TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Hi.
THERAPIST: Hey.
(Pause): [0:00:29 0:03:00]
CLIENT: I’m not sure I have anything to hang onto today.
(Pause): [0:03:02 0:03:21]
THERAPIST: Is there nothing through your mind or is it a bunch of disconnected things?
CLIENT: Just some disconnected thoughts.
(Pause): [0:03:25 0:03:56]
CLIENT: My mother took Grayson last night. I woke up and took him from her around 8. She went back to sleep and she came back in some distress saying she had had a dream of my father and his lover. So this February is the 17th anniversary of his death. So that’s a very durable trauma that was basically going on in the late ‘70s. So that was one errant thought that I had.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Another thought was that I had been very protective when people have tried to say that I need to help Jennie. I do, I feel like we help each other a lot. But people are kind of casting me in a role of house husband or when it feels like they’re casting me in a role of house husband, facilitating her professional endeavors. So my mother did something like that last night and it was sort of setting her off. Um, what else? Slowly, slowly, after five months, really five months after I’d left this not entirely satisfying professional situation aside, or what was left of it, finally beginning to think about how to set up this project, this novel. I don’t know how systematically, how productively, but spending two to three hours at a time on it. So that process, I think, has left me feeling a little bit at cross purposes from this narrative exercise, maybe. Or – that’s not quite right. Optimally, they have to be compatible, but for some reason the process of – yeah, maybe more precisely, this state of mind that is described by my trying to do this, which is pretty anxious still right now, and not very organic, is not very conducive to our reflection. I’m – I don’t know if it’s Jeffreyed (sp?) or just something, something, something that’s not reflective, something that’s not – if I was writing it would be a different story but it’s like trying to imagine the setup, arrange my head so that I can write and that’s something else again. It’s kind of alienating from myself I think.
What else comes to my head? I mentioned this the last time we spoke. You may want to run with any of these I suppose. There is this interesting dichotomy between the very relaxed and calm and placid, relaxing state of mind that gets Grayson to sleep and difficulties I have myself.
(Pause): [0:08:50 0:08:59]
CLIENT: I assume that when I put him asleep it’s part of because I’m projecting some very relaxing vibes. Even when I’m upset I seem to be able to, usually. He’s going through a major spurt.
(Pause): [0:09:30 0:09:47]
CLIENT: It’s really quite something. Anyway, so. I guess my last thought was, ‘damn it, we were – we had a thread of conversation, it seemed, I was fruitful last week and it’s completely gone out of my head. My final thought was I’ve got a lot of (unclear) at this point. Just to be comprehensive. [0:10:22]
THERAPIST: Right. That makes everything clear.
CLIENT: That makes everything clear.
(Pause): [0:10:30 0:11:45]
THERAPIST: So the way that I’m thinking about a bunch of that – I admit, I can’t fit the (unclear) in, because that’s what makes it (unclear), is more seriously, I think some of what you’re talking about has to do with like people being there for each other when they need them. I’m thinking of, you know your mother, my fantasy actually was – and I have no idea (unclear) like if your dad’s affair was in the late ‘70s, you were born in the early ‘70s and your sister was born in the mid-’70s, there must have been a time when she felt like he just wasn’t really there for her and I don’t know if it was being up all night with the baby or something that reminded her of something from that time, but whatever, the point is she remembered like a (unclear) betrayal. And then you describe being sensitive around people sort of pushing you to be there for Jennie, if I understood you right as though you weren’t, or as though you wouldn’t be, although you are in a lot of ways, you know? [0:11:59]
And also, and somehow she’s not there or not going to be there for you, which happily, as I understand it, she often is. And then you mention about the writing and I think in a way like trying to get – I don’t understand it that well, but kind of like faith of your own to be able to write. And there’s something about that that feels like it’s making you less reflective or less communicative or something about this.
CLIENT: Okay. There may or may not have been a segue there. Like, I’m not sure the relationship you were drawing between the two thoughts.
THERAPIST: Right. Yeah, I’m sorry. I’m not making any –
CLIENT: You’re just kind of listing things.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I’m listing things.
(Pause): [0:14:39 0:14:48]
THERAPIST: Because the next thought was, one of the next thoughts was about – there were a couple of them – remembering that we had talked about something fruitful last week and had a (unclear) conversation that you kind of remembered at that moment was fruitful but couldn’t then remember it all and were kind of frustrated. And (Pause) there’s something going on. I mean the thing about that last part that sort of relates to the writing somehow, the thought it gave me about not being able to remember was I think there are clearly a lot less now than used to be the case, but I think there’s a way that I’m kind of gone from you between sessions sometimes.
CLIENT: Right.
THERAPIST: Which seems to be more true. But I think that like often we talk, or have talked about your forgetting threads or having sometimes no connections about what we talked about before. And this time it struck me like I guess part of that is that I’m gone for you.
CLIENT: I don’t think that is exactly the case.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like it’s – I don’t even know what it would mean. I mean, yeah, it makes some sense, obviously. Yeah. It’s true. It’s hard not to understand the absence of somebody meaning that they’re gone. If you mean that I don’t think about our interactions in between the times that we’re talking to each other. Yeah, how does it usually go?
THERAPIST: Here’s how I’m thinking about it. I have the sense that it’s otherwise with Jennie. That you know, when you’re doing stuff around the house or with Grayson, if she’s off teaching or sleeping or doing something else, it’s like there’s very much the sense of being like not just an idea but a feeling of being in this together, of her sort of being there with you and for you and vice versa.
CLIENT: We text during the course of the day, saying, ‘how’s class going?’ Etc., etc. Tangible communications that don’t obtain when you’re not in an intimate relationship with somebody.
THERAPIST: Right, right. Sure. But I imagine even between those like you have some sense of her being with you in what you’re doing.
CLIENT: Well, when I’m upset I have anxieties about this and it’s hard for me sometimes to connect with it. I feel a little worried about the state of our connection. Even with Jennie. I’ve said this. We’ve talked about this. So, no. Maybe – I mean, in the sense that you’re using it, I think.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: As I understand it, at least. Maybe it’s not true that even with Jennie I have this.
THERAPIST: My hunch is that it’s sometimes there and sometimes less so when you’re feeling anxious.
CLIENT: Yes.
THERAPIST: But when you’re not it’s less.
CLIENT: Yes. You know what I’m feeling when things are flowing and feels better. I mean, I remember, I basically remember what we talked about.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Now that we’re kind of settled into the conversation.
THERAPIST: Right.
CLIENT: You know, things are flowing. I could probably, if we spent five minutes, call it back to mind. But there’s a feeling of not being able to. A feeling of disconnection.
THERAPIST: I’m wondering if it’s partly, it’s hard to tease out what exactly, but I wonder if it’s partly your having something to say, my responding to it, and like as you say, our kind of getting into the flow of the conversation where it’s going to like, ‘I’m back and our project is back.’
CLIENT: I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Sure. Is this my peculiar, I don’t have much of a baseline for this. Is this my peculiar malady or is this a neurosis that is unusual or do most people who have psychotherapy struggle with fitting individual conversations together between sessions? I would imagine, it just seems like kind of a structural feature of this peculiar mode of whatever you want to call it.
THERAPIST: Well, you know, it varies and when it’s more or less difficult and what is more or less difficult to remember often I think are significant. You’re on the more forgetting and feeling disconnected feeling and oftentimes –
CLIENT: This is true. I endorse your proposition. I think it’s neither kind of a novelty in our discussion nor should be surprising given the sort of global analysis which is it has something to do – you know, whatever. It’s just kind of on the attachment end of the spectrum. So sure. Naturally, I find it challenging, or more challenging than I might to feel attached to people.
THERAPIST: Right.
(Pause): [0:21:23 0:21:34]
THERAPIST: So I guess I’m interested in how that relates to your trying to work on the novel.
CLIENT: Oh, good question. Yeah. Finish your thought because I think I –
THERAPIST: Both in terms of in the sense of who are you trying to have or not have in the room while you’re doing that and in terms of like, in a way, one of the things you seem to be saying to me was, ‘actually, Marshall, you’re not really in the room when I’m working on that because there’s something about pulling myself together to do that that makes me feel like it’s harder to do this.’
CLIENT: I guess what was sort of disorienting or, I don’t know quite how to put it, disequilibrating about the three and a half hours that immediately preceded this conversation was how difficult it was, it wasn’t the process of working on the novel as I imagine it in a really productive mode, it was the very things that make it not such a productive process.
THERAPIST: Right. (Cross talk)
CLIENT: The difficulty working on the novel was interfering with our connection. It was, rather than some intrinsic property of it, I think I have a decent enough recall of what it’s like to really be writing well but you know I kind of remember there are kind of different things going on and kind of intervening with psychotherapy but the mood is very different. The kind of affective interference is very different. When I’m writing well and when I’m feeling good about it I’m able to jump into a conversation. I just may be diverted in a direction that does not –
THERAPIST: Yeah, it didn’t seem to me like oh I’m just kind of preoccupied thinking about this right now. I’m sort of off and running with it. Yeah, that’s not what it was. No, it was troubling. There was something very troubling that was going on. There are some things about that process that worry me, for example, instead of writing kind of going through old projects to find bits and pieces that I might want to include, which isn’t intrinsically bad, but it is insofar as there’s a tendency to just want to include everything. I just want it to be a pastiche of and (unclear) of everything that I’ve been working on the last 15 years or so and every part of myself that it represents. And kind of a mechanism to kind of piece together the scattered layers of my consciousness and you know, I suppose any writing process at some level, especially given the circumstances is something in that direction. [0:25:09]
But I don’t know. I felt like I was rehearsing all of these psychic hobby horses in a way that was not very healthy or productive. On the other hand, I’ve just got a lot of material and figuring out how it all fits together is part of this project. I think there was something about the way in which I’m finally, at long last trying to prepare for this that was – I struggle for a word and I come up with jargon, to my dismay – but I just kind of, it led to a kind of dysphoria or a kind of suppression or depression of the mood. I’m not quite sure how else to put it. And maybe we can make that more specific and less abstract. But there was something curious, something weird, something kind of upsetting about the process. And one of the things that may have been upsetting about it was the way in which there was this layer of consciousness saying, ‘you’re never going to do this. Nothing is ever going to come of this.’ What’s going to come of this is – you know, I guess this is some kind of classic thing one has to get over with. Right? But that was a very strong, kind of sub-verbal narrative.
CLIENT: Right.
(Pause): [0:27:39 0:27:51]
CLIENT: And by that same token I really want it not to be true.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: And I couldn’t quite convince myself by the time I was here.
THERAPIST: You’re feeling a bit defeated?
CLIENT: Feeling the possibility of defeat. I have evaded the kinds of structures that make defeat unambiguous for the moment but feeling defeat as a possibility. You know, I’m five months into this experiment and granted, I’m three months into the experiment of being a father – at some level it’s kind of stupid to think about it this way and yet, yeah.
THERAPIST: Well, that’s very interesting, maybe. It’s as though there’s a part of you that has the idea that you should have been off working on this for the last five months.
CLIENT: Yes. That is a very bizarre idea but it is indeed the idea.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
(Pause): [0:29:17 0:30:01]
THERAPIST: That seems connected to, or a bit mixed up with the feeling of defeat being possibly in there. I hear you saying there’s often a struggle with writing but I guess what I’m thinking of is there’s a part of you that is worried you’re not going to get anywhere, is connected to the thought that you really haven’t gotten anywhere in five months.
CLIENT: I guess so. It is connected. I mean the five months is so obviously distorted. I don’t know how seriously to take it but except as part of some free floating anxiety of some kind, in other words, you know, come on.
(Pause): [0:31:07 0:31:14]
THERAPIST: I agree that it’s sort of very unrealistic but I mean –
(Pause): [0:31:20 0:31:57]
THERAPIST: Yeah, I don’t (Pause) – usually thoughts that seem very true and yet not at all realistic are interesting.
CLIENT: Does this seem very true? Very true to what I’m saying?
THERAPIST: You said, yeah, no, it doesn’t make any – you said “bizarre” but yeah, I actually do kind of think that. I know it’s not realistic. I mean you’re not saying, ‘yeah, really, I thought I should have been working on this three months ago when Grayson was born.’ Of course not. Nor four months ago when you –
CLIENT: But it’s true that I’m saying it.
THERAPIST: But you’re saying there’s some part of you that puts stock in it, that recognizes that part of you isn’t being realistic and yet –
CLIENT: I just feel like I should be working on something. Maybe that’s more to the point. I feel I should have worked and since this is the work I’ve given myself, you know, and has secured at least temporary consensus within my household, that it will be my work. I should be working on it and I should be making progress on it. And yet, progress has been limited and therefore I feel defeat. So maybe there is a kind of contemporary rather than future sense of defeat.
THERAPIST: Right. Again, to me, sort of equally striking in that actually you have done quite a lot of work.
CLIENT: Have I? Oh, in regard to Grayson.
THERAPIST: Grayson and sort of both pre and post-natally, yeah.
CLIENT: Alright. Sure. Sure.
THERAPIST: And somehow that doesn’t – I know when you step back from it, of course it counts, but from the point of view of the part of you that feels like you should be working on this –
CLIENT: But that’s kind of scary though, that work, identifying that as work because I guess this relates to the stuff about being leery of people telling me I should do more for Jennie. I don’t want to become a mommy. I don’t want to become a housewife, house husband. I don’t want to be the sole caregiver. I don’t want that to be the rest of my life. I’m not satisfied with that and when I say to myself, ‘you know, well I’ve been doing this work and this is my work and this is what I’ve got done – rather than identifying the work that I identify with rather than specify the work that I identify with as these other projects as I would like to do. It seems as if I’, inexorably being maneuvered into a position where I’m just an economically non-enumerated mommy.
(Pause): [0:35:07 0:35:14]
THERAPIST: Right.
(Pause): [0:31:14 0:35:30]
CLIENT: So either I can figure out how to do this at long last or that is what I will be with significant consequences for our household resources and everything else as well as my own sort of self-image satisfaction.
THERAPIST: And I think you’re actually quite panicked about that.
CLIENT: Yeah. I am. I’m very worried about it.
THERAPIST: That’s why the part of you that’s panicking is thinking things like, ‘I’m five months behind.’
CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Very, very, very, very on point.
(Pause): [0:36:06 0:36:27]
THERAPIST: And yet – am I interrupting a train of thought?
CLIENT: No. No. And yet the way of averting this would have been just to apply for a bunch of jobs. I mean it would have been fairly easy to avert this and I have not done so. So there’s something extremely curious about this state of affairs.
THERAPIST: Maybe this fits in very cleanly with a bunch of the stuff we’ve been talking about in that (Pause) you know, I think at one level being with Grayson and Jennie and doing stuff sort of for the family feels like being a team player, doing what’s best for sort of the group of you and you’re worried about losing something that at that level feels like it is for you and very important to you. Now we both know that in reality if you’re off making money, obviously that helps the family. I get that. And if you’re going to (unclear) that, it’s going to be back into the family in a good way. [0:38:09]
But I think maybe there’s a way that feels like going off and doing your own thing, or leaving the family in some fashion and I wonder if that’s part of why I haven’t done it.
(Pause): [0:38:28 0:38:48]
CLIENT: I don’t know. I know that I am conscious of an interpretation of my father’s various infidelities on various levels that is kind of consonant with the way you just put it – necessary generational adjustments.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: So that doing professional stuff is a betrayal at some level of the family.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I guess what I had in mind in terms of the work situation that we talked about was that kind of what it feels like I think when she’s going to leave or when people get ambitious and stop looking out for you. You know what I mean?
CLIENT: And I guess, you know, maybe at some level that’s how I interpret – I am very good-heartedly and sincerely supportive of Jennie’s professional endeavors. I don’t feel any conflict about that but I clearly, at some level I do feel anxious about my obligation to support that to the extent that perhaps I feel as if there’s a risk of betrayal there.
THERAPIST: Yeah. You’re vulnerable.
CLIENT: I’m vulnerable to betrayal.
THERAPIST: Uh huh [Yes].
(Pause): [0:40:21 0:40:32]
CLIENT: So, yeah, I mean, maybe. I don’t know man. I wish it were easier.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
(Pause): [0:40:40 0:40:55]
CLIENT: How can it be easier? What would “being easier” look like?
THERAPIST: You making a distinction in your mind not sort of in terms of not consciously thinking this way but in terms of how it felt that this was not the basis for – what happened to your family was not the basis for whether you were betraying Jennie or whether she was betraying you.
CLIENT: So, implicitly that’s your understanding of the etiology is that I’m just feeling like everything is being recapitulated in all of these minutes. I’m kind of used to this.
THERAPIST: Yeah, I think there are a few things that go together that sort of (unclear) the etiology. I mean there are the sort of betrayals by infidelity and then there are the betrayals – [0:41:57]
CLIENT: By inattention.
THERAPIST: Yeah, by inattention, by deception, like making it seem it’s about you when it’s really not.
CLIENT: It just feels so ridiculous, just kind of – my dad, he died in 1997. All this stuff happened when I was what, one-fifth of, one-fourth or one-fifth of my current age. And my mother is still having nightmares about it and I’m still completely fucked up by it. It’s just – it’s, I don’t know. I feel very daunted by how much it doesn’t make sense. And I feel very daunted by the predicament I feel I’ve put myself in by really having our household income in order to prove to myself somehow that it’s over. To demonstrate that this dynamic is no longer in force, is clearly unsuccessful since all the reference seems to pertain to this very totally obsolete state of meaning, totally obsolete dynamic. I don’t know. I feel daunted by it. I feel very frustrated by it. I guess the sound of my voice is panic – some panic. And also just deep and exhausted frustration.
THERAPIST: We should stop.
CLIENT: Alright. Thursday.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
END TRANSCRIPT
