, social reality as everybody else.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And so I've gotten this far without really resolving this issue. I just been gravitated toward institutions that I don't understand and whose rules and parameters and rubrics I've sort of ignored in any way. [0:32:01] Anyway, so I think there's some of that going on with the money. I don't see the money as a third party. (pause) It's meaning for me... as I understand it at least. It's more complex than I'm understanding. So I understand it at least it's meaning for me is the system. It's not individual within the system. (pause)

THERAPIST: And are you saying that the kind of unfamiliarity and anxiety of working in that sort of like strange, capitalist culture is a little like the strangeness of finding a place professionally? [0:33:10]

CLIENT: Yea. It is the strange... I mean, it is the thing itself. It is the thing itself. (pause) And again, I mean I think it's convenient. It's like a story. It's a narrative that has shaped itself over and all kinds of complicated anxieties and avoidances and things of that nature. But at least the way that it sort of intuitively makes sense to me is as this insufficiency or lack of skill or inability to kind of find a workplace for myself. [0:34:08] And to navigate money in this particular way. And somehow the way in which I characterize it in my mind like its role in my thought world is closely related to this sense of it not being appropriate to behaving this way with people.

THERAPIST: Yea. Like as though you were living on some like an old school farm or something. And you had an indelible marker and tags. And you went around putting your name on all this stuff that was yours. And being very kind of...

CLIENT: I've told you this story about the... my grandmother and the underwear, haven't I? They had a collective underwear drawer. And my grandmother arrived in her typical passive aggressive way started cleaning and distributed the underwear I guess at random, more or less to different people in their living space because she just couldn't handle that. [0:35:16] And this is a story that was told a lot. (pause)

THERAPIST: Right. So when you are getting ready to talk to Jennie (ph) about a checking account or Tim (ph) about the bill or sort of doing something to assert your place at work, it feels like distributing the underwear.

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: Is it getting sunny over there?

CLIENT: No. [0:36:00] (pause)

THERAPIST: And that's something that you feel very anxious, ambivalent and maybe guilty about?

CLIENT: Yea. (pause) I mean, there are practical issues. I need to have a reliable job when we have a child.

THERAPIST: Sure. (pause) Well, the reality of the system that you're living in is that it is the one you really have this trouble with. [0:37:05] And it's not... you're not in a situation where you can just go down to the bank and say, "Hey, you know what? My job fell through. I need you to give me some money so I can buy some stuff." I mean, like...

CLIENT: Oh yea? Oh, OK. Very well (inaudible at 0:37:20). (pause)

THERAPIST: So I guess that's the foreignness is because you, in a way, don't really believe you should be or that it is quite OK to be living in sort of a capitalist...

CLIENT: Well, anyway. That's the fallback. I don't really believe this obviously.

THERAPIST: You know what? I know you're not...

CLIENT: And I don't even really... it's not only that I don't believe in it. [0:38:02] It's that I don't even really give much credence to it. It's just that intuitively I'm not sure it makes sense to me. And just at some kind of deep level that... like the guiding assumptions of many people or most people in... confronted with this social and cultural reality is that it makes sense. And at some level, while I'm trying to operate within it, it doesn't quite make sense to me.

THERAPIST: Right. I mean, I guess I needed to give this to you because the things you sort of get so frustrated and so anxious about not being able to do are precisely the things that are at odds with this. In other words, I mean, even the sort of relatively minor ones you're talking about today are to do with Tim (ph) and Jennie (ph) and money. [0:39:01] And that... but I guess a part of what happens with writing her work or maybe even with the Tim (ph) the pissant (ph)... did I get his name right? The 26 year old who...

CLIENT: Oh, Steve (ph).

THERAPIST: Steve (ph). All right.

CLIENT: He's fine. I mean, yea.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:39:29) guy. I'm just...

CLIENT: Yea, yea.

THERAPIST: Steve (ph), sorry. Well, I guess I did sort of... it makes it very clear why somebody like him could drive you nuts in that he's very much a creature of the other culture.

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: And I guess because of that sort of forces you to partake in the rituals of that culture in a way. [0:40:07] I mean, like his competitiveness and his ambition sort of put you in a corner at work. Or I don't mean like they put you in a position where you have to respond...

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: ...like that.

CLIENT: Yea.

THERAPIST: I mean, if you share with somebody like that, they'll just take everything.

CLIENT: Yea. (pause)

THERAPIST: And that is really uncomfortable for you.

CLIENT: Yea. (pause)

THERAPIST: And I imagine this is connected with the issue of people leaving or threatening to leave which is one of the things that really shakes you up. [0:41:25] In that... (pause) I mean, that also seems contrary to this sort of collective culture that you can say, "Well, I'm going to take off now because it's better for me." [0:42:00] Not quite right. There's some... I imagine this is in some way very much tied in with what happens when somebody when a Robert (ph) or a Jack (ph) it may seem (inaudible at 0:42:30) to me but it might be...

CLIENT: So I...

THERAPIST: Yea?

CLIENT: I lost the thread of the narrative here. You're saying that the disconnection from the kind of cultural... social and cultural setting in the sense of disconnection from the culture and the social and cultural setting is related in some sense to the sense of disconnection from individuals. [0:42:58] In other words, that the real significant distress that I feel in relationships were either just because I feel disconnected. Or because there's some factor with the other person flakiness or whatever it might be that actually does imply some disconnection that's stimulating it. There's some relationship between...

THERAPIST: Something like that. Like maybe...

CLIENT: Like the cultural phenomenon.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Or social phenomenon and the more interpersonal feelings.

THERAPIST: Yea. I mean, maybe sort of Steve (ph) being the way he was. Maybe the connection between sort of how it makes you feel when Steve (ph) is the way he is with the... and Jack (ph) leaving is that both make you feel like you're really not in it together. I mean, I know you bear out. I've not heard... it's not like you bear out any ill will at all. I don't mean that.

CLIENT: Oh God, I definitely hope so. [0:44:02]

THERAPIST: Yea. But still...

CLIENT: He's left me.

THERAPIST: Yea. And so even if he's not a factor in any way, there's still not the feeling of being in it together for the long haul.

CLIENT: (sigh)

THERAPIST: And I guess I wonder if that's kind of the same issue from a different angle as like maybe Steve (ph) is not going anywhere. I mean...

CLIENT: Yea. I mean, one of the things that I...

THERAPIST: ...(inaudible at 0:44:30). Yea.

CLIENT: One of the things I discovered...

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: ...on this trip is that Steve (ph) is not really the issue. The issue is that this other group that we've been working with this other department that we've been working with has been kind of playing us off against each other.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: Sort of using Steve (ph) who's young and can kind of be... and ambitious...

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And can kind of be fed things...

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: ...in order to avoid having to interact basically with me...

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: ...is my read on this situation. [0:45:06] So this stuff is not really about Steve (ph) at all in any proximal sense.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: I mean the interpersonal aspect of my... I guess what I'm trying to say is the interpersonal aspect of my interaction with Steve (ph) I'm realizing is really secondary to kind of my interaction with the institution as a whole.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: We're coming to the end. You know that?

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: You have that sense of that? All right. OK, so...

THERAPIST: Friday at 11:00.

CLIENT: Friday, 11:00. And what I would like to talk about just for practical reasons is just the process of looking per Jennie's (ph) wishes at a job. I mean, I'd like us if we can... I mean, I know you don't say this but...

THERAPIST: You mean like applying for jobs?

CLIENT: Yea. I know I don't say this very often. I kind of set a very clear agenda. This is a bit unusual. [0:46:00] But I feel challenged by this.

THERAPIST: I guess I imagine that's hard for you to bring up.

CLIENT: It is.

THERAPIST: And so you're kind of asking for some help with that.

CLIENT: Yea, yea.

THERAPIST: OK, sure.

CLIENT: Anyway.

THERAPIST: Yea.

CLIENT: See you then.

THERAPIST: I'll see you then.

CLIENT: Bye-bye.

THERAPIST: Good bye.

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