Client "GH", Session April 30, 2013: Client discusses feeling numb to others and not wanting to be around others often- possibly due to too much masturbation and pornography. trial

in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Collection by Anonymous Male Therapist; presented by Anonymous (Alexandria, VA: Alexander Street, 2015, originally published 2013), 1 page(s)

TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:


BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Okay. Alright. (silence from 00:00:10 until 00:02:45)

CLIENT: What was that thing you asked? Something about how I had questions about this relationship then that related to something else. I don’t have some sort of romantic trepidation or something. I, I forget the actual question. But, we were talking about it. Do you remember?

THERAPIST: No. No. I mean I kind of vaguely remember what.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I, I can’t grab it quite out, quite out of, like. Well, tell me, what was, what were you thinking?

CLIENT: I was hoping, I don’t know. I was hoping you could rephrase it so I could throw something out there, but I, I don’t remember how it was phrased or what it addressed or because it was sharp or like point, but I don’t remember what it was.

THERAPIST: Okay. Okay. Yeah. It, it might come back when I, when I, when I can kind of recall the context of, of it and everything. Do you remember anything about the context it was in? You said it had to do with something romantic. [00:04:15]

CLIENT: It was something about, I mean it sounds bad on the surface, but it’s like when I, when I raised questions about the, I guess I was suspicious about, about a counselor relationship or whatever and then I, I just sort of got suspicious of it with being sort of used like a, like a farm animal in some way.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: In some way milked or whatever or something, but the other side of it was that maybe if you’re of interest. I don’t know what it was, but it was related to and I forget the personal thing it was related to. Probably something with my (inaudible). I don’t know. I mean Jane is just someone, who, who would actually spend time with me. And, whenever someone says yes to me, I’m just never quite sure.

THERAPIST: There’s something transactional. Is that what you mean? Like, there’s something, they’re getting something from it and it’s not just pure I just want to spend time with you. There’s something else that they’re getting out of it? [00:05:35]

CLIENT: Oh, in that case.

THERAPIST: No. I’m sorry. I’m more trying to figure out what you meant.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. In that case, I don’t know. I just thought we’d look at it today.

THERAPIST: Yeah. No. What you said. Well, too, to say one thing I don’t know if this is the exact thing, what was that I was thinking about how, how you are, you are wandering. Like, you have wandered from your previous therapist. In some ways, you might be wandering in here to about what, what, what kind of what’s behind my interest in, in facilitating the intimate relationship here.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (laughter) And, it does. It prevails throughout my life. It’s not just here.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:06:50]

CLIENT: Yeah. Because I enjoy meeting with you, but also like, I, couldn’t, I can perceive someone saying like, you know, maybe they get better, but it would be hard to say to point a point at which, you know, you would terminate seeing the, you know, leaving. Like, I don’t know when you would say, okay, you’re, you’re better or I can’t help you anymore. I think the simple answer to that would be like, if I said so, when am I going to stop seeing you? You would probably say when you want to. You know, when you don’t think it’s, you know, when you don’t want to. But, I mean besides that, like, the other lady I saw and I mean, I, paid her in full, eventually. She charged me for that one meeting I missed accidentally, but I got the money. So you’re aware, but, she, you know, I get the sense that she was sort of picking at me like a scab and, you know, I’d say so, do you think there’s something wrong with me or like, you know, what do you think is the issue or, you know, what are we doing and it seemed like she wanted more direction and I said, I said okay. So, you’re saying that there’s not anything wrong with me and, and I kind of agree with that, But, I, I do need something and I’d like to work out that there’s nothing, like, wrong. I don’t know. But, then I’d ask her, like, so, so, how long I’ll need to, to keep you for and she said like, oh, it could take four years at least and that was just so strange to me that she said it in that way as though it was, it was obvious that there was something very serious that needed to be sort of cleared up. You know what I mean? I don’t quite understand the, the incongruence there.

THERAPIST: Nothing’s wrong, but you need come to for four years to solve what’s going on? [00:09:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. Right.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: I think it’s something that I think she was quite astute in some ways like my mother. I think some of the things she said were true, but I wasn’t ready to hear that. I just wasn’t at that point and so it wasn’t helpful, I guess.

THERAPIST: You know, did you feel like you, what, what did you feel you got out of the experience with her that was beneficial or what did you feel like? Or was there one? You wouldn’t be first person, in other words, to go, you know, you I didn’t get much out of that one and that didn’t work so much for me. [00:10:00]

CLIENT: Yeah. Well, I don’t know if I want to talk about that. I am, I’m like aching for, for that connection, that intimacy in different parts of my life and when it comes, I’m, I’m like scared of it. I don’t know why. It, it, it can come in little waves, big waves, but I, I think I’m understanding more but understanding isn’t helpful without changing your behavior. I mean that’s, I. My only interest in sex really is as an instrument to sort of facilitate a deeper connection. I think my only intellectual interest in sex is to facilitate a deeper connection. Yeah. So, I mean I tried that night. [00:12:00]

Two Sunday’s ago I, I picked up Lily. Two Sunday’s ago. I took this girl, you know, to a gas light movie, back to my apartment, sex, but I mean I couldn’t even get off. It was like and I had masturbated the before, I think, but still.

THERAPIST: What was the encounter like?

CLIENT: I mean I was just pushing her and pushing her. Then it, what was it like?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I wasn’t super. But, I liked it when she, she sort of crumbled, I guess, but.

THERAPIST: What, she crumbled?

CLIENT: What she, when her body goes in to like the fetal position and she puts her hand on my chest and is just facing towards me and I’m just lying there like that. That’s afterwards, I guess. The experience itself, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t, yeah, I mean I didn’t get much out of it. It wasn’t, I mean it’s just... Yeah, she wouldn’t suck my dick and that’s what I like. And, it was just, it was nothing. I mean there wasn’t, I wasn’t aware of, you know, someone who. I was aware of her, but also a little bit contemptuous of such a thing. It wasn’t really. I don’t know. So, have you ever had a tall, yoga instructor? I mean all, all the hallmarks that you’re going to have a good time, but it’s just on the deck. It wasn’t there, so, and then I get in to like a minor accident that day driving her home and I lost my hat. I didn’t leave that hat here, did I? The gray, tweed hat?

THERAPIST: I don’t think so. [00:14:30]

CLIENT: I don’t know where that went since that day.

THERAPIST: No. I would have seen it by now.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yesterday.

THERAPIST: You got in to an accident?

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s a scary thing because I, it was just like a, a rear end under 10 miles per hour, but the person reported it. So, I’m not sure what to do. If, can they withdraw their claim? I think they can. I was thinking I just want to pay. I mean I accept responsibility, but I don’t want to accept responsibility and have there be like insurance screwing me over for the rest of five years. So, I’d rather just, if she can withdraw the claim, I’d rather just pay her. [00:15:30]

THERAPIST: Just settle it without going through insurance.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. I mean I, I had an opportunity this weekend, but it would have been okay, I think. It was one of those situations where, like, I wanted to do something and, like, there were a bunch of people talking and I couldn’t quite get what I wanted to do in to the conversation without being rude, so I didn’t say anything, but, I decided on doing something else. So, I was thinking of walking in one place. And, then I decided to walk home and the girl was touching my arm and was saying you know, do you want to walk in to, just to see where she lives, but I just wasn’t prepared for that and was just like you’re doing something else. So. I think I needed it too. Instead of that though I, I like masturbated like twice I think yesterday or and I did, I feel like, like I had a reaction like I used to feel a long time ago. Like, I feel an emptiness and like a hunger for something not so, so... Like a moth. Like a moth somewhere in my abdomen so that I can’t quite be at peace. [00:17:25]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. And, I think, you, you when you want to get it appeased by, by a woman, there’s, there’s some trepidation about it.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, and I, I remembered something else that’s probably relevant. Is that there was that episode where, you know, my aunt accused me of, of watching porn on her computer, but, I didn’t. Or, I don’t know who she talked to about it, but, I was 13 or whatever and couldn’t bring it up. So, this is someone in my family who was saying I did something wrong that I didn’t do and it was shocking to me. But, the other part of that was that, I, I was kind of attracted to my aunt at that time when I was an adolescent. So, that seems to have fallowed it to me and maybe the guilt that I continue to feel in attachment to sort of liking a, you know, the kind of girl you, you like so much it makes you sorry. I just, I feel this might be something natural. I’m not opposed to anything wrong, but I, there’s almost a reflex towards, I don’t know, expecting punishment or expecting something when I, when I actually expressed sort of an affection for someone or, you know. It’s a vulnerable position, you know, but I, I feel. I interpret it as, as something wrong on my part or something. [00:19:00]

THERAPIST: It’s infused with the, it’s kind of like the, the liking the affections infused with a sense of doing something wrong?

CLIENT: Yeah. Infused is a good word. Infused with duplicity.

THERAPIST: Duplicity.

CLIENT: Yeah. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Like, you’ve got other motives?

CLIENT: I have motives, but, but everybody has motives.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Right. Well, you said duplicity, so I was thinking is there somewhere?

CLIENT: I don’t know why I feel it. It just feels right.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like I was saying, it’s, you know, it’s a vulnerable position. So, I don’t know. [00:20:00]

THERAPIST: The reflections are bad.

CLIENT: I mean people, people interpret things in different ways. So, like, a lot of times people being scared is just a way of making you feel important. It’s like a narcissistic response, being scared or, or turning something more alike if, you know, someone hurts me in a relationship, like I find I have a tendency to, to moralize the situation and perceive them as wrong or, or having wrong me in some way when, when in fact, that’s probably not true. So, I mean the morality is a like a cover for deeper truths, I think. But, yeah. I mean I wish I hadn’t masturbated. I had this whole thought process because it’s, it’s an issue of, of like self-control, if nothing else. I mean even if, even if you dismiss all the whatever like moral statements about masturbation being right or wrong or positive or negative effects, the fact is it’s, it’s something I’ve tried several times to, to eradicate from my, my personal life and I haven’t been able to do it no matter what I, what measures I take. I mean I’ve been able to stave it off for like a month, but that’s like, that’s not that much. [00:21:30]

THERAPIST: And, then you feel a little bit out of, like, maybe you can’t control yourself?

CLIENT: Well.

THERAPIST: Is that that the...

CLIENT: Like, the feeling. Yeah. I don’t know. It’s just like you make an agreement with yourself and then you break it.

THERAPIST: And, you break it, yeah.

CLIENT: So, I mean you’re sort of violating your own integrity.

THERAPIST: Oh. Okay.

CLIENT: I wish I didn’t do that. I thought about it in the sense like if I had a, if I had a daughter and she was a drug addict. Then again, I’m not sure how I’d deal with that situation. I mean supposing that I’m, I’m providing her with, with like shelter and stuff. It would probably be coming out in saying like what you’re doing is absolutely wrong. Get out of the house. That’s probably not the best way to handle the situation. You know? But on the other hand, you don’t just want to, like, let it keep happening. I decided what I’d do is that I would say I would pay for her drugs. I would, I would say, you know, from now on, I’m paying for your drugs and then somehow, ideally, what I would want to do is, is take half the drugs. I mean whatever she’s taking, I mean since I’m paying for it, I would take, you know, half of the, half of the stake. And, then I mean hopefully, if there is any kind of connection between us, the effects that the drugs were having on me would might move her to stop, but maybe not. But, that’s how I think I want to approach my, my.

THERAPIST: Oh, you would actually, you mean you would only just take them, you would take them, take them and ingest them in some way? [00:23:30]

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, I’d take them. Yeah.

THERAPIST: In a hope that she feels a kind of responsible in some way, so you cut it out.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean as much as she does, I will do. So, yeah. I don’t know. I guess it’s kind of a tenuous connection, but I, I think, I think this, I haven’t really reconciled, like, a body self and my intellectual self. Like, this, this keeps going no matter what I’m doing. There are those very rare moments like when you’re exhausted and running or it’s only happened to me very, very few times. Where you’re just like there. You’re not thinking about anything, but you’re, you’re where you are. Or, I’m where I am and there is no analytic level. That happens to me very, very rarely. And, I think I, sort of meaning, I can get close. It’s more like stroking the belly of, of the intellectual based on their analysis or whatever. It’s like lulling the monster to sleep.

THERAPIST: Oh. [00:24:50]

CLIENT: But, yeah, with exercise, different parts can come through. But, anyway, that’s clearly there’s something with my body that, that has a, an addiction to pornography or a need to release in that way and it seems to integrate in to my life in, in harmful ways. Like, I feel that hunger. Like, I said, like a hole, almost. And, also I, I feel less of a connection. I feel less excited. I feel less in touch with this sort of, I have less hold on like a lofty sense of performance or a lofty appreciation of, of my purpose. Like, this is, this is a pretty important time for me. I mean I can get by this month. Lebanese, what do you call it, not a charlatans. What’s someone who like denigrates women? [00:26:00]

THERAPIST: A misogynist?

CLIENT: Yeah. A misogynist. So, this Lebanese misogynist offered me work for May.

THERAPIST: From a Lebanese misogynist?

CLIENT: Yeah? My favorite quote.

THERAPIST: He’s hiring now?

CLIENT: He’s hiring. Permission has been provided for me.

THERAPIST: Is this the florist?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So, I’ll have some work for May. Yeah. I need to get a job so I can get health insurance, so I can be an independent. I mean my parents they, they want to care for me in important ways, but I’ve always been like this. I can’t, it happened with college too. I mean I can’t tolerate a relationship. Like, I can’t compromise. Like, I can’t have my parents providing for college and then making demands that I don’t, I don’t consider reasonable. You know, not really respecting my individuality. [00:27:20]

I went home to drop off the car at my parents and my mother immediately went in to this kind of like oh, what happened with the accident and I didn’t want to tell her anything and my dad asked about the, the room. He said, so tell me about this, this marathon walk and I just said no. He said no? And, I said right and I just said I already told you about it and my mother was going in to this whole like oh, I worry about you. I worry about your mental health. I worry about this, this, this. I have no use for that. It’s, I mean they’ve, they’ve given me a little of financial help and they are willing to help me out more, but it, I’m not sure it’s an exchange I can stock.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: If it comes at the expense of some respect or being respected. I mean, I, these people care about me, but I’m not sure I can tolerate contact with them if they can’t respect what’s important to me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You lose, you’re losing something in the exchange. [00:28:25]

CLIENT: Something. Yeah. But, I mean, I, I wonder about that. Yeah. I, you’re right. I wonder about it though because I’ve, I’ve severed a lot of relationships and I wonder if I might be better served by, well, like, I can’t really compromise. I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I know. Well, just to say something maybe very general or abstract is something about this something about when, when you kind of, how you take something from people when you know when that they’re wanting to take something from you too. They want to have some sort of influence. I mean.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And, sometimes you sort of feel like maybe, maybe it’s better just to sort of stay out of it all together and rely on, rely on oneself.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean immediately after I left, I, I drove my brother to the train station and he drove his car back. But, I mean I was at the train station. The train was shut down because of like construction work. I ran two miles, despite my injury for like, it’s a minor injury, but it’s like tendonitis. I ran two miles to the other train station to catch the train there and the train was, like, I kid you not, here’s what happened. So, I, run in to to the station and the ding, ding, ding, ding. The thing started going down across the road and the train goes across the road and then it stops. And, I’m at the train station waiting for this train to come and then it, it backs up over the road and goes backwards. The things go up. Ding, ding. (laughter) The lights are going off and then five minutes later, ding, ding, ding, ding, the things go down and the train starts crossing the road and then it stops and then goes back across and this repeats like, you know, maybe seven or eight times and I got off the train. So, I don’t know what’s going on with the train, so I have to walk the two miles back to the original train station and the commuter rail comes down and after paying $8.75 or whatever and I’m like limping because I, I have the tendonitis here and some of plantar fascia.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:30:40]

CLIENT: I hope it’s not a tear, because it started feeling weird the other night, but it’s, I think it’s just soreness. Yeah. I’m on the train and then I’m walking a mile home. I mean I’ve done it before. Anyway, the point is I’m just, I’m not in my car, like, terrorizing pedestrians anymore. I’m like instantly just cross state. But, that I have a sense of, you know, I don’t have an unlimited cash line to back me up or anything and that’s the thing. It’s like I’m, I’m setting up. I’ve done this I feel a couple times where I’m just setting up to see and there’s nothing in sight. There’s no land in sight. I look back and there’s this bay there, which is, you know, my mother and my family, but it’s, it’s welcoming, but it’s like, you know, my mother is try to portray me as some, like, emotionally troubled person or I mean she can’t conceive of me as anything but, you know, the way she conceives herself is some sort of like partial victim or maladjusted. What? Derelict? No, maladjusted. So, misinterpret. Troubled misinterpret. But, it’s there and there’s food and shelter and also contact. Like, keeping contact. But, it’s, I don’t know.

THERAPIST: But it’s... [00:32:20]

CLIENT: Well, it’s, it’s a compromise that I don’t think I wanted to fix.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: But, on the other hand, I, it’s, it’s a cold world out there.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like, everybody’s on cell phones. Everybody’s in their car. It’s hard to come together and be a, get a feeling of something real. And, I want to, I’ve been in this place where I, I’ve seen where other people who I take to be like continuations of the person I used to be. I mean could be very focused. I met like a violin player who it, it was clear to me was very lonely. She’s going to Brown and she’s, like, I don’t know what she does. She’s doing her masters. And, she’s incredibly lonely, but at the same time, she’s like working on something very discrete and like staying absolutely focused at the expense of like, I mean there’s, there’s no, I don’t think she permits herself emotional awareness or social concern. You know, it’s just, I don’t know. [00:33:20]

THERAPIST: Kind of single minded? She’s in to the violin?

CLIENT: What?

THERAPIST: She’s really involved with the violin?

CLIENT: That’s what she’s, she stays focused on. Yeah. And, it’s, there’s, there’s a neurotic quality to it. It’s not entirely stable or confident, but it’s a, a process which, which might work. I mean emotional awareness’s is, can be satisfying, but I, I’m not sure it’s, I don’t know. I, I get pretty damn lonely, so I know. At least in my, my recent life.

THERAPIST: Yeah. But, and not to not have, not have, people in your life. As you say, it’s, it’s a cold world without it and yet when you do get involved, there’s this, there’s a lot of, it just brings up a lot of like the kind of interpersonal politics in the family. [00:34:20]

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. That’s great.

THERAPIST: I was thinking about, again, to bring it, to bring it maybe in some way here was what I was wondering is, is tricky for you is the whole business of me asking money from you, among other things and how I was wondering, you know, like, I’m, I’m getting something from you too. It’s not this, it’s not this just purely I’m here just to, just to facilitate it. And, you know that. You know that about me. You know that people are in it for something about. There’s also this element of it’s, it’s, it’s not just about one thing. It’s not just about the, the, the, there are self-serving qualities in every relationship. And, I think that, if I’m hearing you right, there’s something that is problematic about that for you.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:35:30]

THERAPIST: And, maybe it’s in some way exploitation. I don’t know. Here’s what I’m thinking. Is like, how do I put it? Like, you do need relationships. I mean no surprise. You need, you need people. You know, like, like your family. You need their support in some way to get by at this, at this stage of your life and yet you know that they’re asking for something from you in some way too. It’s not just, it’s not support and it’s. I don’t know if I’m, if I’m barking up the wrong tree.

CLIENT: I think you’re, you’re pointing in the right direction. The way I experience it is that I, I presume in a relationship, someone, the other person’s going to want something for themselves. I mean at the age of 12, I dismissed love as, as something that is just sort of mutual self-interest. I mean it’s two people coming together who basically can say, you know, we, we’re both each serving our own needs and that’s what it is and it’s, it was kind of, it was very intellectually detached, but it was kind of on point. Or, at least it describes, you know, my own experience of, of a relationship. Well, not experientially, but in terms of what the effects of exchange, I think it’s accurate. It’s just mutual self-interest and what I mean is I, I think the way I experience it. Or I don’t think. The way I experience it, even in like, in like, I just, I get sort of, I get anxious about who I am. [00:37:30]

Like, when I’m related to somebody else. Like, I, it’s not that my parents want something from me. Honestly, it’s, it’s the fact that they can’t appreciate who I think of myself as. They, they don’t respect the, the vision I’ve constructed of myself and so, even my mother, after I basically just left dinner saying, I said, you know, I’m going to the train station in five minutes. You know, if you, if you guys want this car here, someone should come with me. And, so, you know, after that, she’s just sending texts like nothing happened. You know, about family reunions. Another one about seeking counseling. [00:38:30]

You know, they, they, even last night. I was, I was playing with my new roommate. We played some dumb video game and I was having a good time, but I’m also aware I have to work on a number of things and that, that sort of weighs on me. Like, I’m in a, a precarious position and I have things that, that I should be working on. Should is a tricky word. But, that, that I would be working on if I had some self-respect and it, it makes me anxious to think I’m playing this game and it makes it real somehow when it’s with someone else. Like, if I were playing the game privately, I would probably be okay and just keep playing almost addictively, but with someone else there, even though we’re having a fun time, we’re bonding, she might even like me a little bit, but it’s like, it’s, it’s something I just cut off. I mean I gave some lame excuse like I have to work on a web site. She’s like really? You have something to do right now? And, I was like yeah, I’ve got to work and then I went in my room and played some, some stupid game by myself. So, I cut that off once it was getting, not once it was getting, but after a certain point, it made me nervous. [00:39:45]

Even with a cousin I, I used to look up to. I had a cousin who was five years older than me and he was a roommate of mine and when we’d get together and watch a show or whatever, I’d just get nervous sort of enjoying time with someone else. Like, because I feel like I should be doing something more important or doing something else. I shouldn’t be. Something about enjoying myself with other people. There’s like a limited, there’s like a window. I can, I can do it for a while. I mean I can, I can enjoy one night of a weekend or maybe be like a, a very fluent participant at a party, but I can’t do it the next night, because I just feel wrong.

THERAPIST: It just starts to feel bad. Is that it?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Okay.

CLIENT: Yeah. Jane’s too. I mean it’s, it’s the simples relationship. It’s pretty stupid and you’ve got, like, I, I feel very acutely the sense that she doesn’t respect who I am. I mean I say something like I talked to the mayor and, you know, I gave him this reference for business and then I, I clarify a little bit like, a little bit more of the conversation and she’s like oh, so, you, you actually talked to him and I’m like of course I talked to him. Like, why would you assume something different? You know. It’s just, I don’t know. [00:41:20]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah.

CLIENT: Like, I have a sense of, of a competence and it’s, it’s just entirely theoretical. I don’t, I don’t feel like I put it in to practice. But, when I discover that other people don’t assume that same competence with me, I, and they’re, they are intimately related to me, I, I just feel like pushing them off. I don’t know how to explain this anxiety, but it’s almost like, it’s like wind dancing at that like a coffee filter and sort of claim the, the boundaries. Like, someone needling my, my skin. I just need to push it away and I, from my experiences, it seems clear that keeping a relationship with some sort of, yeah, keeping a relationship is preferable. It’s stronger. I mean it’s, it’s the same idea as, as like paying taxes for services or whatever. You’re, you’re stronger for, for being part of a collective. You know, burning bridges or cutting corners sharply, it’s, it doesn’t, it doesn’t benefit you. [00:42:40]

THERAPIST: Yeah, but something, I guess I was thinking maybe that in some way like when, when you’re feeling more, when you feel like you’re having a good time or getting closer to somebody that there’s the feeling that you’re losing your, yourself in their eyes or something. Some vision of yourself in.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: That they’re seeing something. That they’re seeing something different in variance with how you hold your, how you like to be seen.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah. [00:43:20]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. I used to, I feel like I used to have an appreciation for, I can’t even put it in words now, but, that, you know, people’s experience and their, their emotional experience. Especially, in women. I mean it’s, it’s almost dramaticated from my life. Whether because I’ve watched too much porn or what. I don’t, I don’t know. Or, I just, I’ve become numbed by, my failed or hurtful experiences of my own. I feel like I’m pretty empathetic, or I used to be and there is something where, when I develop a bond with someone where I, I appreciate maybe what they need and I, I can’t hold what I need at the same time. I can’t be in a deep relationship with someone and maintain my own sense of what I need or what I want or what I’m doing. Yeah. [00:44:45]

THERAPIST: Yeah, I, I guess it makes kind of a, it, it makes the, it can make that, that interest and, and hunger. Not at kind of a well, but, it sets up a field of ambivalence. I mean it sets up this kind of like ambivalent. Yeah, I want something, but I, I also feel like I’m going to lose something.

CLIENT: I guess.

THERAPIST: And, better that to eradicate the hunger, if you can and not get mixed up in all of that if you are going to hold on to something. If you are going to hold on to yourself.

CLIENT: How, how do I eradicate the hunger? [00:45:30]

THERAPIST: Well, I’m speaking in a way not, not, you know, not masturbating. I don’t know if masturbating’s the right, but not getting involved with like a maladies or something like that. Cutting people off in some way is, is a way that has an attempt to eradicate the hunger. So, a way to kind to deal with alright, I’m not going to, I’m not going to go. Maybe I’m confusing things. I don’t, I don’t know.

CLIENT: I doubt it. I don’t know. [00:47:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah, what are you, what are you thinking?

CLIENT: That if you speak the truth, what does it matter or sharing? I’m wondering about the value of sharing things with people. And, let’s say I got up in the middle of like a congregation and spoke the word precisely or spoke the total truth and, you know, what does it mean if other people appreciate it and understand it and what does it mean if I say it, but no one can connect with it? What is the difference between those two things? I mean, I’m connecting to my experience with sort of playing. I mean I’ve, I’ve played wonderful music, but it might not mesh with the, the atmosphere, right, and so people just can’t pay attention and you can’t blame them for it. I just, I enjoy singing it and I know it’s good. But, I don’t know if it matters. It definitely feels much better. [00:48:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: If you can reach people.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And, that seems to be the point is sort of forging those, those overlaps with, with, I don’t know, travels.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Yeah. Well, some contact is important to you.

CLIENT: Yeah. I mean I get nervous when it’s out of structure, but I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Out of structure?

CLIENT: Yeah. There’s no structure. I can sing a song, but it’s...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I hate to dance.

THERAPIST: Well, we need to stop.

CLIENT: Alright. Did you get any feedback from those guys?

THERAPIST: No. No. They don’t tell me anything.

END TRANSCRIPT

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Abstract / Summary: Client discusses feeling numb to others and not wanting to be around others often- possibly due to too much masturbation and pornography.
Field of Interest: Counseling & Therapy
Publisher: Alexander Street Press
Content Type: Counseling session
Format: Text
Original Publication Date: 2013
Page Count: 1
Page Range: 1-1
Publication Year: 2015
Publisher: Alexander Street
Place Published / Released: Alexandria, VA
Subject: Counseling & Therapy; Psychology & Counseling; Health Sciences; Theoretical Approaches to Counseling; Sex and sexual abuse; Family and relationships; Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento; Emotional cutoff; Masturbation; Romantic relationships; Self Psychology; Psychoanalytic Psychology; Numbness; Psychotherapy; Relational psychoanalysis
Presenting Condition: Numbness
Clinician: Anonymous
Keywords and Translated Subjects: Teoria do Aconselhamento; Teorías del Asesoramiento
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