TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: And also-I will make sure this doesn't happen again-another one of your... I accidentally submitted...

CLIENT: Another one of my claims.

THERAPIST: Another one of your claims. I have a check that I can sign over to you. It's probably the easiest thing. They'll deny for that one, but, I mean, there won't be any other repercussions or...

CLIENT: Right. (Pause) So...

THERAPIST: And I'll take your insurance information out of my system to make sure that doesn't happen.

CLIENT: Sure. (Pause)

THERAPIST: And then also, just to make sure I've got it right, you're gone for July.

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:00:57]

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: The fifth to the... through the end of July. The fifth to the end of July.

THERAPIST: Okay. So will we meet on the third then?

CLIENT: We will meet on the...

THERAPIST: I think that's a Wednesday.

CLIENT: Third of August.

THERAPIST: Of July?

CLIENT: Oh, of July. We'll meet, yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay. All right. So we're on next week. We're on the third. And then you're gone for the end of that month.

CLIENT: Right.

THERAPIST: Okay. (Pause) Good morning.

CLIENT: Good morning. (Pause) So it was a terrible trip in all senses, both in the outcome and in the process.

THERAPIST: [I don't know that I'm quite with you] (ph).

CLIENT: I was unable to sleep the whole trip.

THERAPIST: Oh my gosh.

CLIENT: I got, like, two hours sleep every day. Just a combination of jetlag and whatever it is that's interfering with my sleep was completely prohibitive. [0:01:58] I slept on the plane, and then I got home Wednesday afternoon and slept, like, in hour increments from about 8:00 until 6:30 or so. And then last night I went to bed and slept another three and a half hours. So I would say at this point it's acute. The other outcome was that it may well be that, because of politics with the Egyptian government, they're going to cut my salary line for the next six months. So not only haven't I heard anything from New York at all about continuation, but it may... it seems... I mean, the outcome right now is uncertain, and it's being negotiated by this person that we've hired who is... who I don't trust to sort of protect our interests at all. [0:03:05] She's an MBA, and I'm just reasonably concerned (ph). But she... it's really a bit of conflict of interest because she wants the project to continue so that she could easily sell it to whoever over there would ensure that.

THERAPIST: I see. Yes.

CLIENT: (Exhaling) So I guess I have to confront now... and I'm thinking about this. And in some level it's kind of catastrophic, and at some level I feel this enormous sense of relief in the sense that... I think back on these departures. [0:03:58] (Pause) The departures kind of began after my father got sick. I finished the first year of graduate school, and I went back to be with my dad in this kind of classic continuation of our household when I was a kid. And then I came back to graduate school, passed my comps, and then I left to go do this thing. And ever since then I've been leaving either one of them or the other of them, either the academia or this job. [0:04:54] And I think, as I try and kind of reconstruct this... and I was doing a bit of this on the plane after kind of a catastrophic meeting on Tuesday right before my departure with the minister, in which she said basically, we don't want to pay for any salary line, which I explicitly told her was for me in Providence, calling it overhead in a meeting with five other people...

THERAPIST: Calling the overhead?

CLIENT: Rather than the person who put this project together. I think I sensed at some level that there was just no protection for me other than the intervention of one person or another. And, if they decided whimsically not to protect me, then I was screwed. I just didn't have any independent sort of security. And I remember... whatever, memory is malleable. [0:05:58] But I remember thinking this before I left. I remember thinking this before I bailed the first time there. I remember thinking this each time, this isn't secure, this isn't a reasonable path. This isn't a real future for myself. This isn't... this just doesn't do it.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It's not... and I don't know how much of this is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know. (Exhaling) I don't know, Marshall. I...

THERAPIST: Well, let me interrupt a little bit about something here.

CLIENT: Well, I just want to finish the thought, though, and then... I'm not fending you off. I just want to complete the thought.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: And I felt this relief coming home on the plane because I have no alternative now but to make a future for myself. [0:06:57] I have no idea what it is. I don't even know how to do it. I've... partly because I'm talented, partly because I'm delusive, I guess, at some level or have a capacity for delusion or dissociation or whatever you want to call it, but I've just kind of spent all of my energy avoiding something which I know well, which is that I don't really have something that I see in my future. I don't see it. I cannot see it. And these things that I've taken on are... they're not mine. And somehow, at some level, this anxiety that I felt as I pursued them... this is the thought I had coming home on the plane.

I'm not... I don't know how strongly I want to defend it, but these... I've had such anxiety as I've taken them on because at some level I've known that they... A, that they were not mine, B, that they would not protect me if it came to push and shove, and C, that they weren't really a substitute for a sense of path or a way forward or... I just couldn't see them in my future. [0:08:21] And I couldn't see my future. And those two things were traumatic enough that they produced this kind of anxiety. Anxiety's not native. The anxiety is related to this internal dynamic. That was the thought. (Pause) And as soon as I resolved it I would sleep. As soon as I resolved it I would be as I am, at my best. [0:09:06] (Pause) It was the delusion. It is the delusion that's keeping me up. It's the delusion that's interfering with all of these basic processes (pause), the delusion and the inability to see a future for myself. Anyway... (Pause) (Exhaling) [0:10:02] I've interrupted your thought, I'm sorry.

THERAPIST: No, it's okay. (Pause) So all right. What are you referring to specifically as the delusion? I could imagine it could be a few different things, I want to make sure...

CLIENT: The delusion that these things were really... were real, were solvent...

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: The delusion that it was really a viable strategy to rely on Phil (sp?), the delusion that even without... with a clear lack of protection from any member of senior management I could really kind of negotiate this and rely on it...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: The delusion that, even though Kevin was being almost completely non-responsive to me, I didn't need to figure out an alternative for my myself on the possibility...

THERAPIST: Right. [0:10:58]

CLIENT: Just... because... yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I... that makes complete sense. I just wasn't sure (crosstalk).

CLIENT: And yet, when there was proximity, when there was a possibility of sort of perpetuating this 15-year-long delusion, I reached for that rather than the thing which I should have done, which may destroy my relationship with Jennie (sp?). (Pause) The fact that I didn't do it may have... I mean... I don't know. We'll see. We'll work it out, I hope. I hope we'll work it out. (Pause) (Exhaling) I hope we'll work it out. But, I mean, it's like it's all coming due. It's all coming due right now, Marshall. (Pause) [0:12:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, it seems like you're, in a way, pretty much saying that you need to look for a real job instead of something that is likely temporary. But you convince yourself it is likely not.

CLIENT: No, I didn't. That's why I'm not sleeping. I never convinced myself. I knew what all of these... I knew what all of this meant. I haven't been able to break through the fact that I cannot see a future for myself, and I still can't. [0:13:01] I feel deskilled. Like Jennie says, of course you can get a job. You just have to try. And I know in my heart that that's not the case. (Pause) Is that the delusion? I don't know. That I cannot see a future for myself, and that's why I've stuck with this completely impossible situation for... off and on, running and returning, for so many years. It was obvious to me, as it's now apparently obvious to everybody else, that it's a terrible fit or, at the very least, a terrible fit in the institutional sense insofar as my accreditation is... I can certainly negotiate this as well as anybody else given institutional support. [0:14:01] I don't know. I'm rambling a little bit.

But I know in my heart that I will get out there on the job market, and it will not respond to me. And I know this in my heart partly because I have an intuition for these things that is often pretty good and partly because I just can't see my future in anything. One of those is possibly simply neurotic, the first of them. And the second of them... I'm not sure what to make of the second of them. (Pause) [0:15:00] I mean, as I kind of listen to myself talk right now, I can feel the sort of cognitive... I guess on the one hand there's, I feel a little dysphoric. And on the other hand I feel a little bit disrupted in the sort of coherency of my ability to assess on the one hand and articulate on the other. And a lot of that is just sleep deprivation. I mean, it's been over a month now, more than a month now (inaudible at 0:15:46).

THERAPIST: Yeah, I think in that regard you need to have an urgent visit with your PCP, and... (Pause) [0:15:59]

CLIENT: I tried melatonin, and it actually sped... I mean, it had the opposite effect.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I mean, I'm not going to have any thought about...

CLIENT: I'm not asking you for it. I'm just... I'm not consulting you on this matter, I'm just saying, yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But I think you should do that. I think you should call her office and explain that it's urgent and what the situation is and see what they can do, because what you know is that oftentimes they can give you something that will really knock you out for a day or two, that it can sort of help to right things. And (inaudible at 0:16:43) I mean, it may not work for you. But I've seen it [work before] (ph).

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: So... (Pause) [0:17:00] So then is this close to what you're saying, that you cannot and have really never been able to see any kind of a future for yourself, so you sort of have always felt and feel now in your heart that there's really nothing kind of solid in that sense that you can pursue. So instead what you've done is to sort of (pause) pursue things that sort of keep you afloat precariously and that you don't believe are going to go anywhere because those are the only things you can actually imagine yourself...

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Hooking up with.

CLIENT: Correct. [0:17:59]

THERAPIST: And (pause) you've also kind of known all along that you've been doing that, although you've kind of been half aware of it at times.

CLIENT: Well, it's like, if you're taking on a task, you need to inhabit the task. And to the extent that you're inhabiting the task you need to put the basic incompatibility of the task with your own needs, desires, hopes, dreams. You need to put that aside. The fact that the task serves somebody else and it doesn't serve you, you need to put it aside in order to get it done so that, for the moment at least, you'll be provided for. [0:18:58] (Pause) You don't see how that works?

THERAPIST: Well...

CLIENT: Granted I put it in the second person, but you know what I'm saying.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I know what you're saying. You're saying that it actually does serve you in a very limited way. And in order to get that you've got to really kind of forget about how it doesn't serve you in the longer term. And...

CLIENT: And the fact that I can see that... because I am pretty smart, I can see these things. I can see these things.

THERAPIST: You're (crosstalk) smart. Yes. A lot of this stuff has nothing to do with smart or stupid, but (crosstalk)...

CLIENT: Well, but I'm saying the terrible thing about it... I mean, it's like... (Pause) It's a kind of Dante-esque... (Pause) [0:19:58] To be going through something that hurts so much and to know from the very beginning that it's going to hurt me, and yet to have to go through it again and again and again and again. It's terrible to be able to see it. I'd much rather that I be completely clueless about it. I mean, the reason that I can't sleep is because I can see it. The reason that I can't sleep when I get feedback from... when Kevin takes me off of the speech, the reason it's so upsetting to me is that I know that the implication is that I'm not... he's not giving me protection, that the likelihood of continuation is not very great. And yet I still can't see a future for myself, and I still can't pursue my own path. [0:21:00] So I can see the kind of impossibility of the current path, but I can't pursue a new path. I don't know how to strike out in that direction. I don't know... I don't know.

This inhibition as you've identified it (pause) isn't enough to prevent me from seeing what's plain as the nose on my face, which is that this is not working, that this cannot work, that this does not have a framework for me to be able to inhabit. And yet I can't strike out in any other direction. (Pause) Like the academic thing, as horrible as it was, as absurdly distorted as the market is right now, it would have been something to do. [0:22:06] It would have been something to do. It would have been something for me to pursue. I had a job at Dartmouth. It might have continued, it might not have continued. I might have got... been able to get something else, I might not have been able to get something else. Who knows? But I couldn't even try. (Pause) I just couldn't see it. I couldn't see where it went. I mean, because I couldn't see where it went, I couldn't act on it. (Pause) Am I making sense, or am I kind of confused here? (Pause) A little of both maybe. [0:22:56]

THERAPIST: I think both at the same time...

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: In the following way (chuckling)...

CLIENT: Come back to me then.

THERAPIST: Sure. (Pause) I think sort of the heart of it is... (Pause) I mean, this is essentially neurotic. It is essentially an inhibition. It is essentially... when you say you can't see a future for yourself or you know in your heart that things would not work for you on the job market, that you wouldn't get anywhere on the job market (pause), that would only be true if you were... if there was self-sabotage involved. [0:24:08] In other words, from the other angle, all the things you've managed to pull together, it's been quite remarkable, it seems to me, how... you're uncannily good, I think, at pulling together just the same sort of gigs over and over again in a way that keeps you, as you say, precisely in this pattern. This is clearly not about your capacity to kind of find leads, pursue them...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Deal with getting hired to do something. You're really good... you're probably really good at that. [0:24:57] I mean, you generally work at pretty snazzy places. What you do is... when you're doing it, is quite well received. And it's like the writing (pause), also an inhibition. I mean, clearly you possess the set of skills and talents you need to pursue job opportunities. That's not per se the problem. The problem is the neurosis that gets in the way of deploying those and that (pause) feels like reality rather than neurosis, in other words, that gives you the sort of... a feeling as deep as you can imagine that it won't work, that you can't do it, that it won't happen, that there is no future. [0:26:11] I... and this is the part that I think is sort of (inaudible at 0:26:16) exactly right, that it feels entirely like that, and that feels as solid as the table and the wall. So that's the part where I think you're making a lot of sense and I think you're dead on. The part I think you're not is that that's pretty damn neurotic. And to the extent that plays out in reality is (crosstalk).

CLIENT: So here's the complexity. And this has always been a complexity.

THERAPIST: Sure. Okay. There are many complexities.

CLIENT: So... okay, well, I mean, here is a complexity.

THERAPIST: No, yeah, sure, I... [0:27:00]

CLIENT: (Chuckling) I mean, some of these things really are not sustainable. Some of these gigs are really not sustainable.

THERAPIST: Right, yeah.

CLIENT: Some of these relationships are really not nurturing and healthy. And so I (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean, I don't think the whole thing at Partners was just you sabotaging. I mean, you were hearing from other people (crosstalk)...

CLIENT: There was some of that that was involved, there was sabotage involved.

THERAPIST: Yeah, but you were also hearing from people that there's really... oh, there's really no place for you here (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, but even before I heard that there was no place for me, I kind of felt that there was no place for me. I sensed that there was no place for me. I feared the eventuality in which it would be said that there was no place for me because, at some level I did the analysis, and I saw, oh, wait, that doesn't work. Wait, they're heading over to Brown Medical School to save on overhead, and there's not going to be a place for me at Brown Medical School.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I remember. I remember very consciously having that analysis. [0:27:57] Things are going to change when they do that...

THERAPIST: Yeah, I hear you.

CLIENT: Ages ago, I mean, 12 years ago. And yet... (Pause) So on the one hand I did the analysis, and that analysis was right. It wasn't just about neurosis.

THERAPIST: Right, and then what do you do? Being you, you say, sign me the hell up.

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Yes. I didn't say sign me the hell up immediately. I said sign me the hell up when I went to Switzerland to continue with my PhD, since that was the other immediate alternative. And I had just a similar experience of not being able to see myself doing this, not seeing a future for myself in this, not being able to continue.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Now, at that moment, had I just suffered through that and continued, I would have had a gig. [0:28:58] I would have been out in 2005 before the crisis.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right.

CLIENT: I would have had a tenure-track job by now.

THERAPIST: Right. And that's the kind of thing you avoid like the plague, is...

CLIENT: Just this... yeah.

THERAPIST: The path that would lead you to, let's say, a more solid future or a more permanent (crosstalk).

CLIENT: And now I'm kind of in... I am and have led Jennie into a very difficult situation because I don't have a path and I don't have something immediately to fall back on. And I have no idea what I'm going to do. I mean, that's real, Marshall. That's not neurosis.

THERAPIST: Well, I think it's some of both in the sense that you would have said exactly the same thing at that point of crisis with your dissertation. You would have said... (Pause)

CLIENT: I didn't have any plan for after my dissertation was over.

THERAPIST: But you're telling me now that... [0:29:56]

CLIENT: I didn't have any job applications out. I didn't even know how to... I didn't even know what the job market... how (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: Yeah, but, I mean, you just told me, that (crosstalk) had I stuck with it I would have had a gig. And now you're saying at the time I was totally at sea. I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn't put an iron in the fire. And I think both of those things are true, that's the neurotic part is that...

CLIENT: Okay. So how...?

THERAPIST: Am I making sense? (Pause) You're telling me two different things about that time which I think are both exactly true and entirely neurotic, one of which is, at the time I was totally clueless. I hadn't put a job application out. I was lost. I could not have pursued it. I didn't know what to do. I absolutely believe that. You're also telling me, Jesus, if I had just stuck with it then, I would have had a gig.

CLIENT: If I had just put those job applications out I would have had a gig. What are you saying?

THERAPIST: I think if you'd just stuck with your dissertation and finished in 2005... [0:30:56]

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, that's another story.

THERAPIST: You would have had a gig. And what I'm saying then... both of those things are true. At the time you felt totally lost, like there was no future, exactly the way you're talking about now. And yet you can also tell me that, looking back, if you had just done this thing, that you clearly have the capacity, that's probably what most people were doing, there was a future there. (Pause) So I imagine, to just sort of try to clarify what I mean, that if you walked back in here ten years from now and said, oh my God, ten years ago when I was leaving (pause) the bank, if I had just done waaaahh (sp?), then there... I probably could have made something work. [0:31:59]

CLIENT: At the bank.

THERAPIST: Some... I don't know enough of the realities to know whether it would be...

CLIENT: It's possible.

THERAPIST: The bank or in something else, but looking back you would see what you could have done, you'd see that there was...

CLIENT: But I couldn't produce at the time. At the time, there was this inhibition...

THERAPIST: Yeah, because you couldn't...

CLIENT: To production, to seeing how it would work, to... the lack of...

THERAPIST: Well, you were in an incredibly desperate situation... was that you were about to actually create a future for yourself (chuckling). (Pause) So...

CLIENT: (Crosstalk)

THERAPIST: You fired all engines in reverse. I mean, I don't really know that (inaudible at 0:32:40).

CLIENT: No, there's some of that, I mean, in each of these situations.

THERAPIST: And you couldn't see a future. It was as though, oh my God, the plane could actually take off. Where the fuck is the runway, and, oh my God, the engine's crowd (ph). (Pause) There is no more runway, all the engines (crosstalk)... [0:32:59]

CLIENT: So, Marshall, what do I do? I mean, fine. I think that's true. Okay, I accept your analysis. Let's just say provisionally that I accept your analysis.

THERAPIST: But that's not good enough, and here's why. Because it's a little dismissive about... (Pause) I'm not the one doing this. All the advice in the world is not going to help you get out of this. The question is, why are you doing something so crazy?

CLIENT: I don't know. Why am I?

THERAPIST: I don't know.

CLIENT: (Laughing) So what's the point of our conversation?

THERAPIST: Well, to figure that out, but that doesn't mean if I could just answer the question like... or you could just answer the question like that...

CLIENT: Well, we've been trying to answer the question for an awfully long time, so you must have some inclination to move in one direction or another, no?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Well, one thing that... look, you step outside of the dilemma a little bit there, I think. [0:34:01]

CLIENT: I don't step outside of the dilemma! Here I am! I mean, in what sense am I stepping outside of the dilemma? I mean, I guess in a sense insofar as to solve any dilemma, one has to step outside of it, right?

THERAPIST: If I had just told you, my God, I mean, you're taking your right hand, and you keep punching yourself in the face...

CLIENT: I am, it's true! And when I'm not punching myself with the right hand I'm punching myself with the left hand.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: So?

THERAPIST: So why does a guy punch himself in the face all the time?

CLIENT: I have no time. It sounds completely irrational (laughing).

THERAPIST: (Laughing) Okay. I mean, it is you doing that. It is your will, and...

CLIENT: I do not dispute this. I don't dispute this, and I never have disputed it. (Chuckling) I don't have delusions of reference. Do I? You think I do have some delusions of reference.

THERAPIST: I don't know what you mean by delusions of reference. [0:34:57]

CLIENT: I don't imagine that there are aliens controlling my brain through a radio (crosstalk) in my head.

THERAPIST: I don't think you have those kind of delusions, no.

CLIENT: Okay. (Pause) (Chuckling) I have some paranoia. But I think the paranoia is an internal expression that's being...

THERAPIST: How are you...? I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm asking, what... how do you think you're being paranoid right now?

CLIENT: Now? No. I'm not paranoid now.

THERAPIST: Okay, well, what are you talking about when you say you think you have some paranoia?

CLIENT: When I feel like people are out to get me or trying to screw me.

THERAPIST: You mean...? Are you referring to these work settings (crosstalk)?

CLIENT: Yeah, work settings. Work settings. But the truth is that it's usually a somewhat distorted and anxious sort of accurate analysis. [0:36:00] In other words, they are working in their own interest, and their interest is often inimical to mine. It's just that (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: Right. It's not persecutory, it's just self-interested.

CLIENT: It's just self-interested, and it's the sense of persecution that I think is the distortion. That's all I've got. It's a sense of persecution that goes along with a fairly reasonable and reality-based analysis. (Pause)

THERAPIST: All right. I'm now going to refer to something that just happened in here because I'm going to motivate why I'm doing what I'm doing (chuckling). [0:36:59] You just said, okay, so why the hell am I punching myself in the face? I agree that I'm punching myself in the face. Clearly I'm punching myself in the face. Why the hell am I punching myself in the face? What good is our conversation if we can't figure out basically how I can stop punching myself in the face? And, if you're saying that has something to do with figuring out why I'm punching myself in the face, then why the hell am I punching myself in the face?

And one thing I'd say is, let's look at how just in the last five minutes you've punched yourself in the face, because this is your experience. It's your thoughts, feelings, and fantasies that go along with it. And, if we want to know what your motivations are and why you do something, it's best to have an example already close at hand and immediate. It's a little harder to look back ten years and say, well, this time I think I punched myself in the face years ago because of X, Y, and Z. I mean, it's easier when it's right in the moment. So... and there's an example of this from the last five minutes, which is... [0:37:58] (Pause) See, and this is where we get into that other thing. I'm not... let me just say in advance, I'm not being critical of you. I'm not attacking you. All I'm saying is I think there is an iteration of precisely the dynamic that we're talking about that has just occurred. And I want to point to it because I think it's close at hand.

CLIENT: Well, I'll say, fuck you in advance (laughing).

THERAPIST: (Laughing) All right, so we've got that out of the way. So I think there's a tremendous difference... I think what I said was actually a significant interpretation a few minutes ago. You were telling me that your problems were essentially reality problems. Marshall, I know in my heart I'm not going to get anywhere in the job market. I know in my heart I've been doing this self-deluded thing for years. [0:38:57] I know I cannot get a job. I cannot see a future at all. And maybe I'm confused, tell me to stop. But God, call it inhibition, call it whatever you want. But this is reality to me. And I say, no fucking way. I say I don't doubt it feels as solid as the table or the wall, but it's neurotic. And this is something you're doing to yourself, and here, let me show you some examples of... that I think make that clear.

You can... you're uncannily good at sniffing out opportunities which are difficult to get in these sort of fancy, prestigious places and yet give you no security, which you kind of half-know in advance or fully know in advance. That's example one. And example two is the thing I was fussing over about your dissertation, and actually there was a future, but, oh my God, if there's a future you'd better throw the engine in reverse and stop working on stuff and imagine it's not going anywhere anyway. [0:39:58] And you say... and this is the move. You say... I think you found my evidence compelling. You thought it was correct. It rang true. You said, okay. Here's the move. So what? Well, that's actually a huge fucking deal.

CLIENT: Okay.

THERAPIST: It's a huge fucking deal. It's very different to say that the world out there is punching me in the face and I am punching myself in the face. (Pause)

CLIENT: Yes (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: I mean, in the first case what it says is... here's the... here's the iteration. What it says is... what you're saying is, okay, yeah, I've got to own this in a way. And I'm not... there's a way in which you've always owned this. You've never said... you've said this person, that person, the other person hasn't treated me well. [0:40:57] But you've always felt like this was your fault. I'm not saying that you haven't felt that way. But there's another way in which you kind of... in feeling that it's reality, you feel it to be so distant and divorced from your own internal life, which I know it feels like it is, but that's the problem...

CLIENT: So (crosstalk) that's the move, yeah.

THERAPIST: So I say it's not, and then you say, well, okay, so what, because it's so alien to me I can't even begin to think about it. So tell me the answer, or tell me what to do...

CLIENT: (Chuckling)

THERAPIST: Which again is no kind of exploration or investigation of what's going on. And that's exactly the sort of... oh, you see... maybe there's a next handhold up the wall. Yeah, okay, I guess so, but the cliff looks entirely sheer after that, you know what I mean? It's this same kind of, well, I can't see then where you're going, Marshall. If we can't answer this question of why I'm doing this, then clearly there's no way we're going to get anywhere here. It's that same kind of... there's no future in this. [0:41:56] We haven't really gotten anywhere... kind of... which isn't exactly what you said, but it's kind of the implication of, well, okay then, fine. Clearly we just need to be able to answer the question of what I should do about it or why I'm doing this, and then we'll be all set, which you know I'm not going to be able to answer. And you know that there's no sort of pat response to... that's going to... that's, oh, okay, well, I just need to do this, clearly that's what I... you know that.

CLIENT: Marshall?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: All right. Here's the next move.

THERAPIST: Okay. But we're going to have to stop after the next move.

CLIENT: Oh... okay. Whatever. I don't know (inaudible at 0:42:31). Going into the next move, the next move is that, regardless of what my native faculty for seeing a future might be, the fact is that, whether it's because I punch myself in the face or because reality bites, at this point I've punched myself in the face for so long that reality now bites. In other words, I...

THERAPIST: Yeah, but the problem is still the punching in the face because, I mean... [0:42:57]

CLIENT: I don't know. I mean, if like I'm 44, I'm turning 45...

THERAPIST: (Crosstalk) three months ago, you haven't punched yourself in the face...

CLIENT: I'm turning 45 in three days.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and for the last six months you've had a job that pays you $800 a day or something.

CLIENT: But I haven't been able to collect on it. I haven't been billing because I haven't been doing any work, because they haven't been giving me any work. I haven't been collecting $800 a day for the last three months.

THERAPIST: I had no idea.

CLIENT: No, I haven't, and that's one of the reasons that I've been so freaked out, is... I wrote to Kevin on May 1st, and he said, hold on, don't do anything and then just disappeared.

THERAPIST: I had no idea. I assumed that they were paying you and the gig was ending.

CLIENT: Nope, the gig is ending, and they're not paying me. I mean, they paid me a large sum of money, but...

THERAPIST: Yeah. I'm sorry, I wish we had more time.

CLIENT: Well, this is one reason I'm so freaked out. I'd have a lot more margin if it weren't for this factor.

THERAPIST: Of course, yeah. No, I didn't know that was part of what was going on.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, I have a contract, but you have to bill on it. To bill on it you have to have work. [0:44:01]

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: All right. See you.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

END TRANSCRIPT