TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: Do you have – if the tape is running, is the iPad able to have another window functioning simultaneously? It’s not important. OK. So, we were going to talk a little bit about process. And I was laughing about this after I left on Thursday last week, because that is what I imagined we would do when I first showed up and have been – I mean, maybe – I’m not sure how explicit it was, and I’m not sure how calculated your aversion to doing this may or may not have been, but – and it was funny. [00:01:15] It was funny, all of a sudden, three years in, to have what I – what was my referent when you were talking about, you know, instrumental interventions. Suddenly, we were at ten (ph).

Yeah, so it was – I mean, it was a little amusing and a little bit surprising, I guess. It didn’t seem like that big a deal, and I guess, you know, it’s possible that we simply either had a miscommunication or that you had a sense that other things were more important or a higher priority. But I had always imagined when I came in, having difficulty working, which we agree is somewhat more complex than that. [00:02:08] That this is what the person who recommended you to me thought that you were very good at doing, is working through, you know, difficulties in the work process and kind of identifying where the blockages were.

So, for the last three years, we’ve been doing the preamble – this was the joke. You know, for the last three years, we’ve been doing the preamble to – or two and a half...

THERAPIST: Right, and the other day, it felt like I was saying, “Oh yeah, and by the way...”

CLIENT: “And by the way,” yeah, “We might as well...”

(crosstalk)

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:02:38) talked about it.

(crosstalk)

CLIENT: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, yeah...

THERAPIST: Yeah, being (inaudible at 00:02:45).

CLIENT: Yeah, I’m sure it’s easier. I mean, you know, I guess that’s part of the joke too, is that, you know, is – but when I was feeling frustrated, I can say that, you know, when I was kind of, I don’t know, feeling a little bit of cross-purposes, what I imagined would be the alternative was something like this. [00:03:13] Whatever, it’s fine. Other things. (pause) There is a – the departmental secretary. So, you know, there are so many hierarchies at Harvard, it’s hard to keep track of all of them. But one of the hierarchies is, you know, kind of bureaucratic, you know, on the bureaucratic side of the hierarchy and on academic or the scholastic side of the faculty of the enterprise. [00:04:04]

There are two very long standing people. One of whom, Nikki, you know, I’ve known ever since the non-profit came to Harvard in, like, ‘99 or 2000. I think she was the...

THERAPIST: [She and Harvard] (ph) being partners?

CLIENT: ... partners at the time. So, she was the, I think she was the secretary, executive assistant or something, of the old chair. Not Arthur Kleinman, but...

THERAPIST: Happened in med school?

CLIENT: ... but Byron Good. Right. So, at the end of the Department of Social Medicine, there were a bunch of anthropologists, just one of the interesting features of this particular department. [00:05:06] And I think she was their secretary, and then she became the department’s kind of bureaucratic person. And then, at some point, for reasons that I don’t know about but must’ve been significant, she was kind of replaced. So she remained in a relatively inferior position underneath Jennifer (ph), who seemed to have taken over around some time in 2005.

And I don’t know what the story is, but, she’s, you know, an extremely nice person, you know. We’ve known each other in a very casual way for quite some time. And I had a very nice relationship with Jennifer as well, but Nikki I’ve known for a while. [00:06:03] Anyway, so she wrote four weeks ago or so saying, “You know, I know you left PIH. I got this note from Gene, but, you know, your appointment – so long as you feel like teaching,” and she didn’t put it like that. She said, you know, “Assuming, you know, you’re involved in teaching responsibilities, you can preserve the appointment.”

And the appointment is worth something. It costs something and it’s worth something. I mean, it costs something to the department, because they have to keep my affiliations current and, you know, they pay Harvard something for all of their electorships. You know, I feel very, very disappointed by having it fogged off on me, and don’t really understand – I guess it’s not about I don’t understand why it was played the way that it was, but, you know, it’s worth something. [00:07:04] And yet, I find myself in a great deal of difficulty responding to this very nice person, whom I’ve known for a long, long time.

And my impulse, I find, as I reflect on it, is your – yeah, is just not to be responsive at all. And I’m not sure what to say or do about it, like, I don’t want to respond to Nikki in, you know, a kind of hurt or, you know, or angry or whatever way. I just kind of want to leave it – I’m not sure. I don’t – I find myself a little bit in-articulate describing it. Anyway, she wrote again on Thursday or Friday saying, you know, “Just want to know what’s going on,” you know, “This is a decision making process,” very brief, matter-of-fact e-mail. [00:08:04] And I don’t – I’m not quite sure I understand where I am with it.

So I guess that’s the other, you know, kind of psycho-dramatic item that presents itself to me today. I don’t – I’m opting out a lot or I’m finding it very difficult to respond to people right now, in general. I was writing – you know, we’ve probably reached the end of the grace period for thank-you notes, even with a baby. So, you know, for the last three or four weeks, I’ve continually said, “OK. Well, you know, tonight, we need to do thank-you notes” or “Tomorrow, we need to do thank-you notes,” and I’ve had difficulty doing them.

And I sat down to do them this afternoon, and found that I just couldn’t get any traction on it. [00:09:06] And that felt like a subset somehow or related somehow to my difficulty responding to Nikki and I don’t know. It’s curious. So, I guess that’s what I’m ruminating on. Not to evade the delightful task of minutely examining why it’s difficult for me to do this other kind of communication, but maybe it’s not diversion at all.

THERAPIST: (long pause) What do you mean when you said that this is being fogged off on you?

CLIENT: The disappointment. I think that sounds less descriptive than I would’ve want it to be, but... [00:11:01]

THERAPIST: You may have to...

CLIENT: ...they – you know, it – I was offered a position. I talked to Jennifer, the Senior Administrator about it. She said – all systems seemed go, and then they got back to me and said, you know, “We’re very happy to make you this other appointment.” And it turns out not to be useful to me, you know, at all academically, you know, when the premise was that I would get X (ph). So, and then I talked to the, you know, Chair of the Department, and she’s, like, “Oh, you know, it doesn’t matter. It’s no big deal.” And it turns out to matter a great deal.

THERAPIST: Right. OK. So this was the instructor versus the lecturer kind of thing?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, electorship was not useful and I knew it. I mean, you know, I – we’ve probably talked about it the day that it came in. You know, it was apparent to me that something was up, and that something could only be annoying. And indeed, it turned out to be very annoying, indeed. So that’s what I meant. [00:12:00]

THERAPIST: (pause) So, even though this has in a way nothing to do with Nikki, it’s a pretty sore spot?

CLIENT: Except that, you know, I’m having an identical response to the thank-you notes, which are not in a sore spot in the slightest, indeed. You know, I mean, I’m having the same reaction to the thank-you notes and I’m having the same reaction to the job – I mean, you know, it’s like there’s something going on here that, you know, significantly transcends this particular, rather sore spot or not transcends a spot, it might be a mixed metaphor, but you know what I’m saying. I mean, it’s not – it really – on the one hand, yes. It’s a sore spot. [00:13:04] I can understand, you know, theoretically why I would be reluctant to, you know, enter into this complexity and not really sure at some level how to respond, given that it’s certainly not Nikki’s fault in any way.

It’s almost like (chuckles) – I mean, Nikki is like a paragon of a situation in which nobody claims responsibility for any of this.

THERAPIST: (chuckles)

CLIENT: You know? I mean, it’s not her fault. It’s not, you know, Esther, the Department Chair’s fault. You know, it’s not Frederick Paulson’s fault. It’s not Phil’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault, you know. It’s, like, “Well, you know, you got screwed, but it’s nobody’s fault.” And so, I’m aware at some level, I guess, of how inappropriate it would be for all of this, you know, no-faultness to somehow come to rest on Nikki, who I suspect has kind of gotten screwed by, you know, a system that doesn’t respond very well to, you know, meek, very nice, non-aggressive people. [00:14:13]

And then, in another sense, it has nothing to do with any of this and is some kind of global reaction that I’m having to the prospect of being out of our household and, you know, in the larger world where you have to interact with people. And not that – but whom can’t function simultaneously, but they seem to...

THERAPIST: I’m not sure...

CLIENT: ... be on totally different plains. I guess that’s what I’m puzzled...

THERAPIST: OK (ph), so you’re saying...

CLIENT: One of the things I’m puzzled about.

THERAPIST: ... your feeling about the thank-you notes is really quite different?

CLIENT: No. I mean...

(crosstalk)

CLIENT: My reaction to the thank-you notes...

THERAPIST: And doing the writing is the same...

CLIENT: ... is almost identical, but I don’t know. Yeah. These are people that I feel – there’s one – I don’t know. [00:15:02] I mean, I guess if I were pressed on it, I could come up with a scenario in which there’s kind of a slightly analogous situation, insofar, as the most pressing and urgent of the thank-you notes, which is the one that I began with today is to my parents’ old friend Deena (ph), who’s dying of cancer, actively and not willingly. You know, so she was diagnosed right before Grayson (ph) was born with Stage IV ovarian cancer, I can’t remember. And she was just talking and, you know, she’s a poet, widely published. It’s a little new age-y for my tastes, but, you know, very accomplished and well regarded. And she’s a psychotherapist, as well.

And she said, I had an exchange with her, you know, right after I found out on Facebook, of all places. [00:16:10] I don’t – I absolutely cannot understand why somebody would do that, that would talk about their treatment on Facebook. It just seems very, very foreign to – I don’t know understand these things. But at any rate –

THERAPIST: Being (ph) so public?

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s, like, I don’t know why it seems so strange to me, but it’s – I have, I guess, a cultural aversion to those kind of things. At any rate, so we had an exchange about it. And she said, “Yeah, you know, I just want to get all of the work that I could possibly get done, done. And so, I’m going to have them do everything.” So she had chemo, and then she had surgery, and now she’s looking at another round of chemo. And she’s – my mother talked to her a couple days ago, I guess, and she’s just doing everything, and doing really badly, and feeling like complete shit. [00:17:01] And it’s hard for me to – I’m very surprised to find that it’s very difficult for me to figure out how to interact with her.

I sent her a bong...

THERAPIST: A what?

CLIENT: ... and she never...

THERAPIST: I just didn’t hear you.

CLIENT: A bong.

THERAPIST: Oh, bong.

CLIENT: And she never acknowledged it. And I guess maybe that’s part of it. I thought it would be a cute thing and – because risks or anything like that, it’s risky, but she never acknowledged it. And I’m just not – I feel uncertain about it and I think that because that’s the most urgent for, you know, kind of life cycle reasons at this point, of all the thank-you notes. It’s always at the front of the row as possible, I guess, with my uncertainty or unease about this communication. [00:18:04] And I just postponed all of them, because as I recall, as I think about it, I didn’t really have any problem with any of the other ones.

Anyway, but I’m just speculating. I really don’t know. So I guess, I mean, if that’s the analysis, if we don’t look for anything, you know, more baroque or complex or interesting, then I guess you could say that all of these three writing projects, so to speak, have some unease, uncertainty, worries, what’s the other one? Yeah, I guess the worry. If I was creating a taxonomy, I’d say that the worry resides with, you know, how – whether I’ll be able to, you know, prepare a face to meet the faces that I meet with all of the recipients. [00:19:03]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I mean, I guess I’m not – it’d make more sense to me, in terms of what we talked about, that you’d have trouble writing Nikki back. Having the – your frustration, your feeling of being fucked over, the sort of way that you’re also, you know, kind of being silenced about that, because nobody’s taking responsibility and because Nikki generally doesn’t have any, and she’s nice. [00:20:07] You know, that all feels (ph) familiar. I’m not clear about kind of where the struggle of anxiety is with. Deena? Was that her name? In that, I get that you’re sort of on uncertain footing with her, I guess is how it sounds. She never...

CLIENT: And she was very – I mean, she sent this – we had this very sweet communication. And I don’t know.

THERAPIST: You seem to have a clearer sense than I do of what might be making it difficult to write to her. Is it...

CLIENT: Well, I mean, I’m trying, just for the sake of argument, to create a taxonomy that might include it. And what – you’re a little dissatisfied, I guess, with the generality, you know, the degree of generalization that is required. [00:21:11] But I guess I’m seeing something that I identify as unease, and you’re responding, well – it’s the specific kind of unease that we’ve been talking about, you know, that involves anger, I guess. You know, and anger...

THERAPIST: Anger, injustice and...

CLIENT: Well, OK. Fine.

THERAPIST: ... feeling silenced.

CLIENT: Fine. Sure. I mean, you know, the anger has all these things associated with it. Outrage, maybe outrage is better, and, you know, your response to how – I mean, I suppose you could really stretch it and say, “Well, you know, getting terminal cancer is very unjust,” and, you know, you’re not quite sure how to relate and I’m – I [that makes up] (ph) the excess failure. [00:22:05] You know, and I am not quite sure how to relate to that injustice and how to compose myself in response to it. And the default reaction to that uncertainty or trouble or anxiety or, you know, kind of difficulty composing myself is to have difficulty composing in an expository sense as well, but I don’t know.

THERAPIST: You mean in that case, you’re sort of reacting about the injustice done to her.

CLIENT: Done to her, yeah. I mean, the injustice of the universe. I don’t know. That seems a little bit farfetched.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I don’t have the sense from things you said that – I mean, like, you’re upset, but not disturbed by what’s happened to her. I mean, it’s when you said so far that indicates, right (ph), it gives me a sense that...

CLIENT: I don’t know too much. [00:23:02]

THERAPIST: ... you’re sort of disturbed by it. I’m sort of agreeing with you that...

CLIENT: I...

THERAPIST: ... you know, that seems like...

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, a bit of a stretch. Seems like it is a stretch. It’s hard for me to imagine. And, you know, whenever you write something, you must imagine the other person, and what they look like, and who they are. And it’s – you know, like, what comes to mind, I guess, is thinking about my dad in the last phase, when, you know, he had no air and was swollen by the chemotherapy and all these things. So and – Deena is kind of a lipstick lesbian. She’s very, you know, well put together. She’s my mother’s age, she’s only 60. She’s very chic, and it gets pretty hard, like, to think of her hanging on by her fingernails like that. There’s some of that. There’s something there, but it feels like a very different thing. [00:24:03]

And so I’m confused to some degree by, you know, the – my initial confusion, I think, you know, is still obtained. It’s not – it hasn’t been resolved by our – by my particularly fumbling attempts to kind of create a taxonomy that includes all of these things. And at some level, you know, the task of figuring out what it is exactly that I do when I sit down and can’t do it is, you know, well served, but trying to understand is weird. Conversion (ph) seems very, very difficult. They’re all things I have to do this week, like, now.

THERAPIST: Yeah, immediately.

CLIENT: Yeah, maybe this is not job applications per se, but these are all – all of these things must be done before the end of the week. You know, there’s no [cutting around] (ph). (00:25:00) (long pause) What’s – can I...

THERAPIST: Yeah, sure. Of course.

CLIENT: ...break in? What’s the complexity that you’re “Hmm-ing,” about?

THERAPIST: Well, at the moment, I’m sort of (pause) – I guess I am skeptical of the premise that there is some kind of general or, like, super-ordinate reason that you’re having trouble moving forward on these three projects involving writing, with, like... (00:26:39)

CLIENT: This is reminding me of a Rorschach test that I took, where it was just, like, this incredibly complex inkblot. And I think the expectation is that somebody would go through it, and they would say, “Oh, OK. Well, this reminds of that, and this reminds me of that, and this reminds me of the other thing.” And...

THERAPIST: How big was the inkblot?

CLIENT: I don’t – I mean, it was, you know, it had a number of different facets to it. It’s like that – I don’t know. [00:27:01]

(crosstalk)

CLIENT: I remember them showing me, like, this is my recollection of it.

THERAPIST: I mean, the standard administration is, like, you know, they’re about that big.

CLIENT: Something, the blot itself...

(crosstalk)

THERAPIST: ... because the paper in there are usually – you do ten of them. And so you say, like, you know, say what...

CLIENT: OK.

THERAPIST: ... you know, what you think it reminds you of.

CLIENT: At any rate, well, this is my recollection, so it really doesn’t matter what it actually was, because I’m – but in my recollection at least, they showed it to me, and I said, “Well, you know, this looks like something.” And there were, I don’t know, 15 details that were somehow integrated into the same split (ph).

THERAPIST: I mean, part of the reason I’m asking about the administration is because, I mean, it doesn’t matter a little bit in that, like – I mean, I know enough about how those things work. I don’t do that kind of testing, but I – you know, you sort of get trained in there and you see one of those boards (ph) when you’re starting out. And anyway, so, like, if it was the usual one, it helps – gives me context for your response.

CLIENT: Oh. [00:28:00] Well, I was having – I mean...

THERAPIST: What were you going to say?

CLIENT: I went to the counsel, and I was kind of having trouble working, [you know], shortly after my father died. And the guy I was seeing is a very nice guy, asked me if I would be willing to have an inkblot test administered by one of his students or interns or something. And so the guy administered the test, and then – what was his last name? Donald something, I don’t know. He said, “Yeah, your response was very unusual, because of instead of saying...” apparently, you know, there was one very detailed card. And instead of identifying the individual parts, I integrated all of them into one story. So, that just reminded me of this effort to find some grand, unified theory of, you know, all physical phenomenon related by the Big Bang. [00:29:03]

At any rate, yeah. No, I hear that skepticism, that makes sense.

THERAPIST: Well, there may be a (inaudible at 00:29:10) theory, but, like, I guess I think of things tend to arrive kind of from the bottom up, you know, like...

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it’s just...

THERAPIST: And so when I’m thinking of what I’m trying to do and sort of – at this point, when I’m, sort of, you know, (inaudible at 00:29:32), but also going through my sense of your, like – the feeling you have or have expressed about Deena, and what’s going on with her, and who she is, to see if I can get a sense of, like – I mean, I guess the clearest thing is that she sounds like sort of a vivacious...

CLIENT: Deena...

THERAPIST: ... lively person. [00:30:00]

CLIENT: My favorite story about Deena took place at a party in Northwestern in, like, 1968. And she had broken up with somebody and was very depressed. And so, like, for my parents, this party was to – you know, like, what they were doing the whole party was kind of trying to cheer her up. And so at some point, my father fell asleep on the couch, as he often did. And Deena kind of woke him up in the middle of the night and said, “Oh God, you know, I made these brownies and nobody wanted to eat them, and I’m so sad, and I’m so depressed, and nobody loves me.” And she was fucking with him.

THERAPIST: (laughing)

CLIENT: She put a lot of hash in these brownies. And he wakes up in the middle of the night, you know, like, 45 minutes later, and he’s completely (inaudible at 00:30:46) and he has no idea what’s going on. He just thinks it’s [fucking sick] (ph). (laughing) He didn’t speak to her for, like, a year after that.

THERAPIST: Oh my God.

CLIENT: (laughing). Yeah. I mean, and whatever. She’s now [better of] (ph) a woman of 68, and that’s all of these other ways of expressing herself, since she was, like, in her 20’s. [00:31:13] And anyway, so, yeah, she was a very vivacious person. She’s always been a bit of trip, you know. She has all of this stuff about goddesses and I mean, you know, she’s new age-y. She’s new age-y. So not – some of what she writes is not quite tralatitious (ph). She’s a wonderful translator, and she’s translated some very – she did Paul Celan. I mean, she did some, you know, very well-known people to do a translation. You need to get the copy-write so they don’t, you know, give it to just anybody.

So, yeah, you know – yeah, so it’s – I don’t know. But I don’t feel trauma, you know, it’s like, you know, when my father was dying, I was, you know, deeply traumatized. [00:32:03] Deena being sick is very sad, and I feel bad about it, and I want to make her happy to the extent that I can. And I don’t want to miss out, you know. So I guess there is some natural reasons why it’s hard to write back, and there’s probably some residual grief with my father. They were very – they knew each other well. But...

THERAPIST: Yeah, it does seem like a sort of injustice. I mean, she’s not that old, and it’s – you know, sounds like she got diagnosed...

CLIENT: Very late.

THERAPIST: ... at a Stage IV.

CLIENT: Very late, yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: She’s got to fight it, but...

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s kind of hopeless. It’s hopeless, fighting it. My mother, I talked to my mother last night or this morning or something, and she’s, like, you know, she’s a little traumatized too, I’m sure, helping (ph) my dad through it. Anyway, so... [00:33:02]

THERAPIST: And you said you had a very nice interaction with her, though?

CLIENT: Yeah. Very – you know, she didn’t write back after the bong, but that’s her prerogative. I mean, whatever. It was kind of a far out gift, and maybe she just didn’t want to get into all that. I didn’t feel dissed. We haven’t had communication since then, but I didn’t feel particularly dissed.

THERAPIST: And the interaction with her was, like – did she – I don’t know where she is now, like, did she come...

CLIENT: Idaho.

THERAPIST: Oh, OK. So she didn’t come...

CLIENT: No, no. No, I mean, she’s can’t. She can’t travel.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No, absolutely, I just...

CLIENT: She can’t travel.

THERAPIST: ... I wasn’t clear, like...

CLIENT: No, no, no. But she sends – she wrote some poems for him. She wrote some, like, you know, very brief, four line children’s poems for him, very sweet ones, very, very sweet ones. And I asked Isaac (ph), my nephew, to illustrate a few of them, and he did two or three. So, I mean, I don’t know Marshall (ph). [00:34:03] I mean, it’s...

THERAPIST: Yeah, there’s nothing...

CLIENT: It doesn’t have to be the same category of thing, and I don’t – I guess it’s interesting, in some sense, that I’m looking for, as I often do, for, you know, some really...

THERAPIST: No, it doesn’t have to be the same category. I mean, it’s...

CLIENT: ... grand, encompassing thing. It’s just these are the three things that feel most urgent to me, right now. That all three of them, I feel some remorse over not having superseded whatever it is that’s interfering. And, you know, when talking about the – I mean, I guess, you know, in a more kind of nitty-gritty sense, I really haven’t been successful at all at sitting down to do the job applications or at least I’ve made, you know, the college try at the thank-you notes. So if I’m going to talk about any kind (laughing) of processes, this is what I have in hand, you know.

THERAPIST: All right. Also, [this is how I feel it] (ph), is this – could this be the last thing you write to her? [00:35:02]

CLIENT: Yeah, easily.

THERAPIST: Or the last communication...

CLIENT: Easily.

THERAPIST: ... you have with her?

CLIENT: It could. It could. I’m writing a letter to her, I’m not sending her a card.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Just about what’s going on. I just didn’t want to be limited by the card, the format of a card. But it’s hard. And if I had written it three months ago, we would’ve had a dialog, and I wouldn’t have – feel so much responsibility, I guess.

THERAPIST: Three months ago was before was diagnosed?

CLIENT: No, no, no. Three months ago was three months ago, shortly after she sent this package.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 00:35:47).

CLIENT: Yeah, so we took a picture of Grayson, and things that she (inaudible 00:35:53). And what we’re doing for everybody, but this is – this one is harder.

THERAPIST: [Hadn’t start then] (ph). [00:36:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, genuinely, well, you know what I – yeah. So how does it feel (inaudible 00:36:13). I’m having a little trouble getting in touch with it, which may be interesting and it may just be not interesting. I don’t know, like, there’s a distinct feeling of sadness, and I’m not quite feeling it, as I talk to you about it. I feel more distanced from that sensation than, for example, the sensation of being outraged about the bait and switch with the – which, some of it feels very awful to me, like, why should I have any difficulty with a real emotion, when some bullshit, you know, stupid, institutional hoo-ha. [00:37:07] But maybe I’ve answered my own question.

THERAPIST: (pause) Yeah, but that’s sort of the first thing that sounded plausible to me, like, about Deena, as something you’re having trouble expressing. Does that matter?

CLIENT: I wouldn’t quite say that. [00:38:02] I don’t think I’ve had, in the last half hour, trouble expressing the sadness, but I have had trouble actually feeling it. In other words, I’m aware that I feel it. I’m aware of why I feel it. Intellectually, I have no difficulty, and I have no difficulty saying that I’m sad, but I don’t feel it right here now, and...

THERAPIST: Yeah, that’s sort of...

CLIENT: ... that’s a little weird.

THERAPIST: ... what I mean.

CLIENT: Yeah, OK.

THERAPIST: Yeah, I agree with all those things you said. I mean, it doesn’t seem to me like you’re not being clear about it or that you’re unaware of it, but there’s some contact with it that’s...

CLIENT: Missing, yeah. Yeah.

THERAPIST: And then, I guess I think of – in a way, as a kind of very direct expression of it, you know, like if somebody cries, that’s expressing sadness. [00:39:04] Do you know what I mean, like – or if you...

CLIENT: But you’ve noticed, it’s often when I feel a strong emotion or at least sometimes when I feel a strong emotion, I will cry, but I still won’t feel it.

THERAPIST: Yeah. You know, anyway, my point was to link that with the difficulty of writing to her. I mean, this is the first thing that seems like it has the kind of emotional heft and the sense of blockage.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: But we should stop.

CLIENT: Yeah, OK. OK. So I’ll see you on Thursday.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: OK. I was going to show you the latest picture, but that’s OK. It’s not a very urgent thing. We’ll...

THERAPIST: OK.

CLIENT: ... do it on Thursday. I didn’t walk in with a – I walked in with a book, but not with a jacket.

THERAPIST: I just [don’t know] (ph).

CLIENT: OK. See you later.

THERAPIST: Yeah, take care.

CLIENT: All right. Bye.

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